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Sometimes the most obvious gets overlooked.  Considering the fact that IT equipment requires, at the very least, a reliable, clean power supply, the basic power infrastructure can be one of the most overlooked parts of any business.

Regardless of the size of your business you need to be comfortable with the supply of power to ensure protection from data loss or equipment damage.

With increasing power costs it is important to ensure that this supply of power is managed and carefully regulated for the highest efficiencies and greatest cost savings.

The basic strategy for any IT environment is to ensure that power is retained to IT equipment in the event of a power loss in the environment (blackout etc.)  The most elementary part of this strategy is the Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS).  The continuation of power allows the clean shut down of servers and related equipment in the event of a power outage, protecting from data loss and equipment damage.

In some ways more importantly, the UPS also conditions the power supply to protect from fluctuations in power being either surges, or voltage drops (brown outs) both of which can cause significant damage to equipment.
The correct planning of a power strategy for your business is a critical “insurance policy” against data loss, equipment damage, and helps ensure your business remains functioning regardless of the environmental power supply.

UPS Capacity Considerations

It is common to see UPSs chosen to be as big as possible, with little consideration for the actual loads it will be required to deliver.  It is also important to consider the ratings of the UPS in terms of continuous load, run times in the event of a power failure and power input requirements.  A UPS that is far too large for your requirements will result in significant power inefficiencies.  Conversely a UPS that is too small can provide little or no protection from power surges, will have significantly shortened run times and may even be a fire hazard.  The correct sizing of a UPS is also important if you need redundancy in your systems to allow for continued protection during UPS maintenance, or for UPS redundancy in the event of failure.

The choice of equipment to be protected by a UPS is important, and we regularly see organisations ignoring important equipment such as telephone systems.  A correct sized UPS for this equipment is as important as it is for your servers. 

UPS Efficiency

There are so many different types of UPS equipment available and yet there are significant differences between models that may otherwise look similar.

The efficiency of the UPS at converting power from the mains supply to the supply available for equipment is an important consideration in a power solution design.  One of the key differences between UPS units that otherwise seem to have similar specifications will be this efficiency factor.

Core Circuit Capabilities

A standard power outlet can supply at the very most 2.4kW of power.  Power outlets on the same circuit cannot each supply 2.4kW of power - they are limited by the total capacity of the circuit.
During power audits we often find power circuits close to their maximum loads, and very often no redundancy where all supply to IT infrastructure being supplied from the same circuit, although from different power outlets.  The result is that if a circuit breaker trips then power is removed from all equipment, with no redundancy in place.

There are many strategies available to ensure that loads on circuits are kept well within limits, and also provide redundancy in the event of a circuit breaker tripping.

Cooling and Efficiency

All electrical equipment generates heat which must be dissipated.  The cooling required for any installation will be based on how much efficiency there is in the conversion and provision of power as a basic part of the infrastructure.  Cooling itself also requires additional power resulting in a “chasing the tail” situation if careful planning is not carried out.

Strategies like hot aisle and cold aisle containment, as well as NDS’s ACCC system for full data centre cooling maximisation can provide significant cooling cost reduction.  As an example the choice of hot-aisle containment over cold-aisle containment can save 40% in annual cooling system energy cost.

Power Efficiency and Consumption

With increasing electricity costs it is important for all businesses to consider every option for making their IT infrastructure efficient.  Equipment that is being under-utilised is one source of inefficiencies, along with the structure and operation of your equipment cooling.

Consolidation of equipment is also an important part of an efficiency plan.  Many businesses are now embarking on a virtualisation strategy to consolidate their equipment thereby reducing power requirements (see our separate information sheet on virtualisation).  Virtualisation allows you to reduce the physical number of servers in your business while retaining all functionality.  Every server has significant inefficiencies in the provision of power so each server transferred to a virtual environment removes these inefficiencies.  Each server removed also reduces cooling requirements.  We have helped businesses restructure their IT requirements around their current cooling while significantly increasing capacity.

The next step

Power supply and conditioning is a fundamental part of any IT infrastructure - regardless of business size.  Some smaller businesses, in fact, are at greatest risk from their power strategy.

Network data Solutions provides a complimentary power and infrastructure audit to evaluate how well your power strategy can deal with outages, whether there are efficiencies to be gained and what opportunities there are to reduce your power costs.