One project, 10 buildings, 20 companies, 90 systems, 1,500 pieces of equipment, and 1,500 tests — that’s what Environmental Systems Design Inc. (ESD) managed during the commissioning (Cx) of a 28-MW mission critical project for a Fortune 500 client.

Welcome to the new decade, where uber-scale is the new normal. I can’t even keep track of the new data centers announced last year. We seem to have mastered the art of data center power delivery systems at scales that were previously unimaginable.

Six years ago, Richard Zbin was asked to “fill in” as facility manager while his company searched for a permanent replacement. Today, he is the proud winner of the 2019 Facility Manager of the Year contest. So how did he get from point A to point B?

Within a short time frame, hyperscale data centers have gone from being designed with a typical wholesale data center layout to industrial-level design.

ASHRAE, a global nonprofit membership organization with more than 57,000 members in more than 130 countries worldwide, has been leading the engineering and development of facility standards and guidelines for 120-plus years.