Data Centers & Server Rooms

Planned routine maintenance typically costs 25% less than unscheduled repairs—especially when dealing with predictable supply chain delays. With global supply chain delays compounding wait times, planning routine maintenance is now even more important than ever.

We know data centers can’t afford downtime.

Our preventative maintenance programs can reduce the number of service calls by aiming to identify and correct issues before they happen. Routine maintenance help your keep your equipment remain at peak performance and ideally exceed its projected lifespan. Our team of licensed HVAC technicians service, repair, and maintain all makes and models—regardless of who installed it.

We offer added protection with remote monitoring systems.

Modern operations need modern solutions, like smart controls and offsite connectivity. For example, if you have enterprise data centers in several cities, an internet-connected Building Automation System (BAS) can unite them to give you centralized control. You can monitor each property’s stats in real time, right down to CO₂ levels and temperature.

You can track our service calls remotely.

We create before-and-after service imaging and videos for our clients using Video Recording Technology (VRT). We can dispatch our service team straight to your equipment, yet you can remotely track the work we performed for you. This also helps create a seamless, non-contact experience for your onsite personnel.

*We’ll provide you with specific reporting using electronic tasking and our enterprise resource planning system allows us to review tasking on specific equipment while we’re on site. This provides your facility manager with proper documentation on all projects.

Our HVAC (heating, ventilation, and air conditioning) team serves data center customers across all industries, including:

• Colocation data centers,
• Edge data centers,
• Enterprise data centers,
• Government facilities,
• Hospitals & medical centers,
• Oil & gas companies,
• Post-secondary institutions,
• Research facilities, and
• Telecommunications providers.
• Utility companies

*Pssst: Don’t see your facility type here? Note that Gateway also serves clients in many other industries and sectors. Get in touch today to learn about our expertise in yours.

We install and service all the following heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) equipment—and more!

A wide range of specialized data center HVAC equipment, including:

• Backup generators,
• Chilled water systems,
• Energy efficient systems for lower operating costs,
• Free cooling systems,
• Full-immersion and direct-to-chip liquid cooling systems,
• Blower drive systems,
• Computer room air conditioners (CRACs),
• Computer room air handlers (CRAHs),
• Heat recovery ventilation systems (HRVs),
• Hot aisle containment, and
• Industrial & commercial grade de/humidification systems.

Monitoring systems:

• Alarm systems,
• Building Automation Systems (BAS),
• Digital control systems and calibrations, and
• Gas & leak detection systems for refrigerants.

HVAC Components:

• Air handling units (AHUs), including
  • Makeup air units (MAUs), and
  • Rooftop units (RTUs).
• Boilers,
• Chillers,
• Compressors (including compressor rebuilds),
• Condensers,
• Cooling towers,
• Ductwork and air movement systems,
• Evaporators, and
• Fan motors.

HVAC adjustments to improve temperature consistency, such as:

• Adding HVAC controls,
• Changing HVAC zoning (relocating and adding thermostats), and
• Adjusting thermostats and air flow (air balance, dampers, ducting)

Additional contracting services, including:

• Additional power lines for planned redundancies on mission critical equipment,
• Piping, sheet metal, controls, fire protection installation, and
• Prime contracting to oversee other subtrades on larger projects in complex environments, and
• B2B expertise, working seamlessly with engineering companies on new builds.

Pssst: Don’t see the item you’re looking for here? This is only some of the equipment we routinely install and service. Get in touch today to learn how we can help with your data center’s needs!

That’s what we do. North of the 48^th parallel, we do what our competitors can’t. Our team lives where we service—so we understand what that means for equipment.

Whether it’s -55°C (-67°F) in Fort McMurray, 41°C (105.8°F) in Kelowna—or just the typical 80°C annual weather swings of the Canadian prairies, we live here.

That’s how we’re able to design-build, design-assist, and service equipment to fit your needs and climate. Seasonal maintenance is also one of our core offerings, because we know this helps ensure your equipment’s longevity and your overall business success. We help you ensure your equipment is optimized for season-specific use and winterized properly for year-round use.

Data centers use a lot of power (in fact, about 3% of all global electricity) and produce even more heat. Cooling removes extra heat and keeps servers operating at peak efficiency.

By using better components, our systems operate more efficiently. More efficient heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems mean more than “just” a smaller carbon footprint. More efficient systems also mean:

• Energy savings,
• Longer component lifecycles, and
• More comfortable, consistent temperatures.

Canada has higher and lower temperature extremes than most countries, so our buildings must compensate for those extremes. That makes for costly energy bills, so if you’re currently postponing necessary HVAC upgrades, there’s a few things you need to know.

First, retrofitting or modifying existing systems can greatly reduce your energy consumption.

Second, there may be rebates available in your area for businesses reducing their energy emissions.

Third, here are some additional eco-friendly options for data centers and server rooms:

1. Free cooling (drawing pre-chilled air from outdoors into your data center),
2. Opting for compressor-less computer room air handlers (CRAHs),
3. Smart technology (using a building automation system (BAS) to adjust temperature for peak hours),
4. Preventative maintenance, and
5. Hot and cold aisles to optimize air distribution.

(Read more about these features and more at our Data Center Cooling blog.)

We all love saving money, and that’s even more satisfying when investments contribute to a sustainable future.

Short answer? It all depends on your needs!

The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) recommends keeping your data center at a somewhat cool temperature, usually 19 – 21°C (66 – 70°F). The ideal server room temperature is no more than 25°C (77°F). The temperature for server inlets where power enters the devices should be 18 – 27°C (65 – 80°F) with a humidity of 20 – 80%.

Should I raise or lower my center’s temperature?

Some businesses prefer to raise their data center temperature, not cool it. Depending on the requirements for all the servers in the data center, it may not be possible to find an optimal server room temperature that works for all of them. And if a data center runs hotter by design, the building’s cooling systems don’t work as hard to carry excess heat outside, reducing the demand on the building’s cooling systems (larger data centers tend to prefer this method).

If you’d like to learn more about some of the components here and how they work together, we wrote a helpful post to bring it all together for you. We walk you through all the top concepts you need to know in our Data Center Cooling blog.

In the article, we:

• Define what a data center is,
• Outline the main types of data centers,
• Explain why data centers need cooling,
• Outline the main types of data center cooling systems,
  • Walk you through how data center cooling works,
  • Discuss eco-friendly options, and
• Share four basic features that most successful data centers have in common.

We value our customers’ and employees’ safety above all else. Our commitment to safety is one of our core values and we have the certification and training to back that up.

At Gateway, we also strive as hard to maintain your facility as we would our very own.

Here’s what you can expect from our team. At Gateway, we:

• Continuously audit and improve our safety program
• Are vendor-trained for specialized equipment
• Have the knowledge, experience, and training required to successfully complete work in any facility
• Ensure all team members pass full security background checks
• Are COR (Certificate of Recognition) certified throughout Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, and Saskatchewan