DCNN Autumn 2023 by All Things Media

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WHAT’S INSIDE

CLOUD COMPUTING & STORAGE

ENERGY MANAGEMENT

TESTING & TEST EQUIPMENT AUTUMN 2023

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INTRODUCTION

AUTUMN 2023

INTRODUCTION Hello and welcome to the Autumn issue of DCNN. In this issue, we focus on the latest advancements in Cloud Computing and Storage, Energy Management, and Testing & Test Equipment. We take a closer look at the innovative solutions that are driving the expansion of cloud computing and storage. We also explore the growing importance of energy management in data centres, including the use of renewable energy sources and energy-efficient hardware. Additionally, we examine the latest testing and test equipment tools and techniques that help ensure the reliability and performance of data centre infrastructure. Also in this issue, we have an exclusive interview with Liz Cruz, AFCOM Member and Director of Product Management at Accelsius,

about women in tech, new data centre technologies, and her career so far. Join us as we explore the cutting-edge technologies and practices that are shaping the future of data centres. Don’t forget to subscribe to the DCNN newsletter to have the latest news delivered straight to your inbox, and please get in touch with me at carly@allthingsmedialtd.com if you would like to contribute to a future issue. I hope you enjoy the issue – see you in the winter! Carly Weller Editor

STUDIO: MARK WELLER T: 01634 673163 E: mark@allthingsmedialtd.com

ASSISTANT EDITOR: ISHA JAIN T: 01634 673163 E: isha@allthingsmedialtd.com

MANAGING DIRECTOR: DAVID KITCHENER T: 01634 673163 E: david@allthingsmedialtd.com

GROUP ADVERTISEMENT MANAGER: KELLY BYNE T: 01634 673163 E: kelly@allthingsmedialtd.com

ACCOUNTS T: 01634 673163 E: susan@allthingsmedialtd.com

SALES DIRECTOR: IAN KITCHENER T: 01634 673163 E: ian@allthingsmedialtd.com

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Published quarterly by All Things Media Ltd., Suite 14, 6-8 Revenge Road, Lordswood, Kent ME5 8UD. Tel: 01634 673163 Fax: 01634 673173

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CONTENTS

CONTENTS REGULARS

Introduction

Industry News

8 12

CLOUD COMPUTING & STORAGE

In the dynamic world of data security compliance, immutable storage offers a reliable solution

Cover Story

How to effectively manage your networks

Interview

FirstNet customers benefit from Infinidat’s InfiniBox arrays

Planning data centre storage capacity for a digital future

Growing cloud costs require moving beyond on-premise data centre practices

Isha Jain talks to Liz Cruz, AFCOM Member and Director of Product Management at Accelsius, about women in tech, new data centre technologies, and her career so far

32 Advertisement Feature

E-T-A offers power distribution systems for modern communication networks

55 Products

Wireless Networking

ISSUE

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DCIM

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ENERGY MANAGEMENT

TESTING & TEST EQUIPMENT

Cooling vital digital infrastructure: An untapped heat opportunity

POE: A practical use for non-optical cabling in data centres

Designing sustainable data centres to prepare for a digitalised and greener future

Choosing the right testing technology for your data centre

Meeting the energy challenge: The opportunities for data centres

Tackling sustainability and creating a greener future for the data centre industry

Data centres can stand the heat – here’s how and why they should

AUTUMN 2023 To get involved, contact: Kelly Byne kelly@allthingsmedialtd.com 01634 673163

Intelligent Buildings

Carly Weller carly@allthingsmedialtd.com 01634 673163 Isha Jain isha@allthingsmedialtd.com 01634 673163

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INDUSTRY NEWS

VANTAGE DATA CENTERS TO CONTINUE DEPLOYING RENEWABLE GENERATOR FUEL Vantage Data Centers has announced the continued deployment of hydrotreated vegetable oil (HVO), a renewable fuel to replace conventional diesel fuel in generators. The company will roll out HVO in several of its markets in North America and EMEA. HVO is 100% biodegradable and non-toxic, offering a more sustainable fuel option while delivering the same level of functionality as traditional diesel. Repurposing waste oils like vegetable oil to create sustainable fuels significantly reduces the embodied carbon due to the cleaner sourcing and creation process. Initially deployed as a pilot at Vantage’s Cardiff, Wales campus in 2022, the company’s deployment of HVO yielded progress toward its carbon goals without the need for new or updated infrastructure. Given the success of the pilot, it officially

implemented HVO at its newest facility, CWL13, on the Cardiff campus, and is currently working to deploy the renewable fuel throughout the rest of the campus. In addition, it will deploy HVO in one of its North American flagship markets, Santa Clara, California, by the end of the year. Vantage Data Centers, vantage-dc.com

COLT DCS LAUNCHES NEW MUMBAI DATA CENTRE

Colt Data Centre Services has announced the launch of its first data centre in India. The flagship Navi Mumbai data centre marks Colt DCS’ strategic expansion and commitment to supporting the increasing demand of hyperscale cloud service providers and large enterprises in the fast-growing Indian data centre market. Colt DCS’ Navi Mumbai data centre provides customers with tremendous flexibility and scalability, given its significant land parcel of 15ac, capable of

supporting 120MW of IT power capacity. The flexible and scalable design allows the company to meet the quickly changing demands of emerging technologies and use cases such as Gen AI, high performance computing, machine learning and other computer intensive cloud applications that depend on high power density solutions with efficient cooling. The data centre boasts a highly resilient 220kV GIS substation onsite with LILO configuration. The data centre also provides multi-layered security with combination of hardened physical parameters, access control and 24x7 surveillance. The site has undergone a comprehensive TVRA assessment and has been categorised as a low risk site. Colt Data Centre Services, coltdatacentres.net

CYRUSONE ANNOUNCES NEW FRANKFURT DATA CENTRE CyrusOne has announced plans for its seventh data centre campus in Frankfurt, named FRA7, located on a 63,000m2 plot at FRANKFURT WESTSIDE – a 73ha commercial and industrial mixed-use regeneration project. Starting with a total capacity of 81MW, delivered across nine data halls in two buildings, the facility will benefit from its highly efficient data centre design to achieve a BREEAM ‘Very Good’ certification as a minimum and deliver an annualised PUE of <1.3. Innovative waste heat reuse methods will be deployed within both buildings with a potential 40MW of waste heat delivered to the campus heating network when at full capacity. The facility will be powered by renewable energy, as has CyrusOne’s entire operational portfolio in Europe since June 2021. In addition, specific practices are being implemented throughout the

design and construction phase to source sustainable materials and lower CO2 emissions. Demolition and site clearance is already underway and will be complete by Q1 2024. Construction will commence in Q3 2024, with the capacity delivered by Q2 2026. CyrusOne, cyrusone.com

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DATA CENTRES’ NET ZERO PLANS BLOWN OFF TRACK BY THE ENERGY CRISIS

According to research published by Schneider Electric, 81% of business leaders at UK and Irish data centres say the energy crisis will impact their organisation’s ability to meet its emissions reduction plans. Of that figure, 49% of organisations say they are delaying planned investment in sustainability and net zero plans. 40% say they now have more immediate

business challenges to meet, while 43% claim that emission reduction targets are no longer an issue for their stakeholders. Crucially, the survey reveals that business leaders still recognise the importance of working to emissions reduction targets, as 32% believe that climate change and net zero ambitions will become more of a priority over the next three years. Only a small minority (11%) believe that national net zero commitments will be diluted in that time. The survey also reveals that 32% of data centre managers believe that energy prices will fall over the next three years, while 71% think their organisation will still be addressing the energy crisis in 12 months’ time. Schneider Electric, se.com

LARGEST Q2 ON RECORD FOR DATA CENTRE DEMAND IN EUROPE The period from April to June 2023 saw record demand for data centres, with 114MW of take up across Europe’s leading markets of Frankfurt, London, Amsterdam, Paris and Dublin (FLAP-D), according to JLL’s EMEA Data Centres Q2 2023 report. This is more than double the 51MW seen in Q1, and is the largest second quarter on record. There was heightened activity for pre-lettings, with 141MW committed in Q2 alone, compared to 64MW in Q1. New supply continued to outstrip demand, with a total of 73MW of new space coming online in Q2. Frankfurt led much of the momentum, with 44MW of take up in Q2, bringing the year-to-date total to 80MW, in comparison to 26MW at the same point last year.

London remains the largest market, with a total of 902MW, amounting to a 35% share of total tier one supply. The city saw a significant drop in the amount of new supply added so far this year at only 7MW. However, the development pipeline remains strong with a string of new developments announced in Q2. JLL, jll.co.uk

DATABANK COMPLETES SEVEN DATA CENTRE EXPANSIONS

DataBank has announced the completion of seven data centre expansions in Dallas, Las Vegas, San Diego, Irvine and Kansas City, as well as two in Atlanta. Combined, these colocation facilities have added 15MW+ of power and 114,000ft2 raised floor space during the past 12 months to their existing capacities.

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“For organisations planning to deploy, or for existing customers already set up in these data centres, these expansions give them more room to grow,” says Tony Qorri, DataBank’s Vice President of Construction. “They can avoid the hassle of moving to a new data centre when it’s time to scale their compute resources.” Customers also won’t have to worry about the cost of building out their existing facilities or migrating applications to a new data centre - which helps avoid risk. With these expansions, the seven data centres now enable customers to consume more power and leverage abundant raised floor space. DataBank, databank.com

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COVER STORY

RUNNING HOT As sustainability becomes increasingly important, David Bond, Chairman, Centiel UK, unveils how Centiel’s innovative approach and solutions can help organisations become more energy efficient and drive their transition towards net zero emissions. In 1979, climate change first appeared on the political agenda, following a report by distinguished American scientists, Keeling, Revelle, MacDonald, and Woodwell, that was presented to President Jimmy Carter. It’s conclusion highlighted, “a warming that will probably be conspicuous within the next 20 years,” calling for an early action. More than 50 years later, even the existence of climate change still causes debate amongst some. However, the subject of sustainability has now reached the agendas of most boardrooms around the world. This can only be good news. Of course, there are no easy answers to becoming more sustainable. However, we must abandon today’s ‘throw away’ culture and examine if products can be upgraded or repaired rather than replaced. We also need to consider how long a product’s useful working life

is, in addition to how energy efficient it is and if it can be recycled.

RUNNING HOT In our industry, the rise of digital communication, mobile data, social media and online shopping drives the need for huge data centres which burn massive amounts of energy and use huge volumes of water. According to statistics revealed in May 2023 by the Central Statistics Office, data centres are currently responsible for 18% of the electricity usage in Ireland - a 31% jump from 2021 and an increase of nearly 400% since 2015. Worldwide, estimates of electricity usage in data centres vary between 0.5% and 3%. These phenomenally high percentages are only set to continue to grow with the introduction of AI into the mainstream. So what can data centres do?

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One option to become more energy efficient is ‘running hot’. We are starting to see facilities being run at 27°C rather than 20°C, which significantly reduces the need for air conditioning and water for cooling. These days, file servers and uninterruptible power supply (UPS) will happily operate at these higher ambient temperatures with no issues. In fact the most modern UPS can operate comfortably at 40°C. The challenge arises in relation to batteries, as traditional VRLA batteries need to operate at around 20°C to avoid reducing their useful working life. It is possible to install batteries into a separate area, so air conditioning only needs to be applied to a confined room which reduces electricity consumption, rather than cool an entire data hall. Centiel has helped many facilities implement this design layout to reduce power consumption. Another alternative is LiFePO4 (Lithium Iron Phosphate) batteries which will happily operate at higher temperatures without any impacting their useful working life. LiFePO4 batteries cost more than VRLA batteries, but last twice as long. They also take up less space and can be cycled many times, which opens the door to peak shaving. Peak shaving helps reduce power consumption from the grid during periods of high demand throughout the day by using power stored up in batteries or reducing usage by switching off non-essential equipment. It can help data centres avoid paying higher electricity prices or fees that are applied when going above their maximum peak load.

introduced a new UPS, StratusPower, to provide complete peace of mind in relation to power availability, while helping data centres to achieve net zero targets. StratusPower shares all the benefits of Centiel’s award-winning three phase, true modular UPS CumulusPower - including ‘9 nines’ (99.9999999%) availability to effectively eliminate system downtime; class leading 97.1% online efficiency to minimise running costs; true ‘hot swap’ modules to eliminate human error in operation – but now also includes long-life components to improve sustainability. For example, instead of replacing UPS filter capacitors every four years, in StratusPower they will need replacing just once, after circa 15 years - that is just once in their entire 30-year design life. Quality components do cost more, but we are talking just tens of pounds per module. Compare this with replacing the entire UPS system every 10 or so years, which will cost tens of thousands of pounds. As sustainability becomes increasingly important, Centiel’s innovative approach and solutions can help organisations become more energy efficient in relation to their power-protection needs, helping them drive their transitions towards net zero emissions. Centiel, centiel.co.uk

RECYCLING Currently, it is difficult to recycle the Lithium in LiFePO4 batteries compared to VRLA batteries, where the lead is 100% recyclable. However, over the next 15 years, this will change. Driven by the automotive industry, we are already seeing Lithium recycling centres starting to be set up and these numbers will grow – they must.

USEFUL WORKING LIFE Extending the useful working life of any solution positively impacts sustainability. Following four years’ of development, Centiel has recently

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INTERVIEW

AN INDUSTRY FULL OF OPPORTUNITIES Isha Jain talks to Liz Cruz, AFCOM Member and Director of Product Marketing at Accelsius, about women in tech, new data centre technologies, and her career so far. IJ: Tell us about yourself and how you got into the sector. LC: I began working in the data centre industry in 2010 as a Market Analyst for IMS Research. I knew nothing about data centres at the time, but was up for the challenge! We had one report on a piece of equipment in data centres - UPS. But over the next decade, that one report became a well-respected portfolio of data centre infrastructure research, which I ended up leading. Over the years, I wrote detailed reports on specific technologies, including racks, prefabricated data centres, cooling, DCIM, and more. To write those reports, I had to first learn about each technology by interviewing dozens of industry experts. I had to find the right people to talk to and convince them to share their knowledge, and this was before LinkedIn was nearly as popular!

So the way I learned about the industry was first-hand from industry experts, people who’d been doing it for decades and had a lot to teach me. I approached them with an open mind and, eagerness to learn, which they all appreciated. So, it’s like I’ve had hundreds of teachers over the years.

IJ: For those who may not know, can you give us an overview of the work that Accelsius does? LC: Accelsius is a company that provides a new two-phase, direct-to-chip liquid cooling solution, with the best-in-class thermal performance. But most importantly, we work to bring a level of quality and reliability to the market. Headquartered in Austin, we have a research and development lab here. We have built a North American supply chain and manufacturing model with an emphasis on lifecycle services.

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Although, we are aware that there is a need for liquid cooling, as someone who’s been tracking this market for over a decade, I also realise it’s not going to come overnight. Data centre managers need time to learn, investigate and iterate. So, Accelsius is thoughtful of the journey that managers will travel and build a product and business model that will scale, as operators grow from air cooled data centres with a few liquid cooled racks into full scale, liquid-only builds.

IJ: As someone who previously led AFCOM as Director of Data Center Programs, what was the role like, and what was your greatest achievement during that time? LC: The role of heading up AFCOM included developing content for the annual Data Center World Conference. But my favourite part has been working with people. AFCOM is composed of industry professionals that take time away from their day jobs to learn, teach and connect with other data centre professionals in the industry. And every single one of them is genuinely interested in helping others find their way into the data centre sector and educating them. Through this, I have met so many amazing people that I hope to stay in touch with forever.

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My greatest achievement was being part of a team that helped to grow AFCOM membership by over 35% in one year. There has been a major revitalisation that has helped to bring this network of people back together post-COVID-19, stronger and more determined than ever before.

IJ: What advice would you give to women starting out in the data centre industry? LC: Don’t be afraid to ask questions! We’re all still learning, all the time. In the past, I felt this industry was mostly taught via informal channels and passed down knowledge. However, there’s recently been a huge effort by many to develop programs and initiatives aimed at formalising the education around data centres. If you reach out to AFCOM or iMasons, they both have resources on where and how to get involved in those programs. There’s also a book for people entering the industry, written by a woman who has lifted up so many others: Carrie Goetz. Her book, ‘Jumpstart Your Career in Data Centers’, does an amazing job of putting all the things I learned from hundreds of people into one place. So ask questions and join associations - AFCOM, WiMCO and iMasons all have supportive communities of women that will help you find your way.

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INTERVIEW

IJ: How do you see the data centre industry developing over the next few years? LC: I think the next few years will be really interesting. The two things that I’m intrigued by are cooling and power procurement. After 15 years of hearing about liquid cooling ‘coming’, it’s actually happening! I was recently touring a colo, where they said that up until a year ago they were still getting requests for <5kW/rack deployments. Now they don’t hear anything less than 30kW. I’ve had a large enterprise data centre operator tell me in 2022 that liquid cooling will only ever be for the Metas of the world and then in 2023 tell me they’re going to need it within the next year. Chip densities grew at a faster rate than we all expected, and now the only way to cool them is with liquid. On the power procurement side, there’s just not enough power in the critical markets. Or if there is power, it’s hard for data centre operators to get access to it. There’s this tidal wave of demand for high-performance compute and AI applications, requiring huge amounts of power, and no way to supply them.

The drive towards sustainability and trying to conserve energy has always been a focus of the data centre industry. But now, power is an ever-more limited resource, which makes it even more valuable and makes energy efficiency no longer a matter of being sustainable - now it’s the table stakes of being able to do business. I think the growing need for high-powered applications, running up against limited power availability, will be a major factor in the adoption of liquid cooling, which allows for data centres to reallocate that power from cooling, which accounts for 40% of a data centre power consumption, to compute.

IJ: Speaking of liquid cooling, how do you think new technologies like this can be better implemented today? LC: Organisations like the Open Compute Project, of which Accelsius is a startup member, and The Green Grid, where I am the Chairwoman of the Liquids Sub-Committee, are working to bring these new technologies to market. Especially in emerging markets, such as liquid cooling, we need organisations that bring all stakeholders together

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to figure out safety and interoperability standards, which is why we’re heavily involved. Operators need to feel comfortable that when they adopt a new technology, it’s going to work with their existing infrastructure and IT. One vendor cannot do this alone - we need many solutions providers coming together to ensure interoperability and comfort with new technologies. I also think that we need to realise that it is a journey to new technologies. Customers, integrators and vendors need to test, iterate and learn. It is important to understand the uniqueness of each data centre, bring a human aspect and respect to the implications of implementing new technologies, and prepare to support organisations as they learn. I believe that perspective can enable adoption.

IJ: What makes a great data centre? LC: The people who run it. I spent 10 years as a tech analyst, looking at trends from a macro level. Then, in 2021, when I moved over to lead AFCOM, I got to meet all the amazing

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people creating those macro level trends. I’ve found that most data centre managers are thoughtful, responsible, and always trying to do the most with what limited resources they may have. Data centre managers are the unsung heroes of the internet, quietly keeping all the plumbing, roadways, and lights on, so that we can all scroll through our respective feeds and watch all the Tiny Desk Concerts we want.

IJ: What are your interests away from work? LC: My family! I have a wonderful husband and two kids who are funny and busy and oh so vibrant! As a family, we love to bike, swim, play board games and karaoke (where I’m relegated to an audience role!). And as I enter the next decade of my life, I want to learn something new, so I’ve just started taking horseback riding lessons. Accelsius, accelsius.com AFCOM, afcom.com

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CLOUD COMPUTING & STORAGE

IN THE DYNAMIC WORLD OF DATA SECURITY COMPLIANCE, IMMUTABLE STORAGE OFFERS A RELIABLE SOLUTION Ensuring data security is the key to drive your business to success. Ahsan Siddiqui, Director of Product Management at Arcserve, discusses how organisations can tackle the evolving data privacy and security rules. Data is the fuel that powers businesses today. It drives decision-making, improves efficiency, and helps companies stay ahead of the competition. However, organisations must carefully handle the vast amount of collected and stored data. Some myriad regulations and requirements apply to the collection and storage of data, and they can be challenging to interpret, let alone follow. But followed they must be because failure to comply can result in significant legal and financial consequences. If your business is struggling to comply with the regulations surrounding data, you’re not alone. Organisations everywhere are grappling with data privacy and security rules that are constantly evolving. You must continuously stay

informed and adjust your policies and practices to avoid hefty fines and reputational damage. For instance, DORA is a European Union regulation that applies to various financial institutions, including banks, insurance companies, investment firms, and cryptocurrency service providers. DORA aims to ensure that these institutions have sound information security systems. What’s tricky here is that the regulation applies not just to the financial institutions themselves, but also to any other companies they work with or outsource their technology services to, whether inside or outside the EU. In other words, many companies are subject to the DORA regulation without knowing it.

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IMMUTABLE STORAGE OFFERS ALWAYS-THERE PROTECTION Data security compliance is a daunting challenge, to be sure. But there are solutions. Immutable storage is one of the most valuable tools for complying with data regulations. This technology helps organisations ensure compliance by providing a storage system where data cannot be altered, modified, or deleted once written. The system automatically takes continuous data snapshots and stores them securely, so a business can recover to a recent point if there is ever an incident. Immutability is especially useful in industries that require strict data compliance, such as healthcare, finance, and government. Immutability complies with the rules because it keeps data safe. It protects against data breaches and cyber attacks. With immutable storage, even if an attacker gains access to the network, it’s challenging for the attacker to do any damage because the data snapshots can’t be modified, overwritten or deleted. Immutable storage also helps organisations meet regulatory requirements for data retention. In some industries, organisations must retain data for a specific period to comply with regulations. Immutable storage can ensure that data is retained and cannot be deleted or modified before the retention period has expired.

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IMMUTABILITY IN ACTION

A great example of a company successfully keeping up with its data compliance requirements is Concorde Motorhomes, a maker of luxury mobile homes. The company faces extra challenges due to the specific requirements applied to the motorhome industry. Concorde must maintain the historical data of every vehicle it has sold since 1985. It must also ensure that all the data relating to any given vehicle - the type of shower head fitted and components used for the entry rail - is available due to the motorhome’s extremely long service lifecycle and the high levels of customisation that go with a mobile home. Any loss of data would be harrowing for Concorde. There would be dramatic consequences to its production capabilities and customer satisfaction. That’s why the company uses an immutable storage system. The system takes immutable snapshots every 90 seconds. The snapshots protect the data, guarding it against ransomware or user error. This system helps Concorde guarantee optimum levels of security, scalability and data compliance.

CLOUD PROVIDERS MAKE COMPLIANCE EASIER

Another simple and effective way to ensure data security compliance is to partner with a cloud-based backup and recovery provider.

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CLOUD COMPUTING & STORAGE

These providers offer many advantages that make it easier for organisations to keep data safe and comply with many data regulations. Cloud-based solutions offer scalability and flexibility that traditional backup and recovery solutions often don’t. These solutions are essential for organisations with rapidly growing data volumes, as legacy solutions may struggle to keep up. With a cloud-based solution, you can quickly expand your backup and recovery capabilities to meet your needs without investing in additional hardware or infrastructure. You can also work closely with your cloud solution provider to stay informed about updates and changes to compliance requirements. Good cloud providers will help you regularly review and update your backup and recovery strategies to ensure they comply with ever-changing regulations. Many cloud providers also offer geo-redundancy and data residency options to help organisations meet data sovereignty requirements. For example, the European Union citizens’ personal data must be stored within the EU, as mandated by the General

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Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). Cloud providers help organisations comply with these requirements by offering data residency options. Cloud providers also offer a shared responsibility model, whereby they take responsibility for the security of their infrastructure while organisations focus on securing their data and applications. As an added benefit, cloud-based solutions can offer ease of management. For instance, cloud providers typically handle maintenance and updates, which frees your IT staff to focus on strategic tasks.

FINAL TAKEAWAY

All organisations that collect and store data - which is now the vast majority - must contend with an accelerating feedback loop. As data grows in volume and value, hackers target it with increasing energy and expertise, and regulators impose more rules to keep it safe. By taking a few key steps, organisations can keep pace with that loop and keep their data secure to drive their business to success. Arcserve, arcserve.com

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All-Rack wall mount data racks and cabinets are designed to be your perfect solution for all your rack mountable equipment. Our cabinets are ideal for small network installations where floor space doesn’t allow for a floor standing server cabinet. All-Rack have one of the largest ranges and stock holding of wall cabinets in the UK. All of our cabinets are supplied pre-built making your installation easier than ever.

Standard 19" Cabinets

SOHO 10" Cabinets

By far our best selling Cabinets, they are 565mm wide whilst maintaining the industry standard 19" rackmount standard internally. They all have lockable and removable side panels for added security and also removable cable entry slots on the roof and in the base.

Our SOHO cabinets are designed for anyone working from home or from a small network. These 10" cabinets are available in 4U & 8U, they are also complimented by a range of 10" accessories. Each cabinet is supplied with a pack of cagenuts.

2 Part Hinged Wall Cabinets The 2 part hinged 550mm deep racks are our most versatile rack. Once mounted to a wall, it can swing open thus providing easy access to the rear of the cabinet. These are available in 6U,9U,12U and 15U and are 550mm in depth.

All-Rack Floor standing data cabinets are super secure, high quality and cost effective 19” racks. Doors and side panels are all lockable and removable thus providing all round access to the entire rack. The mounting profiles are numbered with the “U” size and are fully adjustable. Cable entry is provided from both top and bottom depending on your cable work. All floor racks are supplied fully assembled as standard. Flatpack racks are available if required however, this will incur additional delivery costs. Highlights

Loading Capacity: up to 800kg Flat Pack: Available upon request subject to additional delivery costs Doors: Toughened glass doors supplied as standard, Vented doors are available for some of the range. Please call us to confirm if we supply vented doors for your choice of floor cabinet. Cable Management: Vertical cable management is provided as standard for all 800mm wide racks

The All-Rack brand is sold through a well established distributor network throughout the UK. Please contact sales@attock.net forfurther details or contact your usual All-Rack reseller

CLOUD COMPUTING & STORAGE

HOW TO EFFECTIVELY MANAGE YOUR NETWORKS To effectively connect employees, customers and devices, it can be difficult to know what changes can deliver the most value. Justin Day, CEO and Co-Founder of Cloud Gateway, unravels the strategies for maintaining strong foundations in the digital economy, helping organisations with their network management and transitioning to cloud. Strong and resilient connectivity is the backbone of effective communications. It dictates how we work, how quickly we get things done, and how well we are able to collaborate. But with the number of disparate workforces growing and a rise in cloud platforms and applications, it’s important that organisations have the right foundations in place to support their digital ambitions. The UK Digital Strategy provides good guidance and identifies essential areas of action that can support government and businesses to achieve sustained digital growth. The strategy highlights the importance of having a robust digital infrastructure, unlocking the power of data, a pro-innovation regulatory framework, and a secure digital environment. It helps if you think about each area of the strategy as a leg of a table. If one leg isn’t equal to the other, then the whole table will lose balance. Similarly, if you modify your network infrastructure, you’ll also need to alter the processes and people surrounding them, to

gain the most out of the new technology and harness data driven insights.

STRONG DIGITAL FOUNDATIONS

The right IT infrastructure can be transformative, increasing agility and efficiency, as any kind of digital transformation relies on network flexibility, performance and availability. With approaches like secure access service edge (SASE), that deliver unified networking and security capabilities, organisations can implement hybrid and multicloud strategies that select the application, technology or provider that best fits their requirements, all through a single, cloud native managed service. This eliminates the costs and time associated with unnecessary network complexity and the management of multiple vendors. It also gives greater flexibility to scale up and down with requirements, without having to worry about redesigning your infrastructure. A SASE approach provides greater control and visibility of the network and a way to consolidate and strengthen security across the IT estate.

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HARNESSING SKILLS AND TALENT Having the right people is a top priority and so is making the most of the skills they have. The management of physical assets can be costly and admin-intensive for IT teams. It often requires a significant amount of time and expertise to maintain legacy infrastructure and security devices – not to mention the vulnerabilities that come with them. This is usually at the expense of the company and a significant time cost to employees who need their help. SASE provides IT teams with a more holistic approach to cyber security, so they can monitor what’s going on, enforce security utilities, and manage things like custom access policies. When successfully implemented, it allows organisations to apply for secure access no matter where their users, workloads, devices or applications are located – making it easier for them to connect and secure all users and resources in their digital environment.

MINIMISING NETWORK COMPLEXITY

One of the key benefits of SASE is that its architecture supports the integration of disparate technologies into a single cloud-native environment. With the shift to remote working and distributed workforces, organisations need to access data and applications in new and often more complex ways. For IT teams, this calls

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for greater visibility of the users accessing the network and applications. By combining SD-WAN capabilities with several network security functions such as Firewall-as-a-Service (FWaaS) and Secure Web Gateways (SWG), employees can securely connect to internal resources from anywhere, and it gives organisations better control over the traffic and data that enters and leaves their network.

HARNESSING DATA INSIGHTS

Finally, better digital infrastructure can enable organisations to fully utilise advances in technology and data analysis to grow productivity and enhance collaboration. IT infrastructures bolstered with SASE enable organisations to transition away from their legacy data systems with the confidence and security they need. Not only does this simplify ongoing maintenance but the convergence of the network and security helps to streamline complicated processes. SASE is as much about an approach to IT and transformation as it is the technologies that underpin it. The holistic nature of the framework is arguably its key strength. It’s the foundation upon which organisations can harness the full power and potential of digital, data and technology. Ultimately, this is where we can deliver great efficiencies and support organisational objectives and agility. Cloud Gateway, cloudgateway.co.uk

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CLOUD COMPUTING & STORAGE

FIRSTNET CUSTOMERS BENEFIT FROM INFINIDAT’S INFINIBOX ARRAYS This case study looks at how FirstNet has benefited from Infinidat’s storage solution that caters to its variable demands with ease, delivering high performance and ‘always on’ availability. The cloud has become the go-to technology solution for agile, responsive and ‘always on’ applications and services. FirstNet Technology Services, a cloud, connectivity, voice, and security solution provider for South African and international clients, is meeting the demand for cloud solutions, and has established data centres in Durban, Johannesburg and Cape Town. The ability to deliver high performance, highly reliable storage with Capacity on Demand (COD) is critical to FirstNet’s offering, and the company needs predictable costs to be able to service customers effectively.

STORAGE TO MEET A VARIETY OF DEMANDS As a cloud provider offering Everything as a Service (XaaS), FirstNet’s customers range in size from Small Medium Enterprises (SMEs)

running simple, less demanding workloads, to large organisations with the most demanding workloads and SQL databases. They needed a storage solution that would cater to these variable demands with ease, delivering high performance and ‘always on’ availability at a price point that makes sense for markets on both ends of the spectrum. In 2015, the company implemented its first InfiniBox storage array, which replaced a smaller-scale storage solution that the business had outgrown, and has not looked back since. “After more than six years, Infinidat is still competitively priced and the only vendor that delivers the technology and features we need, without the need for additional licensing, fees and administration,” says Sean van Niekerk, Technical Manager, FirstNet Technology Services. “The InfiniBox storage array is a complete rack, a prebuilt solution that is delivered as a

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ready configured unit with advanced features and functionality, as well as lightning-fast performance. These factors are what made Infinidat stand out for us. The solution delivered exactly what we needed at the time, and we have since acquired an additional two InfiniBox units, one in 2018 and another in 2021,” says Sean.

PROACTIVE SOLUTION FOR EVOLVING CUSTOMER NEEDS

The InfiniBox storage array is geared for multi-petabyte capacity, an essential consideration for any cloud XaaS provider. In addition, the native features and functionality included in the solution, such as a web-based Graphical User Interface (GUI), its ‘set it and forget it’ ease-of-use make it simple and intuitive to deploy. These factors, along with the extreme performance capabilities delivered, were some deciding considerations for FirstNet. Vaughan Gerson, Managing Director, FirstNet Technology Services, explains, “As a cloud

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service provider offering, among other things, Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), demand is continuously changing and expanding. The ‘set it and forget it’ capabilities of the InfiniBox are invaluable to us. Once the solution is deployed, we have monitors and alerts in place to bring to our attention any areas of concern. In fact, Infinidat notices any red flags before we are even aware of them, allowing us to proactively address potential problems and deliver a seamless customer service.”

VMWARE INTEGRATION A key consideration for FirstNet, which uses VMware for its software-defined data centre infrastructure, was the ability for the storage array to run hypervisors and VMware stacks. The InfiniBox storage array is the first petabyte-scale storage platform available in the VMware Cloud Solutions Lab and features extensive VMware capabilities, helping to streamline operations across multi-cloud infrastructure.

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CLOUD COMPUTING & STORAGE

TIME IS MONEY

“Several of FirstNet’s enterprise customers were asked to benchmark performance changes with the implementation of the InfiniBox storage array. All of them noticed positive changes for very demanding workloads, where run time of daily SQL tasks was reduced by up to 60%. In addition, the time to backup and restore data is hugely improved, and this improvement is invaluable in addressing a common customer pain point,” says Vaughan. “The Capacity on Demand model was also a strong selling point for us. We pay based on our consumption, but have additional capacity available to deploy when we need it. This means that when our customers want to expand, it is as simple as the click of a button to provision this. As a result, we can onboard customers quicker, so we can start generating revenue quickly. The value here is immense,” he adds.

VALUE OUT OF THE BOX

“We initially selected the InfiniBox storage array in 2015 and we have never looked back. The return on investment versus the price and the ongoing support we received thereafter have

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been hugely beneficial. Everything is included - there are no additional backup and support fees and no hidden costs involved,” says Sean. FirstNet has also realised several tangible benefits since the implementation of the InfiniBox arrays. Vaughan explains, “System performance has revolutionised several tasks which would previously have taken hours and can now be completed in around 30 minutes. When our customers migrate from their onpremises solutions to our FirstNet cloud, they immediately notice a dramatic improvement in workload speeds. We also spend less time managing and maintaining our storage, which means we can free up resources for other tasks that add greater value. He concludes, “We are fiercely competing directly with hyperscale cloud providers and Infinidat gives us a competitive edge. We can guarantee speed, access to the environment and value-added services, so our ability to deliver on availability and performance-based Service Level Agreements is unmatched, thanks to our storage solution from Infinidat.” Infinidat, infinidat.com

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CLOUD COMPUTING & STORAGE

PLANNING DATA CENTRE STORAGE CAPACITY FOR A DIGITAL FUTURE With the explosion of global data in recent years, data centre managers are faced with the challenge of accommodating storage solutions. Tony Hollingsbee, SSD Business Manager, EMEA at Kingston Technology, urges them to plan ahead and modernise storage capacity. Today’s performance requirements include new technology such as IoT devices, edge computing and 5G, demand for content delivery at scale, the development of digital twins, and innovative modes of computation, such as AI and machine learning. The extensive digitalisation of our personal and working lives depends heavily on a key pillar of data centre operational technology - storage. Without the right storage components in place, the ability to manage the throughput of data with low latency is hampered, which in turn slows down the speed at which applications can access and process data, potentially leading to compromised user experiences.

To maintain high performance, the onus is on data centre operators and decision makers to put in place needs-oriented strategic plans and to optimise storage solutions. While data centres previously relied on hard disk drives (HDDs), many are now using these in combination with solid state drives (SSDs), configured within their infrastructure to manage different workloads. Traditionally, HDDs were able to provide higher storage capacity at a lower cost per gigabyte, however, the price differential has reduced dramatically in the past year, making SSDs not only financially viable, but better able to deliver the levels of performance that users demand.

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Against the backdrop of financial constraints, many data centres are now considering how they can implement a staggered approach to modernising storage capacity. Their objectives are to extend the life of existing equipment such as HDDs, which improves TCO and reaps environmental benefits, whilst still being able to harness storage solutions, including SSDs designed for the most demanding workloads, not just now, but in the future.

which are better able to deliver on SLAs for mission-critical applications. They are also smaller, which means they require less cooling and less power consumption – both major considerations for data centres for whom environmental impact is as important as cost. And when it comes to cost, NVMe-based SSDs have also dropped in price, making them more broadly accessible and providing greater choice when planning for future capacity.

THE FIVE KEY ADVANTAGES OF DATA CENTRE SSDS

IN SUMMARY

When it comes to specifying SSDs for the data centre, operators need to select models that are built specifically for enterprise-level rather than consumer-level applications. Let’s look at the reasons why:

• Data centre SSDs can handle a higher volume of read/write operations over its lifetime than client SSDs. They are designed to withstand data centre environments with high workloads and constant demand for data access. • The components in data centre SSDs are robust and have a longer lifespan. They can operate 24/7/365 and include power loss protection and data path protection to prevent data loss.

The decision whether to upgrade HDDs or move from one type of SSD to another depends on various factors. While data centre operators must consider the workloads they are supporting now and how these might evolve with digitalisation in the future, they also need to balance this against available budgets. They must ask what the key reasons are for upgrading or replacing their storage assets and look at how these might help them to scale their business. Devising a strategy for change will be a challenge, but upgrading for the future delivers a wealth of opportunities to take advantage of the new technological landscape. Kingston Technology, kingston.com

• High performance comes from IOPs consistency and predictable low latency while servicing an intensive read/write workload. Therefore, they handle more I/O operations per second which makes them ideal for applications that require high-speed data access. • End-to-end data protection ensures that data is secure at every stage of the transfer process. In addition, data centre SSDs feature hardware encryption and secure erase which helps to protect sensitive data. • Reliability comes from thorough testing. These solutions are tested on server platforms with third-party and OEM RAID controllers which guarantee compatibility with this hardware. As well as putting in place a gradual phasing out of HDDs, data centres are also switching from SATA-based SSDs to NVMe-based SSDs,

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CLOUD COMPUTING & STORAGE

GROWING CLOUD COSTS REQUIRE MOVING BEYOND ON-PREMISE DATA CENTRE PRACTICES Chris Graf, Senior Director, Infrastructure, NS1, makes recommendations for how enterprises can better control resource management, improve efficiency and cut unforeseen, but considerable costs. Cloud computing is ubiquitous, but most companies are still perfecting their use of it. Gartner estimates that 85% of enterprises will adopt ‘cloud-first’ mentalities by 2025 — a shift that may lead to increased costs. A recent study found that the average enterprise spends 20% more on public cloud infrastructure than anticipated. The discrepancy between expected and actual cloud cost is concerning, but for those who are familiar with the way on-premise systems have operated for many years, it is not surprising. Many cloud implementations perpetuate on-premise inefficiencies in ways that are much more costly on the cloud. Thankfully, there are straightforward approaches to reveal and reduce unnecessary cloud spend. In a year of leaner budgets, cost

optimisation strategies that were once seen as a best practice will become necessary to succeed in the cloud. Let’s look at why so many companies are spending money unnecessarily in the cloud, and what they can do to reduce spend without harming performance.

CONTRASTING THE ON-PREMISE DATA CENTRE WITH PUBLIC CLOUD The always-on traditional data centre Traditional on-premise environments are always on, in the sense that all compute resources are owned or dedicated to the company. Engineers generally do not have to worry about running out of resources. Other than power, cooling, and public bandwidth

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costs, it is effectively free to use any amount of compute, networking and storage resources. In this traditional model, most of the ‘heavy lifting’ of compute and data transfer happens inside each facility on equipment that has already been paid for. Every machine has a strong network connection, and there’s no cost to move data between machines. The success of an ‘always-on’ set-up has traditionally been evaluated with regard to resource performance. And as far as storage, network, or processing speeds are concerned, this typically ends up either being ‘good enough’ or ‘too slow’. Infrastructure or storage engineers may respond by adding new SSDs, higher throughput network equipment, or nodes with faster CPUs, and once that bill is paid, shift their focus away from cost until ‘slow performance’ becomes a problem again. The ‘pay-as-you-go’ public cloud The biggest difference between traditional data centres and the public cloud is that cloud clients need to pay for cloud resources in proportion to what they actually use. Companies that opt to ‘lift and shift’ their ‘always-on’ workloads into the public cloud will quickly incur major expenses. For example, a MySQL database may run ‘for free’ on-premise for many years,

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but an AWS Aurora MySQL RDS database bills a company each time it accesses the storage. Another spike in cost can originate from the transfer of data between internal systems, which happens in on-premise data centres without much impact. An engineering team may not think twice about replicating large amounts of data between different nodes in a single resilient cluster environment, as there is no cost tied to this. However, when that large amount of data is replicated in something like AWS Elastic Kubernetes Service across multiple availability zones, the resulting bill may be quite high. After all, there is now a charge for any data that moves out of one availability zone and a charge for any data that moves into another availability zone.

ADDRESSING COST INEFFICIENCIES IN THE PUBLIC CLOUD

Clearly, in the public cloud world, cost penalties heavily incentivise companies to use as few resources as possible for as short a time as possible. Saving money requires looking for ways to reduce the need for very fast storage, huge databases, or excessive amounts of data replication.

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CLOUD COMPUTING & STORAGE

Resolving unnecessary spending requires you to ask questions about both database usage and compute scalability. As far as databases are concerned, consider whether you can index, normalise, or cache your cloud database storage, minimising resource use wherever possible. And with regard to compute, think about how your available compute can anticipate and scale to meet traffic spikes and then scale down as needed to avoid usage fees for resources you don’t need. Thankfully, you don’t have to identify points of improvement in a vacuum. Public cloud providers offer tools to help see what you’re paying for and where you might be able to make improvements. If you’d like to find out where your money is going, consider AWS Cost Explorer, Azure’s Cost analysis, and Google Cloud Platform’s cost breakdown report. If you need help determining where inefficiencies live, you can get targeted recommendations through AWS Trusted Advisor, Azure Advisor, or Google Cloud Platform recommenders. Note that all this information can sometimes be overwhelming, making it hard to know where you should actually start implementing changes.

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It may be best to request specific reports to provide insights on a small, manageable scale. For instance, an AWS user looking to improve cost efficiency for AWS EC2 might run a report exclusively on ‘Low Utilisation Amazon EC2 Instances’, which returns all EC2 instances that averaged less than 10% CPU utilisation or network I/O less than 5MB in any day over the last 14 days. This report will point out great opportunities to become more efficient by running EC2 instances that more closely match your workload, transitioning to Spot Instances (also known as Spot Virtual Machines on other platforms), or reducing the number of instances that are provisioned to perform the same purpose. For engineers used to working with on-premise data centres, the cloud demands a new mentality — one that is investigative and always looking for ways to improve. Inefficiencies and unnecessary data duplication will no longer be acceptable, but engineers can curtail excess spending with a sharp eye and the right public cloud provider tools. NS1, ns1.com

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E-T-A OFFERS POWER DISTRIBUTION SYSTEMS FOR MODERN COMMUNICATION NETWORKS Michael Bindner, Product Manager, E-T-A Elektrotechnische Apparate GmbH, shares how by using compact and modular power distribution systems with overcurrent protection, data centre operators can increase system availability and reduce costs. The constantly advancing digitisation has profound effects on our everyday life. In private households, for example, combinations of smart home and smart car applications enable the heating to be activated automatically before the planned arrival. In industry, on the other hand, the increased use of sensors and actuators means that value chains can organise and optimise themselves. These developments generate enormous amounts of data that have to be transported via stable and fail-safe internet backbones. At the same time, data centres must expand their capacities to store and process this flood

of data. In both areas, the power supply and its sub-distribution within the system rack plays a crucial role. By using compact and modular power distribution systems with overcurrent protection, data centre operators can increase system availability and reduce costs. While servers in the data centre area are currently still often supplied with alternating current (AC), active technology such as routers, broadband network gateways (BNG) and more, usually uses a battery-buffered direct current (DC) supply with the nominal voltage of DC-48 typical for this area V or DC-60V. The distribution to several circuits in the system cabinet and the protection of the components to be supplied are managed by power distribution systems or power distribution units (PDU) with appropriate circuit breakers. But there are also big differences in power distribution systems. Using the example of the High Power D-Box from E-T-A, look at how power distribution systems are structured and what to look out for.

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CONSTRUCTION OF A COMPACT POWER DISTRIBUTION Let’s start with the general structure of a power distribution system. Here, a mechanical support frame or housing serves as the basic framework. This can either be installed as a ‘mounting platform’ on the rear wall of a control cabinet, or has become established in communication technology, as a 19” solution which can be installed directly in the IT rack. Since there are different rack format standards worldwide, professional power distribution systems use an interchangeable flange that enables the power distribution system to be easily integrated into any IT environment such as 19”, ETSI or ANSI.

PLUGGABLE CIRCUIT BREAKERS REDUCE DOWNTIMES One of the most important components in the power distribution system is the integrated power distributor. This ensures that the circuit breakers can be plugged into the system and do not have to be hardwired. This means that the installed circuit breakers can also be plugged in and exchanged under voltage. Compared to fixed-wired solutions, this so-called hot swapping offers a simple expansion and retrofitting option without cost-intensive operational interruptions. Power distribution systems are almost always redundant in the area of communication technology. The system therefore includes two power distributors, each with a separate power

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supply, referred to as Feed A and Feed B. Each feed has a certain number of slots into which the circuit breakers for individual protection of the load circuits are plugged in. In the case of the High Power D-Box, up to 16 load circuits can be protected. If there is no problem, the connected load is usually supplied half by both power supplies. In this case, if the power supply in Feed A fails due to a problem, Feed B takes over the complete supply of the connected load, which means that the system does not fail. In terms of safety, power distribution systems also have clear advantages over fixedwired proprietary solutions. The entire power supply is carried out in a finger-safe housing, so that no live components can be touched. This fully insulated design ensures safe working, even under voltage. Another important variable is the overall height of the power distribution system. In the IT rack, this is referred to as rack units (U). The more rack units of the IT rack that can be occupied with active technology such as routers, servers or BNGs, the more economical the overall concept is for the operator, because space in a data centre is very expensive. For this reason, power distribution systems should also be very compact in terms of height. An important factor for this is the overall height of the circuit breaker. While conventional circuit breakers are mostly designed for DIN rail mounting, more compact variants are often used in power distribution systems. In the professional environment, these usually have a hydraulic-magnetic release. Here, the hydraulic part ensures a time-delayed triggering in the

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has tripped, so that the system can be examined immediately, and in the best case, put back into operation immediately. So that the housing can be grounded effectively, M8 grounding bolts are available on both the left and right. The compact system is rounded off by an optional cable clamp on the back of the system. This ensures that the feed and load output cables are firmly fixed and can be connected to the system with as little force as possible.

CONCLUSION event of an overcurrent. With high overload and short-circuit currents, the magnetic part responds and disconnects the faulty circuit. The advantages of this variant are often used in communication technology, which requires precise and temperature-insensitive triggering. In order to connect the power supply to the system, feed terminals with screw connections and tension sleeves have become established in Europe, whereas in North America, bolts or terminal blocks are often used for cable lugs. This topic can be transferred one-to-one to the load outputs, even if they have to carry significantly less current than the feed terminals. The different variants of the product family ‘High Power D-Box’ allow the loads to be connected at the front or rear side via screw terminals, depending on the application requirements. There is no time-consuming assembly and wiring time, since only the feed and load outlets have to be connected and the power distribution system is then ready for operation. The High Power D-Box can handle cable cross-sections of up to 95mm2 for the feed terminals, and for the load output, terminals up to a maximum of 35mm2. Up to 232A of current can be distributed per feed, with a circuit breaker protecting loads of up to 125A.

SIGNALLING LEADS TO EFFECTIVE ALARM MANAGEMENT

So that the control room is informed of the technical defect in the event of a problem, power distribution systems usually have signalling options such as collective signalling. In the event of a fault, this can indicate that a circuit breaker

Power distribution systems form one of the core components in the construction of modern communication infrastructure. The keywords ‘compact, flexible and safe’ certainly give us a good guideline as to what the systems have to do these days. E-T-A has been a reliable partner in the field of protection, switching and monitoring for 75 years and offers standards for the telecommunications, data centre industry, energy and railway sectors with a large number of product families. In addition, the in-house development and construction department also enables the implementation of customer-specific solutions. E-T-A supports its customers throughout the entire process from the first draft to the production of the final solution. The product requirements are worked out in close contact with the customer and thanks to the E-T-A building block system, an economical solution can be designed and manufactured in-house in a short time. Tests and certifications can also be carried out in the accredited E-T-A test laboratory. These one-stop-shop solutions guarantee the customer the best technical solutions and reduce the coordination effort to a minimum.

MAIN FEATURES OF HIGH POWER-D-BOX

• Total current up to 232A per feed • Load up to 125A per circuit breaker • Negative pole protected • Rated voltage DC 48V, 65V, 80V • Hot-pluggable, temperature-independent circuit breakers • 19”/ETSI aluminium power distribution system ETA, e-t-a.co.uk

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RDS, Dublin: 22-23 Nov 2023 Infrastructure • Services • Solutions DataCentres Ireland combines a dedicated exhibition and multi-streamed conference to address every aspect of planning, designing and operating your Datacentre, Server/Comms room and Digital storage solution – Whether internally, outsourced or in the Cloud. DataCentres Ireland is the largest and most complete event in the country. It is where you will meet the key decision makers as well as those directly involved in the day to day operations.

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ENERGY MANAGEMENT

COOLING VITAL DIGITAL INFRASTRUCTURE: AN UNTAPPED HEAT OPPORTUNITY Ozgur Duzgunoglu, Head of Engineering at Telehouse Europe, puts the subject of utilising data centre excess heat under a microscope, and lobbies for a revolution to help drive the country to its net zero targets. Every data centre building up and down the UK generates excess heat as a natural byproduct from keeping vital IT equipment cool. Yet, this heat is not currently used to its full potential. Nearby, residential communities with blocks of flats and leisure centres could benefit from the untapped opportunity to turn excess heat into useful heat. It’s not a wild, unrealistic idea fit for a sci-fi movie, but one that Scandinavian countries like Finland and Norway made come to life a long time ago. So far, the UK has not embraced heat recycling networks, but that has the potential to change.

HARNESSING THE HEAT RECYCLING OPPORTUNITY

The UK government’s recent analysis tracking 2050 net zero emission targets show that its new policies will help meet circa 92% of the emission cuts required. With a couple of decades left to revamp sustainability strategies

and take action, we can avoid falling short. But only if everyone plays a part – including the data centre industry. Striking the right balance between sustainability benefits and the infrastructure challenges is tricky, but not impossible. New building regulations introduced in June 2022 are mandating that all new domestic homes built need to produce 31% less CO2 emissions than homes delivered under the current regulations, whilst commercial buildings need to reduce emissions by 27%. These regulations can help drive the transition from traditional gas boilers to low carbon heating technologies such as heat pumps. The implementation of heat pumps is where the true opportunity lies for data centre operators, as they can play a part in accelerating the creation of district heat networks and pipe infrastructure between data centre buildings and local communities.

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IT’S NOT EASY, BUT LET’S NOT OVERTHINK THIS

Heat pumps are one of the more attractive heat transfer technologies which can utilise excess heat to warm nearby residential blocks of flats or leisure centres. This is a viable option for recycling excess heat, as heat pumps don’t rely on high-carbon fuels. With data centres also using renewable energy sources, the electricity used to power heat pumps in itself is cleaner. At the moment, excess heat produced by data centres is often just released into the atmosphere through various heat transfer technologies such as air cooling. The typical exhaust heat from an air-cooled data centre isn’t enough on its own to boost the temperature to provide underfloor heating or hot water to the recipients of excess heat without added cost. Having an air-to-water or air-to-air heat pump solves that problem though. So, what else is needed? As a start, a conversation and negotiation between data centre providers, local authorities and energy providers to put the wheels in motion and gain planning permissions to create the necessary infrastructure. Once approved, data centre operators can become reliable suppliers of energy. Energy providers and combined heat and power partners can come together to form a network and implement a licensing system to ensure best practice.

Heat pumps work well for highly desirable underfloor heating and radiators with low surface temperatures, whilst staying quiet during operation and proving safer than combustion-based heating systems. They can also be switched to cooling modes during summer months. In the long-term, it’s more cost effective and eco-friendly to install heat pumps in new flats. They provide two to three times more heat output than they consume in electricity input, improving energy efficiency, reducing energy bills and carbon emissions. As the pressure is mounting across the country to meet the 2050 net zero targets, let’s facilitate greater cross-industry and government collaboration to utilise the full potential of heat recovery from data centres. Other countries are already doing it, so why can’t the UK? Telehouse, telehouse.net

BENEFITS TO LOCAL COMMUNITIES

When analysing numbers that directly impact people’s pockets, a traditional boiler costs around £6,000 to install, whilst a heat pump is around £10,000, making it a slightly more expensive investment upfront if we were to rip and replace. However, if a heat pump is part of a wider heat recycling network, the energy supply is free, unlike a gas supply which needs to be paid for. When estimating conservatively, based on a scenario where a single data centre could recycle around 3MW of excess heat to warm its local residential community, over 1,000 flats could benefit from this single source alone. The return on investment can therefore be achieved in half of the time it would take for solar panels to pay back.

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ENERGY MANAGEMENT

DESIGNING SUSTAINABLE DATA CENTRES TO PREPARE FOR A DIGITALISED AND GREENER FUTURE Dave Archer, National M&E Sales Manager at Mitsubishi Electric, discusses how making data centres truly sustainable by controlling energy use and preventing waste must be a priority to prepare for the future. Building a greener future has become a key priority for businesses. Yet, in today’s society, where technology is evolving rapidly and everything is digitalised, minimising energy consumption can be a real struggle as more digital information is being created and stored in huge, energy intensive data centres.

THE CHALLENGES RAISED BY DATA CENTRES Data centres are becoming increasingly important, as the amount of data generated in all walks of life increases. This means the sector’s energy efficiency is under increasing scrutiny. Data centres are currently responsible for 1.5% of global energy consumption, and it

is expected to reach 8% in 2030. Although, the industry has worked hard to increase computing capacity while controlling energy use, improving energy efficiency is not straightforward when it comes to designing data centres. We can’t prevent data centres from consuming more energy to produce more power in the future. Data shows the largest data centres produce over 100MW of energy, and it is anticipated that the increasing adoption of generative AI will double the energy consumption in data centres. However, addressing the rising concerns about sustainability must be a core area of focus for designers and data centre operators, as this will be key to reaching the goal of net zero by 2030.

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SELECTING THE RIGHT COOLING SOLUTION

It is key for businesses to ensure their IT systems allow them to quickly and easily access the data they need. The shortest outages can be extremely disruptive and greatly impact productivity and revenue. Therefore, IT servers must be kept in optimal conditions, which means adopting a reliable cooling solution. Finding areas for conserving energy is vital, and data centre cooling systems are a potential source of savings, with up to 40% of total energy consumption in a data centre coming from cooling systems. Adopting the right cooling solutions not only boosts productivity by reducing the risk of an outage, but also reduces the carbon footprint, enables the use of renewable energy sources, and minimises operational costs. Data centre operators aim to upgrade facility cooling systems to transition to low carbon, cost-effective solutions and future-proof against rising heat requirements. For example, Mitsubishi Electric offers DX Computer Room Air Conditioning (CRAC) solutions that control temperature and humidity in small and medium-sized enterprise data centres. They create an appropriate environment for IT systems while reducing energy consumption and running costs.

to be high, as low temperature rejected heat can be combined with heat pumps to raise the water temperature for domestic hot water and space heating in offices and homes. If we treat the ejected heat as a form of energy, then the combination of efficient cooling and heat pumps for modern ambient networks can make all the difference. This approach, known as an ambient heat loop or fifth generation heat network, saves energy and costs. For example, Dutch company, Switch Datacenters, has replaced its gas generator units with data centre heating to reduce its reliance on natural gas. Eventually, the organisation delivered 97% of its server heat to homes and offices to improve energy efficiency and allow customers to save power costs. Today’s increasing flow of digital data needs to be stored securely and in optimal conditions, but not at the price of the environment. Cutting gas emissions and energy consumption must remain among the top priorities. Harnessing energy efficient cooling by reusing ejected heat is a practical solution to minimise waste, reduce emissions and contribute to building a more sustainable and modern future. Mitsubishi, mitsubishielectric.com

REUSING HEAT TO AVOID WASTING ENERGY

With great power comes more heat. Data centres eject a lot of heat, and one of the most critical questions for the future will be to ensure that this heat doesn’t go to waste. This is an environmental and financial question – wasted heat means wasted energy, unnecessary costs and a significant impact on the planet. One development gaining popularity is reusing the heat from data centre servers to heat homes and buildings and cut CO2 emissions. Mitsubishi Electric expects the data centre heating market to be worth $2.5bn by 2025. The heat removed from the data centre servers can provide hot water to other buildings. Some high-temperature systems can also directly heat other buildings where appropriate. The temperature doesn’t have

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ENERGY MANAGEMENT

MEETING THE ENERGY CHALLENGE: THE OPPORTUNITIES FOR DATA CENTRES Jodie Eaton, CEO of Shell Energy, UK, reveals how data centres can turn energy challenges into opportunities by tightly managing consumption, maximising operational efficiencies, and embracing decarbonisation. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), data centre energy use increased by more than 60% between 2015 and 2021. With the popularity of cloud storage continuing to increase, energy supply security is proving pivotal to control heat generated by processors. While there have been some innovative projects adopted to reduce the amount of energy needed for cooling, for example, by using the heat for district heating systems or a variety of niche applications, the pressure on data centres to control their energy consumption remains high. Tightly managing overheads is not only vital to profitability, but in some cases, survival. This requires intricate management of consumption, as well as maximising process efficiencies wherever possible, to keep servers running and costs down.

But while market volatility is proving challenging, regulation is also focusing the minds of data centre managers as reductions in energy use, minimising carbon emissions, and accelerating towards net zero increasingly become a key measure of performance. It’s important to remember, however, that while these elements may all seem like additional pressure, they all bring with them an opportunity for efficiency and progress towards sustainability goals.

MONITORING AND MEASUREMENT

Measuring energy usage is vitally important, as it provides an agreed baseline against which to benchmark progress. Traditionally, the set points for temperature in data centres have been between 18 and 21°C

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(with specific ranges agreed for humidity). In the UK, data centres use Power Utilisation Effectiveness (PUE) to gauge consumption. This figure is based on the ratio of total facility energy divided by the amount of energy used to power the ICT systems and is expressed as a number. As a result, data centres in the UK typically operate between 1.5 and 1.8, with the EU average being 1.8. In centres operating at a PUE of 2 and above, more energy is being used to provide the supporting infrastructure that is supplied to the ICT equipment. This suggests that more energy is being used to ‘cool’ the infrastructure than is strictly necessary – so is a useful measure of efficiency.

MANAGING SUSTAINABILITY

In 2022, the UK was ranked the third most popular destination in the world for data centres, with 456 sites ranging from

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someone’s back bedroom to ‘hyperscale’ or cloud facilities containing hundreds of thousands of servers. Due to huge demand, these types of facilities are currently being built at a remarkable pace globally. In order to make meaningful progress when it comes to energy management and decarbonisation, data centres must measure the amount of energy by their IT estate to fully understand current consumption. Next, it’s important to measure PUE. Exploring options to contract renewable energy will support decarbonisation goals, whether this is through on-site generation, renewable energy supply contracts, or power purchase agreements (PPAs). An increasingly popular option for data centres, PPAs offer transparency around investment in renewable energy as well as improved long-term certainty of pricing. There are solutions that can be tailored to demand across both single and multiple sites.

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QUICK ENERGY WINS

Many of the quick wins, in terms of greater energy efficiencies, are remarkably simple. Some operations run well - established cooling systems which may be very inefficient in terms of energy use. Knowing your current PUE may provide you with new information that will help you make informed decision on issues such as cooling systems.

Likewise, real-time monitoring of energy use by site will enable anomalies to be quickly identified and dealt with. Another option is the installation of occupation sensors and other smart technologies that have the potential to adjust energy use to real-time requirements. One example is the ability to automatically switch off lights in empty rooms and adjust heating levels in accordance with building use. Every small change can add up to making a big difference. Any savings made can be invested in more efficient equipment and technologies. There is no single solution when it comes to optimising energy efficiency and every business will benefit from bringing in expertise to identify the steps it can take in both the short and long term to bring energy use under tight control. There is still a huge role that reduction can play in preserving the competitiveness of the UK data centre sector. Shell Energy’s experience with data centres goes beyond supplying renewable energy. The team works in close partnership with providers to develop robust energy strategies that deliver on both cost saving and sustainability goals.

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For many data centres, the priority is to decarbonise operations and mitigate environmental impact. A challenge where partnership and collaboration with their energy supply can make a critical difference to the success or failure of plans to transform energy use.

MAXIMISING DATA CENTRE EFFICIENCY FOR A LEADING TELECOMS BRAND

With five UK data centres and office facilities housing more than 2,000 team members, one of Shell Energy’s customers is working hard to decarbonise both its network and connectivity operations. After reviewing its energy supply contract, the company turned to Shell Energy for the provision of 100% renewable electricity. First agreed as a fixed-term contract, which subsequently evolved into a flexible procurement agreement, 30GWh of renewable energy is supplied to its data

centres and office facilities per annum. As part of the partnership, its team can also access half hourly pricing data through a dedicated online portal. Representing a true partnership, Shell Energy goes further than just supplying power, with the team working in close partnership to guide the customer’s future energy strategy, providing a dedicated point of contact and personal consultation. A member of the data centre engineering team comments, “Since partnering with Shell Energy, we’ve been delighted with the service provided. We’ve built a good relationship and our progress towards net zero objectives continues at pace. Alongside guaranteeing the supply of 100% renewable electricity, their collaborative approach has proven hugely beneficial to accelerating our decarbonisation activities.” Shell Energy, shellenergy.co.uk

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ENGINEERING TECHNOLOGY

ENERGY MANAGEMENT

TACKLING SUSTAINABILITY AND CREATING A GREENER FUTURE FOR THE DATA CENTRE INDUSTRY David Watkins, Solutions Director for VIRTUS Data Centres, dispels various misconceptions around data centre facilities and their impact on the environment. Even if you don’t work in the data centre industry, you might have seen some negative headlines relating to the sector over the past couple of months. It was widely reported in London that Thames Water was looking into the impact of data centres on water supplies, and this news was closely followed by a story on new housing development potentially being halted by electricity capacity issues, purportedly due to the building of data centres. People in the industry know that both of these issues were sensationalised by the main stream media, with limited investigation as to whether data centres were actually the culprit for their accusations, and with even less knowledge as to

how data centres are built and operated, or the true consumption of either utility. The truth is, that although it is clear that data centres are significant users of electric power, the designs and ability to have multiple customers make them a far more efficient user of energy than the alternative – often older technology housed in thousands of on-premise locations. Indeed, the data centre industry has long been committed to ensuring sustainability and efficiency, and digital infrastructure assets have a central role to play in the transition to a low-carbon economy and sustainable environments. What is clear though, is that the industry has

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work to do in terms of educating the wider population on how these facilities work, their importance to modern life, and improve the understanding of all the work that has and is being undertaken to mitigate data centres’ environmental impact.

MYTH 1: BEING GREEN IS EXPENSIVE

This is a misconception which needs to be dispelled. Thanks to tax breaks, incentives and diminishing costs for renewable energy, it’s more affordable, and even cost-effective, for data centres to be a green and sustainable option for businesses. The energy VIRTUS buys is certified from fully renewable, carbon zero sources. As well as using efficient cooling systems, it installs charging points for electric vehicles and typically locates close to public transport locations. What’s more, the buildings themselves have sustainability accreditation from BREEAM (Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Method). And all this doesn’t just improve green credentials,

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it increases efficiencies and helps to reduce operating costs.

MYTH 2: DATA CENTRES USE THE SAME WATER SUPPLY AS FOR HOUSEHOLD USE

Those outside of the industry could be forgiven for thinking that data centres use enormous amounts of water to cool equipment and keep facilities working efficiently. It’s true that more providers are turning to chilled water systems as an economical, effective and efficient way to maintain cooling. But importantly, the water used for cooling systems is often sourced sustainably, from bore holes or using impurified water. Not the supply that people rely upon for household use. What’s more, the majority of large data centres use ‘closed loop’ chilled water systems, meaning that water is charged into the system during construction and then continually circulated within a facility, rather than needing new water consistently pumped into the building.

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ENERGY MANAGEMENT

MYTH 3: IT’S IMPOSSIBLE TO REDUCE DATA CENTRES’ POWER CONSUMPTION

It’s true that the data centre industry requires significant power to run. But what the headlines fail to mention is that energy consumption is another area where significant environmental strides have already been made. Indeed, data centre operators are increasingly sourcing direct energy where possible from renewable sources. And encouragingly, renewable energy is now not only more affordable than fossil fuels, but also more reliable too. And there’s more progress to be celebrated in this field too, as some data centre operators move away from Renewable

Energy Certificates (RECs) and instead embrace Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) with renewable generation operators, which helps to increase the availability of renewables and support the UK government’s net zero commitment. Investment in PPAs delivers increased volumes of renewable energy to the grid, creates ‘green’ jobs and delivers cost certainty for operators and competitive pricing for customers that is not subject to energy market volatility. And let’s consider PUE - data centre power sustainability revolves around an efficiency metric known as Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE). Specifically, PUE is the ratio of the total amount of electricity consumed by a data centre to the amount of electricity delivered to its equipment. PUE is always

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greater than, or equal to one – and the closer the PUE is to one, the more efficient the data centre. According to the latest survey from the Uptime Institute, the average PUE of a data centre is 1.59, and this figure has been steadily declining since 2007, when it was 2.5, and 2013, when it was 1.65.

MYTH 4: PROVIDERS AREN’T DRIVING PROGRESS IN SUSTAINABILITY INITIATIVES

It is an innovative, forward-looking industry, and progress is happening all the time. Data centre operators are publicly committing to ambitious targets through initiatives like the Climate Neutral Data Centre Pact. This pact commits signatories to ensuring their data centres are climate neutral by setting measurable targets for 2025 and 2030, such as through purchasing 100% carbon-free energy, prioritising water conservation and looking for ways to recycle heat.

MEDIA KIT 2023

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The industry’s progress towards these green goals is evident when we look at sustainability statistics. Currently, many experts estimate that data storage and transmission to and from data centres use 1% of global electricity. But this share has hardly changed since 2010, even though the number of internet users has doubled, and global internet traffic has increased 15-fold since. This is testament to the innovative approach the industry is taking to drive sustainability. So, let’s be clear. Data centres are not the invisible and energy consuming monsters the headlines would have us believe. Instead, they are the foundation of our digital world, a world that has become essential to our daily lives. They are significant drivers of progress too. Over the last decade, we’ve seen a visible increase in the number of green initiatives being pursued by some of the largest tech companies in the world, and the data centre industry is at the forefront of this change. VIRTUS, virtusdatacentres.com

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ENERGY MANAGEMENT

DATA CENTRES CAN STAND THE HEAT – HERE’S HOW AND WHY THEY SHOULD Data centre managers are wasting energy on over-cooling their facilities and it’s damaging the planet. Mark Fenton, Senior Product Marketing Manager at Cadence, discusses how facilities can be run at hotter temperatures to reserve energy supplies and save on both running costs and the planet. Data centres play a crucial role in our digital society, but the overprovisioning of cooling employed by many facility managers has resulted in energy waste and environmental damage. This doesn’t have to continue. There is an option to run data centres more efficiently, whilst maintaining a safe level for the equipment, all with the help of a digital twin. One option is to raise temperatures within the data centre.

THE BENEFITS TO RUNNING HOTTER Data centres should be running at higher temperatures as it leads to significant energy savings and reduced operational costs. Cooling infrastructure is more efficient at

higher temperatures, meaning you can squeeze more capacity out of fewer units. This may result in using fewer compressors on a chiller, for example, and consequently, reduced energy consumption. Additionally, operating at higher temperatures aligns with sustainability goals. With the upcoming EU Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive, meeting sustainability regulations will be at the forefront of decision-makers’ minds. For systems taking advantage of free cooling, the warmer you go, the more free cooling hours you can use, which translates to significant energy savings. For systems using outside air directly (or indirectly) in the data centre, supplying warmer air directly offers an opportunity to run the facility without the backup mechanical cooling switched on.

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MAKING THE PRACTICE SAFE WITH A DIGITAL TWIN

A TROPICAL DATA CENTRE PROJECT: CHALLENGING TRADITIONAL COOLING METHODS A tropical data centre project conducted in Singapore showcased how facilities can be run effectively at higher temperatures. The ASHRAE Standard, commonly followed in data centres, has proved inadequate for tropical regions due to the limitations caused by the extreme humidity and temperatures outside. To address this, the project explored the feasibility of allowing facilities to operate in tropical conditions, observing the longevity of hardware and the potential energy savings achieved. Based on the findings, the Singapore government released a new sustainability standard for operating in tropical climates. This provides guidelines for gradually increasing operating temperatures to 26°C and above, resulting in significant cooling energy savings. For every 1°C increase in operating temperature, data centres can potentially benefit from a 2% to 5% reduction in cooling energy consumption. While the hardware replacement cycle may be shortened with this approach, the significant energy savings garnered by running data centres at slightly elevated temperatures outweigh the costs, making it a financially viable and environmentally responsible approach.

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As data centres move towards operating at higher temperatures, digital twin technology can ensure that they are doing so safely, for both the physical equipment and the businesses that rely on them. This is crucial because running facilities at hotter temperatures does pose some risks, particularly regarding chip performance and throttling. The impact of this varies depending on factors such as chip type, specific hardware configurations and workload. For example, for high frequency trading operations, where milliseconds matter, too great an increase in temperature would slow down operations to a prohibited level. Whereas, in less time-critical applications, such as email servers, slightly slower speeds resulting from higher temperatures would not compromise performance. With a 3D virtual replica of the data centre managers can achieve a holistic understanding of how the additional heat is impacting equipment, its performance, and what the knock-on effects could be on the operations reliant on the facility. They can then take appropriate steps to rectify any performance issues before they emerge. What’s more, by leveraging real-time data and simulations, managers can proactively monitor for and manage risks such as downtime from over-heated equipment or even fires.

EMBRACING HIGHER TEMPERATURES IS THE FUTURE

As governments and regulatory bodies introduce sustainability standards, facility managers around the world should look at examples, such as the Singapore project, for how they can run their data centres at hotter temperatures safely. When turning these learnings into practice, they must balance both the risk and their comfort levels with the benefits – and data centre digital twins are a key tool for achieving this. When done right, managers will be able to run their facilities hotter and more safely, all while contributing to a greener, more sustainable future for digital infrastructure. Cadence, cadence.com

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TESTING & TEST EQUIPMENT

POE: A PRACTICAL USE FOR NON-OPTICAL CABLING IN DATA CENTRES It is expected that more PoE-compatible copper cabling may appear in data centre infrastructures. Andrew Sedman RCDD, Head of Technical Support & Training, and Matthias Gerber, Market Manager Office Cabling, R&M, share some tips to simplify the process of selecting a solution that supports PoE. An article on copper cabling in a data centre magazine? That might seem odd. However, with the advent of more and more sensors, actuators, LEDs and other devices operating on IP networks, copper doesn’t only offer benefits in last-metre DC connectivity, but also brings advantages when it comes to powering network equipment. Fibre optic cabling is effective for spanning greater lengths, is lighter, has a smaller bend radius, and doesn’t require shielding in general. Copper, however, can be used to connect servers in racks, link switches and transfer data at high bandwidths. For decades, multi-gigabit Ethernet over twisted pair copper has been widely used as transport cabling for shorter runs at server, switch and top of rack layers. Partly because copper can be easily and effectively terminated on site, is cost-efficient, and requires less power and cooling. Copper Ethernet cabling also supports PoE. This makes it possible to provide power to devices without separate power cabling and

outlets, especially via PoE-ready switches, wherever outlets are unavailable. This makes it possible to integrate devices neatly into racks and other infrastructure elements without messy cabling or adapters. UPS backup for the devices can be easily integrated by simply backing up the PoE switch with the UPS. No separate power supply cabling is needed to distribute the UPS power to the various connected devices. Using PoE, power as well as network connectivity can be delivered using PoE-enabled Ethernet switches, or with mid-span PoE injectors that add PoE capability to non-PoE switches. Numerous devices in the data centre, such as IoT-related sensors, actuators and building infrastructure components, don’t require fibre-speed data transmission, but require power and a data connection. Whereas the original PoE standard IEEE 802.3af supported 12.95W, the latest version can deliver up to 90W on every PoE port.

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TESTING & TEST EQUIPMENT

The TIA Standard for Data Centers ANSI/TIA-942-A recommends that data centre operators use LED lighting. PoE-supported LED reduces power consumption and can be managed via lighting control software for maximum efficiency. By planning in an appropriate way and choosing suitable products, a cabling system can meet the high requirements of the latest PoE standard. Although, it is important to keep these factors in mind:

REMOTE POWER CATEGORIES

To ensure long-term reliable network operation, the ISO/IEC 14763-2 and EN 50174-2 cabling standards have been extended to include Remote Power supply categories RP1, RP2 and RP3. These new categories define requirements prior to installation and after commissioning to keep cabling and PoE running safely. The RP category is determined by the maximum allowable average DC current in a cable bundle. This is important to fulfil warranties and prevent expensive, time-consuming equipment replacements and repairs. According to ISO/IEC 14763-2, a Remote Power Category must be specified for each installation. Planning, installation and product selection must support the specified category. Each cable in a bundle must be able to fully support the highest PoE level. In RP3 cabling, the attenuation budget for data transmission should always be respected and the permissible temperature in the cable should not be exceeded. This can be achieved in part by managing the maximum bundle sizes, proper cabling components selection and adjusting link lengths to the installation.

RESISTANCE UNBALANCE One of the challenges PoE technology introduces is the issue of resistance unbalance. In a PoE system, power is transmitted over a minimum of two pairs of wires in an Ethernet cable. However, if there is an imbalance in the resistance between wires in a pair, or between pairs, unequal current distribution may occur in the baluns of the Ethernet transceivers, and as a result, saturation effects in the ferrite cores of the balun can lead to disruption of the data transmission. Consequently, when using remote power supply (PoE), resistance symmetry is an absolute precondition. It is, therefore, vital to measure this and ensure it remains stable throughout every channel, end-to-end. Resistance unbalance in cables may also increase the heat generated in a cable and invalidate RP3 certification. Therefore, thermal stress can only be managed if this resistance imbalance is kept to a minimum.

SINGLE PAIR ETHERNET (SPE) SPE - a cable configuration that uses one pair of copper wires for data transmission enables higher connection density in devices, distributors, and outlets, takes up only a small amount of space, and reduces potential fire load. In data centres, it could provide high density solution for KVM (Keyboard-Video-Mouse) over Ethernet. Leading manufacturers are now looking into developing KVM solutions based on SPE. R&M, rdm.com

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CHOOSING THE RIGHT TESTING TECHNOLOGY FOR YOUR DATA CENTRE Testing of critical infrastructure in a data centre can be complex and in-depth. Andy Hirst, Managing Director of Critical Infrastructures at Sudlows, provides a solution and unlocks the evolution of two testing technologies. Multiple testing technologies and equipment are available and deployed when testing data centre infrastructure. However, two of the technologies that Sudlows have seen developed in recent years, which have become critical pieces of test equipment, are load simulators (load banks) and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) modelling. The testing of a mission critical facility, such as a data centre, is obviously of paramount importance. However, once the facility is energised and fully populated, there are limitations on a testing regime. For the life of the facility, therefore, outside the usual electrical and mechanical testing procedures, before and after energising systems, it is critical that the facility is fully commissioned whilst all parts of the infrastructure are working together and fully integrated. The heat simulators that used to replicate the load of the IT servers have been developed over the years from crude basic heaters to true IT simulators that deliver accurate replication of the loads that will be installed into the facility.

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TESTING & TEST EQUIPMENT

Clients want to have the confidence that their facility will not only be able to run with the MWs of power needed for the data hall IT load, but also be cooled in an efficient and sustainable manner, whether that is to be ASHRAE compliant or achieving the desired designed PUE. This is what led Sudlows to develop the A:LIST, which are heat simulators that incorporate the latest offerings to deliver a testing regime not possible with standard technologies. When carrying out the commissioning, it is important to have the flexibility to ensure real life simulation, having the ability to stage cabinet power loads from low density 1kW up to 18kW and beyond, and to be able to simulate rapid simulation of different loads with partial system failures, whilst ensuring realistic delta-T settings. Due to the innovation of this commissioning technology, enabling various scenarios to be simulated at one time, the heat load network can be controlled from one place such as a desktop screen. Along with the heat simulation technology, due to the important part CFD modelling has played, in not only the design, but the modelling of changes required within a facility, its software enables more accurate data, supporting and ensuring optimisation of all designs carried out. Due to the high dependence on new technologies and innovation of existing technologies, CFD modelling has become more important to ensure that the underlying physics of the data centre are compliant and of equal importance. It also provides operators with a thermal description of the running conditions, with reassurance that the facility will perform as it has been designed to, especially if innovative IT technology is being deployed.

CFD technology development has morphed over the years into an incredible tool, not only for validating temperatures or air flows, but it is also used for modelling generator exhaust flows for particulate and thermal profiling, considering the direction and impact through contour and vector plots and 3D images. It is when upgrading, replacing or adding infrastructure to existing facilities that CFD modelling software excels. As there is no compromise on the importance of the uptime of a data centre due to the commercial penalties and possible risk to reputation, together with rising power costs and the importance of carbon reduction and sustainability driven by the UK Government’s net zero target by 2050, it is clear that it should not just be looking at the choice of test instrument or software that is to be used in validating the facility, but also at the best instruments and software available. As higher density facilities come online, alongside the importance of a data centres’ impact on carbon footprint, it is even more of a priority that these facilities are accurately modelled to improve efficiencies and sustainability, whether it is a new facility or upgrades that are being carried out. These two technologies are not new - they have advanced over recent years, enabling accurate and detailed reporting which ultimately ensures facility uptime and client confidence. The key consideration, whether it is to assist with validating the design of the facility or the commissioning, is that the technology used is an accurate simulation of the IT servers being deployed and the infrastructure supporting the facility. Sudlows, sudlows.com

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PRODUCTS

CENTIEL LEADS INDUSTRY WITH SUSTAINABLE UPS LAUNCH TO HELP DATA CENTRES ACHIEVE NET ZERO TARGETS

Centiel UK has launched its new uninterruptible power supply (UPS), StratusPower, to provide complete peace of mind in relation to power availability, while helping data centres achieve net zero targets. Centiel’s latest innovation is said to lead the industry, as StratusPower shares all the benefits of its award-winning three phase, true modular UPS CumulusPower - including ‘9 nines’ (99.9999999%) availability to effectively eliminate system downtime; class leading 97.1% online efficiency to minimise running costs; true ‘hot swap’ modules to eliminate human error in operation; and now also includes long-life components to improve sustainability. David Bond, Chairman, Centiel UK, confirms, “Historically, Centiel’s innovation has led to the creation of one of the most efficient and available

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UPS solutions on the market in CumulusPower. For the past four years, we have been working to ensure our latest UPS is now as sustainable as possible too. “Like all our UPS, StratusPower is manufactured at our factory in Switzerland. However, uniquely, it includes even higher quality components, so instead of replacing filter capacitors and cooling fans every four years, they now need replacing every 15 years, or just once during their entire 30 year design life. As a data centre has a design life of typically 25 to 30 years, StratusPower will last as long as the data centre. Furthermore, at end of life, StratusPower can also be almost 100% recycled.” The three-phase modular UPS StratusPower now covers a power range from 50 to 1,500kW in one cabinet and can be paralleled for 3,750kW of uninterrupted, clean power, which is perfect for data centres. UPS cabinets are designed with scalability and flexibility in mind, and future load changes are easily accommodated by adding or removing UPS modules as required. A data centre will never outgrow a well specified StratusPower UPS, and it can be constantly rightsized to ensure it always operates at the optimal point in its efficiency curve. Centiel, centiel.co.uk

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