Mission Critical Power

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ISSUE 16: April 2018

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Ageing infrastructure is costing public money. An EU funded study of public sector data centres reveals the need to improve energy efficiency

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A lack of adequate metrics means that businesses do not always understand what they are signing up for when entering data centre contracts

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Is data centre power going to fall? Ian Bitterlin believes the future is less apocalyptic than previously predicted

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IN THIS ISSUE

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16

Cost of ageing infrastructure

Power usage

Public sector data centres must improve energy efficiency and reduce waste

Ian Bitterlin explains why he thinks the future looks ‘less apocalyptic’ than predicted

12 Contract risks Why is there no key performance indicator for one of the most important measures of performance?

22 Resilience How resilient is your hybrid infrastructure? The Uptime Institute can tell you...

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34

missioncriticalpower.uk

ISSUE 16: April 2018

08

Ageing infrastructure is costing public money. An EU funded study of public sector data centres reveals the need to improve energy efficiency

12

A lack of adequate metrics means that businesses do not always understand what they are signing up for when entering data centre contracts

16

Is data centre power going to fall? Ian Bitterlin believes the future is less apocalyptic than previously predicted

Demand-side response

Switchgear

How can participation in DSR also increase resilience?

When Amdocs had less than 90 days to move to a new site, it relied on Eaton to deliver the UPS and switchgear on time

14 Front Cover Schneider’s Oscar-worthy prefabricated data centre

Comment

4

Data Centre Trends

20

Switchgear

33

News

6

Resilience

22

Data Centre Optimisation

41

Energy Efficiency

8

Demand-side Response

24

Products

47

Risk Management

12

UPS Systems

28

Q&A

50

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April 2018 MCP

4

COMMENT

Is the tide turning for DSR? After returning from a visit to Data Centre World this week, I have a sense that attitudes to demandside response among critical sites are starting to change. Having spoken to a fair few data centres in the past year, the main concern raised has been that of risk. While aggregators and companies involved with DSR have sought to allay these fears, ultimately, data centres have been resistant to the idea. But this may be starting to change.

I am starting to see some data centre operators warming to the prospect, although it is still early days. Eaton presented a case study at Data Centre World involving Webaxys, a hosting company and telecom operator located in Normandy, France. The data centre is engaging with DSR using UPS and battery storage as part of a wider strategy to power the site with green energy.

It is rare for data centres to talk openly about what they are doing, especially as the argument given by colocation companies for not participating is often that their customers would not be happy for them to add ‘risk’.

In fact, the Webaxys data centre found the reverse to be true. Customers welcomed the idea and rented space on the basis that their racks were powered by green energy.

Sustainability, it appears, was a deciding factor in their decision on where to place their business.

Walking around the exhibition, I also spoke to a data centre operator from Scandinavia,

Editor Louise Frampton louise@energystmedia.com t: 020 34092043 m: 07824317819 Managing Editor Tim McManan-Smith tim@energystmedia.com Design and production Paul Lindsell production@energystmedia.com m: 07790 434813

MCP April 2018

Sales director Steve Swaine steve@energystmedia.com t: 020 3714 4451 m: 07818 574300

who explained that they were using hydroelectric power at their site. They were happy to discuss the fact that they generated revenue by exporting excess energy back to the grid and I was surprised to be met with such an open and candid response. In the UK, I hear rumours of data centres that are successfully engaging with DSR, but finding one that will talk about it publicly is another matter altogether.

One of the barriers to adoption is the fact that the industry is cloaked in secrecy and NDAs, which means that lessons are not being shared; suppliers are unable to evidence their successes and building confidence in approaches that deviate from the norm is proving a challenge.

The data centre sector is often described as a conservative industry but the technology is now available to enable participation, while maintaining control, and people are showing signs of being more open to considering DSR as an option. However, there is a long way to go.

We have surveyed mission critical sites for their views on DSR and have been speaking to a wide range of thought leaders to gain an insight into the challenges and opportunities. In this issue, there is a special focus on the issues around DSR, which will be followed by the launch of an in depth report at the The Energyst Event, taking place at the National Motorcycle Museum (17-18 April).

A panel of experts will debate the issues, at the event, and The Mission Critical Power Demand-side Response Report will be freely available to download after the launch. Our aim is to uncover the answers to some of your burning questions regarding risk and reward.

Louise Frampton, editor

Energyst Media Ltd, PO BOX 420, Reigate, Surrey RH2 2DU Registered in England & Wales – 8667229 Registered at Stationers Hall – ISSN 0964 8321 Printed by Warners (Midlands) plc

Commercial manager Daniel Coyne T: 02037517863 M: 07557109476 E: daniel@energystmedia.com

No part of this publication may be reproduced without the written permission of the publishers. The opinions expressed in this publication are not necessarily those of the publishers.

Mission Critical Power is a controlled circulation magazine available to selected professionals interested in energy, who fall within the publishers terms of control. For those outside of these terms, annual subscriptions is £60 including postage in the UK. For all subscriptions outside the UK the annual subscription is £120 including postage.

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missioncriticalpower.uk

6

NEWS & COMMENT

Experts tackle skill gaps at DCW Data Centre World (colocated with Cloud Expo, Big Data World and Smart IOT) welcomed a record-breaking numbers of visitors from across the entire IT ecosystem.

Hosted in London, this tech event, now in its 10th year, demonstrated that investment in the UK data centre industry continues at pace, despite uncertainty over Brexit.

GDC Technics, a leading aircraft modification centre providing maintenance on Boeing and Airbus aircrafts, announced at Cloud Expo that it had made the decision to move its IT infrastructure from Munich, Germany, to the UK, with London being a prime location. With Volta Data Centre’s operations team support, GDC has been able to complete the entire relocation project within four days, with no downtime affecting its multiple on-going projects.

High on the agenda at Data Centre World was the risk of outages caused by human error and the need to tackle key skills gaps in the industry. Professor Robert Tozer, from London Southbank University, revealed that the university has been

working with industry to fully understand exactly what these skills gaps are.

Speaking to Mission Critical Power, Professor Tozer commented: “Tech UK and 451 Research have identified a need for training. The growth in data centres in the UK, alone, is around 10-15% year on year.

Around 40,000 people work in data centres in the UK. Events like Data Centre World attract around 20,000 visitors, so you can start to get a feel for the numbers.

“The industry has been growing and growing. The problem is that academia is producing professionals, each

with a specialisation, whether it is in mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, or IT, but they have no idea of the context of the data centre. People are being educated in silos.”

He unveiled plans to address the skills gaps, identified by industry leaders, with the launch of a new Data Centres MSc. Continuing the theme of knowledge gaps in the sector, Simon Brady, Vertiv's Head of Data Centre Optimisation, EMEA, highlighted the need to tackle poor understanding of thermal optimisation and energy wastage in data centres.

He pointed out that 29% of unplanned outages are due

to thermal issues, while the average data centre cooling utilisation is under 38%. More than 35% of energy consumed by data centres is attributed to cooling, so getting it right can have a dramatic impact on the bottom line.

Ali Moinuddin, Uptime Institute's MD (Europe), also highlighted that coporate responsibility is becoming more important for data centre operators and their customers, and this is driving a focus on energy efficient IT: “It takes leadership and commitment to deliver results in terms of efficiency and sustainability within an organisation,” commented Moinuddin.

Significant savings can be achieved by tackling under utilisation of servers, refreshing technology and employing automated asset management, he pointed out. LinkedIn, for example, worked with Uptime Institute to deliver significant improvements and was awarded Uptime Institute's Efficient IT (EIT) Stamp of Approval. Next year's Data Centre World will takes place on 12 -13 March 2019, at ExCel, London.

Pilot project explores grid balancing with UPS Eaton has announced the first pilot project of its recently launched UPS-as-a-Reserve (UPSaaR) solution. Svenska kraftnät, a Swedish electricity transmission system operator, has selected the Spring service by Fortum, a leading energy provider in the Nordic and Baltic countries, and Eaton’s UPSaaR to trial how the technologies help to balance Sweden’s power grid.

Svenska kraftnät has selected the service for a pilot project researching the use of energy storage for demand flexibility.

Fortum will offer 0.1MW of UPS capacity to Svenska kraftnät’s frequency-controlled disturbance

MCP April 2018

reserve. This reserve activates automatically and quickly if there is a drop in the electricity network’s frequency. Eaton’s UPSaaR technology gives data centre operators an opportunity to work with energy providers to momentarily reduce the power demands of the data centre and even return power to the grid. A data centre could expect to raise up to ¤50,000 per MW of power allocated to grid support per year.

Mike Byrnes, Eaton EMEA, commented: “Svenska kraftnät has recognised the benefits but it is not alone. Large data centre operators, including many in the UK, are sitting

up and taking notice too.

“With data centres responsible for 3% of global energy use, we’re seeing a push to move from traditional sources to using more green power reserves. As experts predict that data centres will consume roughly treble the amount of electricity by 2027, data centres need to consider implementing technology which could accelerate green energy production. Providing more flexibility to the grid will do just that. UK data centre operators have to consider how best to futureproof their own operations and ensure sufficient – and sustainable – power in the future.”

missioncriticalpower.uk

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Morrison powers way to £2m University of Sheffield upgrade Morrison Utility Connections, a major projects independent connection provider (ICP) and part of Morrison Utility Services, has been awarded a £2m power upgrade project by the University of Sheffield to install electrical infrastructure into its Advanced Manufacturing Campus.

The scope of works will include the design and installation of new 11kV substations including all electrical and civil works.

Excavation of cable trenches and installation of 11kV cable will take place in both the public highway and private land to connect the substations and to provide future capacity

for further substations to be connected in the future.

Keith Lilley, director of estates and facilities management and IT, said: “This is a critical infrastructure project for the University of Sheffield’s rapidly growing Advanced Manufacturing Campus and we are pleased

to have appointed Morrison Utility Connections to deliver the contract for us. Ensuring that we have an efficient and reliable energy supply will be vital in supporting the development of this initiative, which is already delivering a significant economic impact for the region.”

Keeping pace with the ‘smart era’ and IIOT Industry 4.0 and The Industrial Internet of Things (IIOT) present huge opportunities for British industry during the next decade, and the inaugural Smart Industry Expo 2018 will leave visitors in no doubt that the ‘smartening’ process of industry and manufacturing is going to change the face of global industry forever.

The inaugural Smart Industry Expo will take place alongside Drives & Controls, Fluid Power & Systems, Plant & Asset Management, and Air-Tech Exhibitions at Birmingham’s NEC from 10-12 April 2018. The event will cover all sectors of industry from industrial automation and

energy to predictive maintenance, supply, power transmission & control and R&D. Visitors will be able to view a wide range of technologies, including UPS systems, industrial enclosures, power distribution and enclosure climate control, as well as pre-configured micro data centres. Delegates attending the Knowledge Hub seminar programme, can participate in discussion of smart grid technologies and other hot topics such as ‘Cyber Security and the Smart Era’. For the full programme, including session synopses, and to register, please visit: smartindustry-expo.com

Shake-up of UPS maintenance promises Riello UPS has announced a new maintenance plan that promises not just an emergency response within a set timeframe but also a guaranteed fix time.

The Diamond UPS maintenance package, launched at Data Centre World, commits to having a certified UPS engineer on a customer’s site within four hours of an emergency being reported plus missioncriticalpower.uk

a guaranteed fix inside a further eight hours, to offer customers ultimate insurance against damaging downtime, while also providing a much-needed shakeup for the sector.

Riello UPS general manager Leo Craig explained: “There are far too many ‘ifs and buts’ with UPS maintenance contracts at the moment; lofty promises that often don’t live up to expectations, with

a lack of clarity over what’s covered or hugely restrictive terms and conditions. In many cases the contracts benefit the provider more than the customer. Unethical practice is a strong accusation to make.

But unfortunately, that’s what has been going on across much of the sector. It’s completely unacceptable and it’s something we’ll continue to take a stand against.”

News in brief Plans for new UK data centre announced Zenium has announced plans to develop a new, purpose-built data centre in the UK – London Three.

The new facility will help meet growing demand in the region for high quality technical space. Situated on the Slough Trading Estate, a premier data centre location in the UK and owned by Segro, London Three will offer 3,670 sq m of worldclass technical space with an IT load of 9MW. Each data suite will be customised to meet client specifications and will offer industry-leading energy efficiencies including the latest adiabatic cooling technology and low PUEs. New chair for Centiel The UK subsidiary of Swissbased UPS manufacturer Centiel SA has appointed David Bond as its new chairman. Bond, who has worked in the UPS industry for more than 30 years and is co-author of the UPS Handbook, will also join the board of Centiel SA. Bond was previously the managing director of Benning UK and Emerson Network Power.

Onsite generation for Irish data centre market Siemens has partnered with CES Energy to provide onsite energy solutions for tech multinationals locating their data centres in Ireland.

Onsite generation will offer a reliable power supply to meet data centre timeframes, as well as reducing costs and carbon footprint.

Additionally, combining heat recovery with renewable options such as solar or bio gas will ensure that onsite generation assists the country in reaching emissions targets.

There is also potential to channel excess heat and power to supply local homes and businesses.

April 2018 MCP

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ENERGY EFFICIENCY

Is ageing infrastructure costing the public sector?

At Data Centre Summit, Eureca project coordinator Rabih Bashroush outlined the lessons learned from evaluating more than 350 public sector data centres and found that there is significant room to improve energy efficiency and reduce waste. Louise Frampton reports

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U Commission-funded research has suggested that ageing infrastructure and under-utilisation of servers is wasting energy and public money. The Eureca project identified electricity savings of >45GWh per year; with public sector spending representing about 19% of GDP in the EU, tackling the key issues around data centre energy usage by public sector organisations could have a major impact.

So what are the key issues that need to be addressed? According to Eureca project coordinator Rabih Bashroush, an evaluation of more than 350 public sector data centres by Eureca identified some of the major challenges facing the sector, including the high costs of maintenance.

Many public sector data centres are hosted in listed buildings and in prime locations that are MCP April 2018

expensive, while organisations also struggle to maintain the required uptime, due to ageing infrastructure. This is further compounded by the fact that it is difficult to recruit and retain the required skills set within the public sector. Rightsizing new builds is also a challenge; while best practice design guidelines may be adhered to, data centres can end up being inefficient if they are oversized.

Procurement is another issue in the public sector, as there are often many stakeholders with competing objectives. The sector tends to use templates that have been used before, rather than introducing energy efficiency requirements to tender documents. An added factor is the fact that data centre managers are not incentivised to invest in energy saving measures; they do not

get to see the energy bill or see the end result of initiatives.

Bashroush added that the technical landscape today is also complex, with many different options available to choose from – whether it is building a new data centre, using colocation services or moving to the cloud.

This makes decision-making

49GWh+ Annual savings that could be achieved by public sector data centres even more challenging for public sector managers.

The Eureca project has found wide variation in PUE in public sector data centres – from 1.5 up to 7. The smaller server rooms, which

constitutes the majority of public sector data centres, are at the higher end of PUE. Data centres with the lowest PUE are those that are hosted in colocation facilities.

“We found there is an association between the size of the data centre, its age and the PUE. It is much harder for smaller and older the data centres to be efficient.

Conversely, the majority of regulation and policy has focused on energy efficiency and large data centres. Yet the vast majority of public data centres (80%) have less than 25 racks,” commented Bashroush.

As only about 3% have more than 125 racks, this policy focus has had very little impact on the public sector.

“This isn’t good news… The best way to make them [small server rooms] more efficient is missioncriticalpower.uk

9 Figure 1: Server distribution (Source: https://www.dceureka.eu) > five years old

7%

40%

93%

60%

Compute capacity

to consolidate distributed IT...

This is easier said than done,” Bashroush continued.

He pointed out that the main area that the public sector needs to focus on is servers and utilisation.

Eureca analysed the energy consumption breakdown by IT equipment type and found that 65% was attributed to servers, 25% storage and 10% networking. Eureca has calculated that the average cost of hosting a server in the public sector is ¤14,000 (£12,500) – not including software licence costs. This takes into consideration energy consumption, maintenance, rent, manpower and support, among other factors.

Bashroush explained that, on average, there is a server for every 20 public sector employees: “This allows us to make some interesting calculations. For example, if we take the UK, according to the Office of National Statistics, in September 2017, the UK public sector (central and local) employed 5.492 million people. Thus, according to our calculations, the UK public sector hosts around 274,600 servers. At ¤14,000 running cost per server, this tells us that the UK public sector spends around £3.4bn on running server rooms and data centres. The opportunity to achieve financial as well as environmental savings is huge.”

He revealed that the average missioncriticalpower.uk

34%

66%

Age

server utilisation, across the 350 public data centres was found to be between 15-25%.

“The rest of the time these servers are sitting idle and still consuming energy,” said Bashroush, adding that there are “lots of zombie servers out there.” He added that: “If your utilisation falls below 40%, your energy consumption goes up exponentially.”

Points affecting server utilisation, according to Eureca, include: • Active – active/clustering deployments • Peak utilisation versus performance degradation • Ensuring there is enough capacity in the system to cater for workload peaks • Having the right server configuration for the workload Ultimately, tackling utilisation costs significantly less than addressing infrastructure.

The Eureca project has also discovered that server age is

an important factor – 40% of data centres deployed in the public sector are more than five years old. This 40% of servers consumes 66% of the facility energy consumption, yet these servers only contribute to 7% of the compute capacity.

“This is not about efficiency; it is about waste,” said Bashroush.

Ageing infrastructure is costing the public sector.

According to Eureca’s modelling, hosting a single application on hardware which is 5.5 years old, with 5% utilisation and a PUE of 3, consumes 51GW hours per year. With an upgrade to current servers, the energy consumption would decrease from 51 to 2GW hours per year.

This demonstrates the huge opportunity to save energy, public money and reduce waste by investing in a hardware “refresh”, while also improving utilisation.

Eureca has developed a chart that allows easy calculation of the payback for investment in hardware refresh. For a three-

Eureca project Eureca provides solutions to help identify cost-saving opportunities while signposting the environmental impact of Procurement choices in data centres. In the UK, Eureca has supported the UnITy programme to modernise government infrastrcuture. This has included the move to shared data centre infrastructure for Defra and the the Environment Agency, among others. See dceureca.eu

Energy consumption

year old server, using 1.5MW, the payback for investment from a hardware refresh would be nine months. However, for a server of six years, with server use of 2MW, it would be less than six months.

“You can see why organisations such as Google refresh every six months,” comments Bashroush. So what is holding the public sector back? The public sector is limited by budget availability but there is also a misconception that hardware refresh has a negative impact on the environment in the wider sense (ie in terms of landfill, manufacturing processes etc).

Eureca’s analysis has found that this is not the case.

To achieve the maximum impact with the least amount of investment, Bashroush emphasised that it is crucial to rightsize the capacity of the data centre; over provision of capacity costs a lot of money.

Rightsizing availability and redundancy are also important – what is the requirement of your workload? What availability does the application require? Consolidation of services across councils, into one data centre, also offers significant potential for savings.

Ultimately, with public spending firmly in the spotlight, implementing changes could offer significant benefits, while helping to reduce the carbon footprint for public services. l April 2018 MCP

10

ENERGY EFFICIENCY

Public sector must take lead on energy usage Is the Internet of Things costing the earth? Policy Connect warns we must take an ‘energy efficiency by design’ approach to building and operating digital services and the public sector should lead by example.

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new inquiry has warned that digital growth will need policy frameworks to be developed to tackle the potential threat posed to the environment.

The think tank Policy Connect says that government and industry must ensure our digital backbone is both efficient and effective into the future – if we get it wrong the everincreasing demand for all things ‘smart’ could cause a surge in energy use.

ICT solutions have the potential to enable a reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions of up to 15.3% by 2030. According to the inquiry, the public sector, with its influential spending power, must lead by example in taking forward an ‘energy efficiency by design’ approach to delivering digital services The cross-party inquiry was co-chaired by Antoinette Sandbach, Conservative MP for MCP April 2018

Eddisbury, and Daniel Zeichner, Labour MP for Cambridge.

Policy Connect says that, as we move into the era of the Internet of Things, it is time to take stock of the energy and carbon cost of being increasingly online. High energy bills, new efficient ICT technologies and regulations have kept the proportion of electricity used by ICT products and services in check.

However, there is a risk that with a growing dependence on connected devices and digital technologies, energy efficiency gains will stall and our carbon footprint from using the net may soar.

Antoinette Sandbach says: “New digital technologies can play an important role in combatting climate change, as well as reducing energy bills.

I hope that this report will be the first step to driving greater energy efficiency in our use of digital services and encouraging

economic growth through more digital products and services that reduce energy consumption and carbon emissions.”

Policy Connect’s research highlights a knowledge gap in government for managing digital energy usage and taking advantage of new technology to cut carbon footprints. Gaps include technical expertise on digital trends and a lack of data collection, monitoring and analysis. It also uncovers that the private sector has led much of the way on ensuring improvements to technology, consolidation of ICT facilities and improved energy management.

The government needs to lead the way as it develops digital services to citizens, which will themselves increase internet use. The government should also help consumers to understand better their energy footprint from being online, such as through stronger energy

labelling systems which already exist for kitchen appliances.

Policy Connect adds that, in the Clean Growth Strategy, the government has committed to the same (or greater) energy efficiency standards as those in Europe. It states that the UK must continue to develop policy capabilities around technological energy efficiency and drive greater efficiency in the sector in order for the UK both to remain competitive and to continue to reduce UK carbon emissions. This will require the UK to retain and develop policy expertise.

Daniel Zeichner adds: “This report on the energy consumption and carbon emissions of the internet is an important step in making policy makers aware of the energy consequences of the internet. It should be taken into account by all those working on energy efficiency and digital transformation programmes.

“As we move to a more digital economy, we need to ensure that these recommendations are built in to the design, implementation and delivery of services from the start and that our digital backbone is both efficient and

15%+

The reduction in greenhouse gas emissions that could be achieved through energy efficient ICT solutions. Could the public sector lead the way? effective in the future.”

The government has identified 18 criteria to help it create and run digital services, such as considering privacy and security issues and user experience. Given the importance of ensuring that energy efficiency gains continue, Policy Connect believes that the government should place an ‘energy efficiency by design’ approach to building and operating digital services high on its list of criteria. l missioncriticalpower.uk

12

RISK MANAGEMENT

How much risk can you afford?

At the Data Centres Summit in London, CBRE’s Mark Acton gave an insight into ‘data centre contracts and risks’. He said there are some misconceptions about metrics, and no key performance indicator for one of the most important measures of performance. So do businesses understand what they are signing up for and the potential risks? Louise Frampton reports

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ata centres exist to run digital services which are often critical to the business. As such, while energy efficiency is viewed as an important area in data centre operations, managing related risks and contracts is of paramount importance.

According to CBRE’s Mark Acton, there is a lack of understanding about the levels of protection data centres offer and what they are trying to achieve.

Speaking at the Data Centres Summit, he said: “The sole purpose of a data centre is to provide IT services – it is not to be green or any other reason.

We sometimes forget this.”

Acton pointed out that data centres are built to ensure MCP April 2018

IT continuity and the main focus is on risk avoidance and mitigation. But what introduces risk into a data centre?

Ensuring power continuity and keeping power within frequency parameters is crucial, along with effective thermal management.

“The warranties for these IT investments, which can be worth tens of millions of pounds, are very important. If we don’t keep the equipment within ASHRAE defined temperature and humidity parameters, you can lose your warranties and, potentially, that investment. The manufacturers may decide not to support it,” Acton explained. This is the reason data centres operate according to ASHRAE’s

defined parameters; not to ensure energy savings.

He pointed out that there is also a huge expectation placed on data centres. “People talk about 100% uptime, but what does this mean in reality? Do businesses understand what they are talking about and what it will cost to achieve this?”

Acton questioned.

He also pointed out that data centres are expected to operate 24/7, 365 days per year.

However, in the case of the aviation industry, aircraft are taken out of service after a set number of hours of operation; stripped down, checked for cracks and faults, then rebuilt.

“They are reliable because of this, yet we do not shut down data centres. To use this

analogy, we are effectively trying to replace the aircraft engine while the plane is in flight. This is why things inevitably go wrong in data centres,” Acton warned.

When this happens, the resulting reputational damage can be significant. Data centres are extremely high profile; when people cannot receive their salary payments or are unable use ATMs, such failures inevitably make headline news.

“Getting it right is incredibly important,” said Acton.

“There are lots of false assumptions. People do not understand what Tiers mean, for example. In addition, they tend to assume that, because they have a couple of UPSs, they are protected. This isn’t missioncriticalpower.uk

13 Acton, “but it is often human error that causes problems.

We often focus on the infrastructure we are installing in data centres and forget the human element.”

He pointed out that there is a tendency for data centre professionals to operate in silos, whether it is the M&E, IT or security community – communication is a issue.

However, training, removing stress and ensuring staff are familiar with routine tasks can help to reduce the risk of human error. James Reason’s ‘Swiss Cheese’ model of human factors accepts that mistakes happen daily, but it is only when the ‘holes in the Swiss Cheese’ line up, that these can

to your IT load. But it is not a comparative metric; you cannot compare one data centre with another.

“You can decrease your PUE and yet increase the amount of KW hours you consume, so it cannot possibly be an efficiency metric by definition,” explained Acton. He added that there is a “good case for virtualisation” and for shrinking your IT estate – yet by shrinking your IT estate, “you can make your PUE go in the wrong direction”.

PUE, according to Acton, should not be used for marketing purposes to compare one colocation data centre with another, while businesses should not confuse design PUE

ensure it is in a data centre that has some form of protection.

The protection used will depend on what the business case demands and what the business can afford.

Reliability and availability are not the same thing, Acton pointed out: “People tend to use these terms as if they are interchangeable. What we are trying to achieve, if we are honest, is availability – not reliability.

“We want to ensure that if something does fail, that we can recover as quickly as possible. The reason why we are building data centres is to ensure our IT services are available, yet the one thing we don’t have in our industry

The reason why we are building data centres is to ensure our IT services are available, yet the one thing we don’t have in our industry is a key performance indicator around availability

necessarily the case. You are only protected if people on site know how to use them and they are set up correctly… If you haven’t got this in place, you are just wasting your money,” comments Acton.

The operational context, he explains, is very important; it is about training, experience and skills.

According to the Uptime Institute, humans are a data centre’s biggest risk. “They are your biggest asset too,” said missioncriticalpower.uk

escalate and lead to a major incident. “This is what we need to avoid,” warned Acton.

The inappropriate use of metrics such as PUE was another issue raised during his presentation – PUE is not an efficiency metric in his opinion.

“It doesn’t define energy efficiency. It is an operational metric and it is an important one. It tells you how effectively your M&E infrastructure is delivering, from your data centre incoming utility supply

with operational PUE. “You can have a more energy efficient data centre, according to your business needs and objectives, but to talk about ‘green’ just doesn’t make any sense. We do not build data centres to be green. If you want to be green don’t build a data centre,” commented Acton.

Other metrics were further discussed during the presentation: “One of the reasons the Uptime Institute dropped its reference to percentage availability (ie five nines or six nines) is because it doesn’t make sense.

“If you have an SLA based on six nines, that allows 32 seconds of downtime per year.

Would you be happy with that?

Probably not! Even worse, you can have 32 one second outrages or 64 half-second outages. Basically, you could have an outage every day and still be within the SLA. Saying you have a six nines SLA is meaningless,” Acton asserted.

He stated that if you want to provide an IT service that is going to be reliable and is going to be available, you need to

is a KPI around availability,” Acton continued. He explained that the more you try to mitigate risk the more it costs.

Businesses need to decide how much risk they want to mitigate and how much they want to pay to achieve it.

“I use the analogy of an insurance policy – do you want fully comprehensive or do you want third party? You need to decide what your business circumstances are before making those decisions,” he commented. So does the Cloud offer any more protection?

Ultimately, people need to understand that the Cloud is simply “someone else’s data centre”, warned Acton.

“The issue with moving to the Cloud is that you may not know the quality of the data centre that it is located in. There are some Cloud providers out there with some pretty shoddy sites. Moving to the Cloud doesn’t necessarily give you protection. I am not saying it is the wrong thing to do, but you need to make the right checks,” he concluded. l April 2018 MCP

Empowering the dream-makers Schneider Electric has helped Animal Logic grow its movie-making capabilities with an Oscar-worthy prefabricated data centre

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ith more than 25 years’ experience, independent Australian company Animal Logic has been at the forefront of creating digital content, award-winning visual effects and animation for the film and television industries.

The studio recently delivered work on Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2 (2017), Alien: Covenant (2017), The LEGO® Batman Movie (2017), The LEGO® Ninjago Movie (2017), The Great Wall (2016) and The Master: A LEGO® Ninjago Short (2016).

Other film credits include: The LEGO® Movie, Avengers: Age of Ultron, The Great Gatsby,

Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’Hoole, 300, and Happy Feet.

Animal Logic Entertainment is the development and production arm tasked with establishing a strong slate of innovative, commercially minded, story-driven projects stamped with the visual and technical innovation that has become the hallmark of the studios’ work. Most recently, it announced a joint venture with Imagine Entertainment to develop, produce, and finance six feature-length animation and hybrid animation projects over the next five years.

Animal Logic is one of the

world’s most highly regarded digital production studios with locations in Sydney, Los Angeles and Vancouver — leading to a larger need under pressing industry demand — for the perfect data centre.

Data needs and deployment speeds Alex Timbs, head of IT at Animal Logic, explains the animation studio’s growth challenge: “Because our business is cyclical in nature, the demands of the productions we’re working on dictate how many people we have working for us, and how much infrastructure we need. So,

speed of deployment for our data centre environments is absolutely critical to our success.”

Timbs provides perspective on the need for high-density data capacity: “Around 90% of the data centre houses highdensity compute, which is used for the process of rendering images … the other 10% is high-capacity storage used for production, which houses the images that are generated by that render process.”

Animal Logic prides itself on dreaming big for the big screen and as a result its data centre solution needed to be equally as ambitious. Timbs says he

We selected Schneider Electric based on their engineering capabilities and ability to meet the businesses needs quickly - Alex Timbs, head of IT at Animal Logic power density empowers Animal Logic’s facility to process 1.25 petaflops per second on average — exactly the depth of capability the graphics house required for advanced animation production and design.

Timbs says: “We selected a high-density Schneider prefab for the purposes of meeting the new business requirements.

We needed an extremely high capacity, highly dense solution.

We selected Schneider Electric based on their engineering capabilities and ability to meet the businesses needs quickly.”

Furthermore, a data centre infrastructure management software was deployed to provide complete visibility across the facility, improving planning and operational performance. StruxureOn™, a cloud-based monitoring service offers Animal Logic maximum protection of critical equipment. It features 24/7 remote monitoring, remote troubleshooting, and datadriven insights that provide visibility and live metrics — right to their smartphones.

A partnership secured Within four and a half months, Animal Logic’s prefabricated chose a Schneider Electric prefabricated data centre solution because it allows for customisation, has a reputation for flexible engineering, and promises fast deployment.

The new state of Animal Logic’s data capacity Understanding Animal Logic’s unique needs for capacity and delivery, Schneider deployed a custom prefab DC in just under four and a half months. The new infrastructure delivered a major boost in data processing, which in turn enabled greater performance and operational agility. For example, the newly implemented 30kW per rack

data centre arrived. It soon began experiencing the returns from investing in a Schneider Electric™ prefabricated data centre as its compute capability quickly grew and business-risky latency shrank.

The prefab unit will continue to power the studio’s moviemaking magic.

“Schneider was the only vendor to be able to deliver in that four and a half months, and has very rapidly become what we call a partner in creating these fantastic images that you see on screen,” says Timbs. “Schneider Electric is our partner in making movies.”

Animal Logic Sydney has recently completed production on Peter Rabbit (2018) while its Vancouver studio is currently working on The LEGO Movie Sequel (2019). Keep an eye out for its continuing contribution in Hollywood animation.

For more on Animal Logic’s work and persona, visit animallogic.com l For further information about Schneider Electric data centres visit schneider-electric.com/ ecostruxure

Goal Align data centre infrastructure strategy to meet business needs.

Approach Deployment of a modular scalable data centre architecture based on Schneider Electric’s customisable prefabricated data centre solution.

Story Increasing demands of highperformance computing resources. Business impact of latency bandwidth costs and security and increased data sovereignty demands forcing Animal Logic to come up with an alternative solution.

Results • Animal Logic experienced a massive boost in animation productivity; the direct result of deploying a render farm with an average operations speed of 1.25 petaflops per second for its most common workloads, all within a 30kW per rack power density.

• The on-premise system is more reliable than its prior one, removing creative “bottlenecks”, reducing latency and reducing its utility bill.

• With Schneider Electric’s services supporting the present and future of Animal Logic’s data centre, it is operating in peak condition.

16

VIEWPOINT

6% CAGR would be healthy for most industries, but it’s far less than the exponential explosion which went every year before

Is data centre power going to fall?

Ian Bitterlin looks at energy usage and explains why he thinks the future looks ‘less apocalyptic’ than predicted

T

he answer to this question, is: ‘probably not just for the moment’ but it certainly looks like the exponential growth in data traffic that we are used to reading about has started to slow down. It has not actually gone down yet, but the growth rate in markets with high mobile phone penetration, or businesses not based on HD video and images, has shown a noticeable hiccup for first time in nearly two decades.

That is the problem with using hyperbole like MCP April 2018

‘exponential growth’.

Compare the results after 10 years of some example compound annual growth rates (CAGRs). A healthy business might achieve 10% CAGR in profits, which would produce 2.6x after 10 years, while Moore’s Law (to which we shall return) at 40% CAGR would reach 29x and historic data growth at 60% CAGR will grow by 110x – all ‘exponential’ but certainly not equal in excitement.

Now data generation, transmission, storage and

dissemination take energy, so the growth in data traffic can serve as a proxy for growth in power consumption.

On the other hand, we know that Moore’s Law has been the main driver behind the exponential compute capacity of the ICT hardware: firstly

by Gordon Moore (more than 35 years ago) predicting a doubling of the number of transistors on a single chip every two years; then revised by his company, Intel, to doubling every 18 months to allow for the increased clock-rate; and,

finally, revised by Raymond Kurzweil, who combined the physical attributes with better software and came up with a doubling in capacity every 14 months.

More recently, Koomey’s Law has elegantly re-expressed Moore’s Law in terms of ‘computations per kWh’ and showed the trend back to the earliest powered computational machines, rather than the 2,600 transistors per chip in 1971 that Gordon Moore started with. The result can be best expressed by considering a missioncriticalpower.uk

17

Figure 1: Monthly TB input 2001- 2017 1,200,00

1,000,00

800,00

600,00

400,00

200,00

0 2001

2017 Source: Amsix (ams-ix.net) updated December 2017

Figure 2: Average year-on-year growth (%) 160% 140% 120% 100% 80% 60% 40% 20% 0%

1

2

3

4

facility built in the year 2000 with 2,000 cabinets rated for 1kW each. It can now be out-computed by a single 5kW cabinet – a staggering technical achievement by any measurement or benchmark.

It has certainly made any improvements in PUE paltry to the point of almost inconsequential.

So, given the huge capacity curve, why do we have so many data centres and why have they grown in power rating?

We can simply compare the two growth rates, data versus missioncriticalpower.uk

5

6

7

8

9

10

capacity. For the past 17 years (since June 2001), the monthly data traffic statistics of one of Europe’s largest internet exchanges, Amsix, have been published (see Figure 1).

The growth until the beginning of 2017 followed a fascinating yearly cycle, with most growth in the first six months of each year followed by a relatively stable platform – but always clinging on to an exponential curve of +4% compound monthly growthrate. That is +4% a month, every month.

11

12

13

14

15

16

Starting in June 2001, the input traffic was 690TB/month but by December 2017 it had risen to just over 1.2 million TB/month (with a record peak of 5.6TB/s) – a 1,700 times increase and equivalent to a 60% CAGR. The ‘staircase’ that you can see in the growth curve is fascinating, with ever higher ‘rise’ and steeper ‘going’ – until January 2017. The dotted line is +4% per month.

Over the same time, the ICT hardware, from Moore’s Law et al, has followed at least a 40% CAGR (the red line on the

graph), so the delta between demand and capacity, 20% CAGR, can be used to explain data centre growth.

It is also not wholly unreasonable to attribute most growth to the individual national penetration of mobile phones/PDAs, high-speed networks and high disposable income. Faster broadband drives energy demand. Hence markets with a low birthrate, high disposable income, ever-fast access enabling lots of social networking, HD and UHD/4K video entertainment and >100% active SIM cards (compared to population, such as the UK with 20 million more SIM cards than people) will be experiencing a slowing of the data growth rate compared with, for example, an emerging economy with increasing proportion of younger and aspirational population, rapidly increasing mobile phone coverage and device ownership which is skipping copper in favour of fibre and going straight to 5G – where the current annual growth rate will be considerably higher than the 20% suggested above.

Certainly, I know of several enterprise facilities, whose business is not predicated on HD images, gaming or gambling, where their ICT service is increasing in volume but their data centre power is declining annually as they refresh hardware.

The faster they virtualise and refresh hardware (maximum three years, better two years) the faster their data centre loads are tailing off. And how many of you have experienced collocation clients whose ‘growth plan’ has been exceeded lately? In my experience, quite the reverse is common.

Because of these two diverging growth curves I have been predicting for the past 10 years that the demise of Moore’s Law (which, if not already dead in its original meaning, will certainly not last much longer with silicon as a substrate) will lead to a capacity crisis as the tsunami of data » April 2018 MCP

18

VIEWPOINT

overwhelms the fibre networks.

OK, a change from silicon to graphene may postpone the problem for a decade or so but the idea that the hardware will cease to follow its historical capacity per Watt has been alarming, to the least.

I have been known to often quote Vint Cerf – a personal hero of mine, inventor of the IP address and one of the ‘fathers of the internet’ – who said in 2012: “Internet access will become a privilege not a right.” Of course, there other things we could do to reduce power – utilisation being the low-hanging fruit – but we should do those regardless. So, why do I now think that the future looks less apocalyptic?

Please forgive the hyperbole but the first way of looking at the monthly data is to compare the year-on-year growth and we can immediately see a trend of slow deceleration. It may be a premature reaction but the past 12 months have broken the pattern that has been so resilient since the Amsterdam Internet Exchange monthly data log started in 2001. Just compare the monthly input traffic of 2006 with 2017, just a decade apart (see Figure 3).

The monthly traffic has largely been static through 2017 with much less variability per month than ever. Starting the year in January with 1,174,500 TB/month and ending in December with 1.25 million TB/month (only a 6% increase MCP April 2018

for the year), and not setting a new peak every couple of months (as has been the norm in prior years), is a remarkable change. I’m feeling optimistic, maybe misplaced, but it will mean that data centres will continue to grow in the emerging economies where

phone penetration is not yet >100% but elsewhere it may stabilise.

Now, 6% CAGR would be healthy for most industries, but it is far less than the exponential explosion which went every year before.

Maybe Moore’s Law and all its

Figure 3: Monthly input traffic figures 2006

2017

Month

TB input

Dec-06

47,368

Growth (%)

Month

TB input

Dec-16

1,127,458

Growth (%)

Jan-07

51,110

7.9

Jan-17

1,174,500

4.2

Feb-07

49,377

-3.4

Feb-17

1,092,497

-7.0

Mar-07

56,698

14.8

Mar-17

1,147,287

5.0

Apr-07

54,253

-4.3

Apr-17

1,117,866

-2.6

May-07

60,755

12.0

May-17

1,088,442

-2.6

Jun-07

58,052

-4.4

Jun-17

1,078,533

-0.9

Jul-07

59,255

2.1

Jul-17

1,080,000

0.1

Aug-07

62,913

6.2

Aug-17

1,095,000

1.4

Sep-07

67,014

6.5

Sep-17

1,092,000

-0.3

Oct-07

71,959

7.4

Oct-17

1,136,000

4.0

Nov-07

75,809

5.4

Nov-17

1,130,000

-0.5

Dec-07

82,121

8.3

Dec-17

1,200,500

6.2

For the 12 months = 73% Month

Actual

Aug-17 Sep-17

For the 12 months = 6% 4% CMGR

40% CMGR Moore’s Law

1095000

1337469

252962

1092000

1390967

260821

Oct-17

1136000

1446606

268923

Nov-17

1130000

1504470

277277

Dec-17

1200500

1564649

285891

Jan-18

1196499

1627235

294772

Feb-18

1094800

1692324

303929

iterations will finally start to overhaul the demand? At least in Europe, and I suspect in the US well before the emerging economies.

It could well be that European traffic is slowing down (not, yet, ‘going’ down) as high mobile phone penetration reaches into every corner of the poorer parts of Europe?

It may depend upon the Internet of Things and ‘edge’ computing but if the content is kept local (and maybe if the content isn’t UHD/4K) the growth in ICT hardware and photonics research should stay ahead of the roll-out – which will, in any case, start in the richest parts of the world and make the gap between the rich and the poor even wider.

As an aside, it is rather odd to see the human need for a ‘better’ phone – it’s not unusual to see the latest smart-phones in regions of South America that are still working on 2G. So, what about January and February 2018?

I added January’s and February’s data. The stagnation in monthly traffic continued (and actually reduced) and the gap between the (16y) traditional 4% CMGR and 40% CAGR (Moore’s Law) curves dramatically widened.

The European traffic has fallen but it might be a blip on a bubble and all kick-off again… I’ll get back to you later with an update of war or peace breaking out. l missioncriticalpower.uk

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20

DATA CENTRE TRENDS

UK’s top data centre hotspots Where is the best place to locate a data centre in the UK? A report by Bidwells outlines the top locations for data centres across the country and considers whether Brexit may have an impact on investment decisions in the future

T

hanks to modern technology, the physical location of a business is less important than it used to be.

These days, clients, consumers and staff can access data no matter where they are. That said, choosing the right place for your data centre remains a priority. There are several factors to consider before setting up a data centre, with location and proximity being two of the most important. Businesses will need easy access to their servers for maintenance or upgrades, while proximity to staff and clients is also crucial. IT staff may need to visit to replace equipment, make adjustments, or expand operations. With colocation services, businesses retain ownership of all their hardware and software, therefore it is important to have good transport links to and from the data centre.

In addition to a convenient location, data centres require plenty of space in which to operate, especially if clients decide to expand their business.

Servers take up space, and if your data centre does not have sufficient space, clients may move their business elsewhere.

Another consideration for data centres providers to take into account is energy consumption.

According to NRDC’s research, data centres are expected to reach 140 billion kilowatt-hours by 2020. This is equivalent to 50 power plants. That said, many

MCP April 2018

data centres are looking into green energy and renewable resources like solar, wind and tidal power as alternatives to sustain operations. In the long run, alternative energy will not only help the environment but also be more costeffective.

More and more data centres are therefore looking at locations where they can make the best use of these alternative energy sources.

Data centre hotspots The UK is a thriving area for data centres thanks, in part, to the fact that it is a major digital and technology hub. The demand for data centres in the UK is high, with some of the most popular areas including: London The capital, which forms part of the Golden Triangle, leads the pack as the most popular data centre location in the UK. There are 71 data centres in the city – the highest in the UK. There are many reasons for providers setting up data centres in London, with its proximity to digital businesses and excellent transport links being two of the main drivers of demand. What is more, some of the best universities and colleges are situated in London, giving data centres easy access

to highly skilled graduates to ensure the highest level of performance and innovation.

Manchester This city has become something of a technology hub and data centre providers have definitely noted its potential. Manchester is becoming a viable option for data centre operators to set up their businesses, boosted by the government’s Tech North startup initiative in the city. Again, this location also means access

to individuals from some of the best universities and IT colleges, while the city’s internet speeds are also comparable to the best in the country, which is essential for providing a strong hosting service.

Berkshire This city benefits from a thriving technology community as well as its proximity to London and business parks like Thames Valley Park and Arlington Business Park. Major tech missioncriticalpower.uk

21 companies have been set up in the Slough and Reading regions, providing easy access to potential clients. What’s more, Berkshire is more affordable than central London locations.

Other hotspots worth mentioning include Birmingham, Newcastle and North Wales, although data centres can be found all over the country.

If you are looking globally, Cloudscene, a directory of data centres around the world, has released 2017’s top colocation ecosystems, with London taking the top spot and European cities Amsterdam and Frankfurt taking second and third place respectively.

While the United States is by far the largest data centre market, the fact that London leads the way and has a well-represented European population is encouraging, paving the way for cities like Manchester and Berkshire to follow in its footsteps.

City or rural data centre?

The debate about whether the city or country is better for data centre location continues, with the strongest argument for rural areas being cost. That said, there are other factors that should also be considered that rural areas may not be able to provide.

These include fast and efficient Internet connectivity, accessibility, convenience, and security. What these rural locations do benefit from is space, which is often cheaper and more available in the countryside.

Most data exchanges are between applications and not between users, which requires powerful connectivity and energy sources that out-oftown centres may not be able to provide. And with many companies moving towards

Top 10 global colocation ecosystems 1. London 2. Amsterdam 3. Frankfurt 4. Washington DC 5. Paris 6. San Francisco Bay Area 7. Los Angeles 8. Sydney 9. Dallas 10. Chicago Source: Cloudscene (2017)

the use of technological advancements like the Internet of Things and artificial intelligence, there is even more of a chance for the use of applications to grow.

While predicting the future of technology is no easy feat, it is safe to say that the use of applications will only expand, therefore putting your data centre closer to areas of advancement makes more sense.

And since the future of data is Cloud-based, city locations will give you faster access to the cloud.

While staff access can be permitted remotely, the real concern is an emergency that requires IT staff to be onsite within minutes. If your data centre is in a remote location, gaining fast access in times of need could be a struggle. If you need to order hardware or equipment, deliveries may also take longer to reach rural locations than city-based counterparts.

Typically, a data centre needs to be physically secure, have an abundant power supply, protection against catastrophes, fire suppression, cooling systems, and multiple connectivity links. Data centres also need a contingency plan in place in

Brexit could strongly influence the decisions of investors to look outside of the UK towards places like Dublin, Amsterdam and Frankfurt. Until then, the UK continues to be a highly valued location for data centres missioncriticalpower.uk

case of an emergency. Above all, the location of your data centre depends most on the applications you need to run. Fast connectivity and response times mean a city location will be ideal.

Rural revival Data centre production is often touted as a way to boost rural economies. Yes, it can provide job opportunities in these areas but data centres alone can hardly provide enough jobs to boost an economy in a truly significant way. There are other economic benefits that are worth mentioning, including taxes on electricity and equipment purchases, but those tax breaks are often diminished as well.

Instances have occurred where one major data centre has inspired the growth of more companies in the area, with Prineville in Oregon being a prime example. After Facebook built its data centre in this location, it was soon followed by an Apple data centre. That said, data centres do expand over time, and with this expansion comes lots of jobs, albeit temporary, in the construction, manufacturing and engineering fields. However, data centres do not require a large staff on a daily basis, making long-term employment in these areas unlikely.

Brexit The UK remains one of the largest data centre markets, with the 2017 Colocation Report stating that the country is becoming the go-to location for data centres in Europe.

Investment interest also continues to grow.

Having said that, Brexit could strongly influence the decisions of investors to look outside of the UK towards places like Dublin, Amsterdam and Frankfurt.

Until then, the UK continues to be a highly valued location for data centres. With the Finance and Investment Forum monitoring new opportunities for emerging data centres and ecosystems in the country, it looks set to thrive. l April 2018 MCP

22

RESILIENCE

How resilient is your hybrid infrastructure?

Moving to hybrid infrastructures can mean less visibility.

But the Uptime Institute can reduce risk by providing an independent assessment of resilience

65%

Organisation

U

ptime Institute has unveiled its new Hybrid Resiliency Assessment service, which is designed to reduce the risks associated with business service delivery when the underlying infrastructure spans multiple data centres, colocation sites and the cloud.

The new offering provides an independent evaluation of an organisation’s hybrid infrastructure and its ability to deliver specific IT services over the expected range of operating conditions.

Today, many organisations have created complex infrastructures comprised of multiple data centres, colocation facilities and the cloud. These same organisations have distributed their core IT business services across hybrid structures, greatly reducing their control and visibility in the process.

Uptime Institute’s new offering provides an independent review of each hybrid structure’s ability to offer specific types of business services, delivering insights on the overall level of resiliency

MCP April 2018

and risk associated with those services, and empowering IT executives and practitioners to take corrective action as needed.

“CIOs are chartered to deliver the business services needed regardless of the technical platform choices their teams have made,” says Chris Brown, CTO at Uptime Institute.

“Delivering business services that span hybrid infrastructures without the same level of governance and risk assessment seen in traditional infrastructure creates a series of hidden vulnerabilities and puts them at a risk.

“Our new Hybrid Resiliency Assessment service provides a clear view of the expected performance of various business services over a wide range of normal operating conditions – regardless of the

62%

of outages were caused by Cloud and colocation providers

underlying systems involved.”

The Hybrid Resiliency Assessment is designed to provide IT executives and staff with necessary governance at the service level, regardless of the type of underlying platform(s) involved. This enables direct alignment between business requirements and the hybrid infrastructure.

The service applies a proven methodology for evaluating infrastructures, studying the interactions between the various related subsystems. Delivered onsite by Uptime Institute experts, the assessment focuses on five key categories: • Organisation: Organisational structure to align resilience capabilities to business priorities • Application: Mapping dependencies and investment priorities to business needs.

• Platform: Evaluating platform performance, driving visibility and control of IT services • Network: Assessing network architecture, redundancy

and performance testing processes • Data Centre: Matching infrastructure redundancy and operational rigor to workload priority Uptime Institute’s consultants analyse each business service across all five areas and assess the data when all components are combined as a single system, to validate the effectiveness of the company’s overall IT service delivery strategy.

Clients receive an in-depth resiliency report that outlines the expected performance of specific business services, includes details on their effectiveness as it relates to the five key assessment areas and lists vulnerabilities along with practical recommendations for improvement.

The Hybrid Resiliency Assessment also includes a one-year subscription to Uptime Institute’s online Inside Track community to enable the ongoing improvement of clients’ hybrid platforms. This subscription missioncriticalpower.uk

Appl

ion

Reducing risk with artificial intelligence

C

Resiliency effectiveness

88%

97%

94% 77%

Application

Platform

Network

Data Centre

Source: Uptime Institute

allows organisations to continue interacting with resiliency experts after the initial assessment, and to communicate with and learn from other companies who are also successfully optimising their IT services in hybrid environments.

Todd Traver, vice-president IT optimisation and strategy at the Uptime Institute, comments: “Industry-wide we have seen an increasing trend in outages that were caused by technical or implementation gaps, which caused unanticipated outages, and often blindsided application and business owners who were not aware of the risks they were subject to.

“Recent Uptime Institute Research studies have shown that 62% of outages were caused by failures by cloud and colocation providers, and that because of these and other outages that have made headline news, 92% of IT executives reported increased concern over outages compared to 12 months ago.”

He reports that the Uptime missioncriticalpower.uk

We have seen an increasing trend in outages that were caused by technical or implementation gaps Institute is seeing strong demand from enterprise organisations that, whether for cost or technology reasons, are moving to a hybrid infrastructure and need to understand the overall risks associated with this approach, especially as compared with their time tested and proven enterprise configuration.

Other interested organisations are those that are establishing CRO (chief risk/ resiliency officer) positions to manage business risk or those who just need a structured and holistic method for analysing their overall configuration to identify weaknesses. l

BRE Data Centre Solutions and Litbit have announced a strategic relationship to apply innovative artificial intelligence to maintenance within data centres and critical environments.

CBRE will train a Litbit AI persona named ‘Remi’ (Risk Exposure Mitigation Intelligence) on the normal operating conditions of its data centre facilities and equipment globally, which can then be used by CBRE’s expert teams for predictive maintenance and rapid problem diagnosis.

With this move, CBRE is taking a decisive step to lead in the data centre AI space by creating the world’s largest actionable AI repository of machine operating data.

Litbit has been working with CBRE Data Centre Solutions chief reliability officer Mike Doolan, a certified reliability leader, to drive innovative and transformational maintenance solutions into the 800-plus data centre locations that CBRE currently manages to maximise site availability, minimise risk

and optimise costs.

Remi will run both in the Cloud via smartphone and on the edge via permanently deployed computing devices. It will aggregate the knowledge of CBRE’s worldwide service experience, thousands of technicians, and millions of machines into a single system.

Remi will provide improved coverage for manned locations and basic coverage in sites that are not currently viable for human staffing.

CBRE Data Centre Solutions president Paul Saville-King commented: “Artificial intelligence is transforming industries in all parts of the economy. CBRE has always had a commitment to using technology to provide better results for our customers at optimal cost to value, and we believe this technology will allow us to further this agenda.

“The idea that expert knowledge of all the facilities, assets and equipment we manage can be in the back pocket of every CBRE technician is exciting and revolutionary.” l

Litbit AI persona Remi will by used CBRE’s expert teams for predictive maintenance and rapid problem diagnosis April 2018 MCP

24

DEMAND-SIDE RESPONSE

Storing up benefits: monetising assets through DSR

Alex Mardapittas, CEO of energy storage and voltage optimisation brand Powerstar, discusses how demand-side response can improve the operational stability of organisations and support the grid to maintain its reliability

F

or facilities such as hospitals and care homes, having a reliable power system may literally mean the difference between life and death.

Airports, meanwhile, also rely on a continuous supply of electricity, a fact borne out by the chaotic scenes last summer when British Airways’ IT systems failed leaveing thousands of passengers stranded.

The airline reported that a power surge following an outage had damaged its system, resulting in flights being cancelled and about 75,000 passengers being affected.

This, along with several other incidents of a similar nature in early 2017, highlighted the need for energy resilience.

As many of the old-fashioned power stations that dominated skylines for many years become obsolete, new and renewable forms of generation such as wind farms and solar powered systems are emerging.

MCP April 2018

However, additional ways of balancing the grid are required to increase the stability of our supply.

the grid, as well as drawing electricity from it, has seen an increased interest in demandside response.

Why the system needs to be balanced An increasingly volatile energy profile, driven by spiralling demand for energy to power our industry and technology, has boosted the popularity of renewable generation.

However, wind and solar are not yet reliable enough to be more than an intermittent source, requiring more management for them to be used effectively.

This has reinforced the grid’s requirement to request reserves from businesses to deliver a smart system that can respond to the changing needs of customers in a stable, efficient and economical way while taking advantage of the enhanced levels of renewable generation.

The necessity to move power both ways – to contribute to

What is DSR and how does it work?

Put simply, DSR is about promoting intelligent and flexible use of energy, as opposed to simply its generation. The system operator in the UK (National Grid) offers a financial reward to end users for using energy in a flexible way, be it supplying energy to the grid, temporarily reducing demand, or increasing consumption at times of an over-supply. These enable the grid to smooth out the everyday fluctuations in supply and demand.

Users do this by minimising their consumption at times of peak demand, which helps the grid to balance supply and demand. While many years ago it could be possible to achieve this by shutting a facility down, this is neither a smart,

responsive approach or viable in today’s fast-paced economy, which relies on a system having power up to 24 hours. And, on the opposite side of the scale, users can be asked to use more energy at times of high generation, for example on a sunny day.

By making DSR attractive to businesses, it encourages an adaptable approach to energy use and contributes to the smooth running of the energy network, helping National Grid to fulfil its legal requirement to maintain frequency between 49.5Hz and 50.5Hz. How does an organisation participate in DSR? Essentially, end users can partake in DSR by connecting an asset, such as an energy storage system, to the grid then managing demand through an energy management system (EMS). The EMS is essential because DSR rewards the smart and flexible use of energy, which this provides. missioncriticalpower.uk

25 As energy-related failures can cost businesses as much as 17% of their annual revenue, the case for energy storage solutions to offer flexibility, reliability, security of supply and resilience to organisations and the grid alike is transparent Not only does DSR enable organisations to benefit from the flexibility in their energy use, it allows participation in the energy markets, bringing with it new opportunity to buy and sell energy as opportunities occur.

While a number of technologies are available to enable a business to partake in DSR, one that is increasingly popular is battery energy storage. This is because the batteries are able to respond to ‘grid events’ such as outages and surges within rapid timeframes, which in turn allows the grid to stay within its operational boundaries.

missioncriticalpower.uk

Case for energy storage There are a number of ways an organisation can benefit from choosing to implement an energy storage asset.

Firstly, the storage asset can help the business optimise its energy use and cut costs while supporting the grid to balance demand. This is done through the previously mentioned grid contract rewards and through a process called arbitrage, where energy is taken and stored during off or mid-peak Distribution Use of System (DUoS) periods – and then sold during high DUoS periods when the price of the electricity will have risen.

A further benefit is that energy storage can improve the stability of a business’s energy supply. The EMS monitors the performance of the storage asset and any other systems that may be connected (solar or voltage optimisation, for example) then reports intelligence back to the user, pinpointing where operational efficiencies could be made.

This intelligent and flexible approach to energy management is not only beneficial to the organisation and the grid, it will play a vital role as the electricity market continues to evolve.

Leading edge energy storage

solutions such as Powerstar Virtue can also contribute to energy resilience through full UPS capabilities, allowing businesses to avoid costly power failures by offering rapid or seamless support to the load when a supply issue is detected, regardless of the cause.

As energy-related failures can cost businesses as much as 17% of their annual revenue, the case for energy storage solutions to offer flexibility, reliability, security of supply and resilience to organisations and the grid alike is transparent and growing.

DSR is an important tool in helping secure a stable electricity system both now and for the future. It can assist in lowering energy bills, reducing carbon emissions and help to maximise the use of renewable generation, filling troughs and softening peaks in demand. l

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DEMAND-SIDE RESPONSE

Digitising DSR: beyond the grid Innovative technology can enable critical sites to switch from one demand-side response revenue stream to another, to maximise their returns. But how can participation in DSR also increase resilience? Michael Phelan from Gridbeyond (formerly known as Endeco Technologies) provides some answers. Louise Frampton reports

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ission critical sites must take the lead in moving away from being passive ‘bill payers’ to having a major role to play in the bigger energy picture, according to Gridbeyond’s CEO, Michael Phelan. He points out that, for early adopters, demand-side response, embedded generation and energy storage are already working well, but the pressure is on for those not yet participating to catch up.

“The electricity market is going to have to come up with innovative ways to integrate renewables and solve the challenges that they pose,” comments Phelan. “Critical sites invested in resilience when the grid was having problems, but they are going to have more MCP April 2018

problems – or opportunities [depending on how you view it] – with the increase in renewables.”

When building new facilities, Phelan says that critical sites should be investing in leadingedge systems that are better able to deal with the issues they will face in the future. “Demand-side response can help solve many of the problems associated with renewables, but it is hard to argue that you are green if you are not willing to participate with the very schemes that can help

businesses become green,” he argues. If mission critical sites sit back and do nothing and wait for non-critical sites to address these issues, the non-critical sites will end up becoming the most resilient sites,” Phelan continues.

“The biggest complaint we hear about DSR is that for every aggregator a potential customer speaks to, they hear a different story as to what it actually is.

Around a decade ago, when the market was young, and the early adopters were looking to

It is hard to argue that you are green if you are not willing to participate with the very schemes that can help businesses become green

test just one element of DSR, this was acceptable to a degree.

There were also only a handful of aggregators. However, the market has evolved and those fulfilling an energy management role now understand there are more pieces to the puzzle of balancing energy demand,” he continues.

“In what is already a complicated topic, specialists in particular areas of DSR really haven’t helped to provide a clean and comprehensive explanation of the market,” says Phelan.

Gridbeyond is striving to bring together the pieces of the puzzle and explain how they fit together, providing the expertise and platform to enable whichever schemes work best for the assets on site. missioncriticalpower.uk

27 Gridbeyond’s EnergyConnect platform is designed to switch facilities from one revenue scheme to another and has been deployed to more than 300 sites in the UK and Ireland. The company claims participation in DSR schemes can deliver an annual income up to £70,000 per MW, so the returns can be significant.

While there are certainly financial incentives to coming on board, what are the important factors that need to be considered? Critical sites need to look at the types of battery and UPS systems being installed, to ensure they are resilient, as well as ensuring they are available for DSR revenue streams. One possibility will be to use lithiumion batteries.

Fast acting technologies are what the grid wants, Phelan points out, and battery systems are ‘cleaner’ than using diesel generators for DSR. Mission critical sites, such as data centres, are typically

missioncriticalpower.uk

on a four to five-year battery replacement cycle and will not see any degradation in performance in Li-ion batteries during this time frame, as a result of DSR participation, he claims: “During this time-frame, these sites will simply create a budget to replace the batteries, by accessing an additional revenue stream.”

Phelan advises that critical sites will need to have a good preventative maintenance system in place when using UPS for DSR and it will need to be more actively managed.

However, this is a function that Gridbeyond undertakes as part of its work with its clients in relation to DSR. He says that the monitoring of critical UPS systems is much improved as a result of this close management and, if problems emerge, they are more likely to be detected earlier, compared to non-participating critical sites.

This adds to the site’s resilience, according to Phelan.

Fast acting technologies are what the grid wants, and battery systems are ‘cleaner’ than using diesel generators for DSR Michael Phelan, Gridbeyond

He predicts that, with the growing adoption of electric vehicles, demand-side response, storage and smart energy technologies will emerge from the industrial shadows and take the spotlight for enabling lifestyles and behaviours outside of the workplace. Smart meters and the wider availability of lower-cost solar panels and small scale battery storage systems for homes are just the beginning of what promises to be a seismic change for the energy infrastructure.

Ultimately, fully digitised DSR services will be imperative for finding flexibility for the predicted 4.9GW required for DSR, and the 0.3GW of storage by 2032. Implementing a costeffective solution for balancing the variability of grid-scale clean energy with the demand of energy users is vital to taking full advantage of renewable energy and decarbonising the UK’s electricity system to hit ambitious green targets. l

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UNINTERRUPTIBLE POWER SUPPLY

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MCP April 2018

Get switched on to power supply continuity Eleni Papantoniou, Sudlows’ senior electrical design engineer, provides an insight into the design of resilient mission critical infrastructure Design considerations for neutral continuity When a transformerless static UPS is employed, it is important to consider the neutral continuity during the time interval no upstream source is available. This time interval corresponds to the time during which the generator controller senses loss of mains, sends a signal to generator to start-up, the generator starts-up and its breaker closes.

During this transition window, the neutral strategy needs to be considered to provide neutral earth continuity.

Let us consider a scenario

Figure 1: Indicative schematic configuration with automatic 4-pole breakers and UPS neutral earth contactor

Transformer

GEN

4-pole

4-pole N/O

N/C N

Signal from GEN PLC

esilient electrical architectures have one common objective – to provide continuity of supply to critical loads upon mains failure.

A typical resilient electrical infrastructure comprises of a mains supply combined with standby generator back-up and uninterruptible power supplies for critical loads.

The most common type of UPS used in mission critical infrastructures is the transformerless static UPS. The design approach in mission critical infrastructures is concentrated on power continuity upon loss of mains.

Whereas providing redundant power supply paths and the required level of resilience is the most crucial design consideration; designers should also consider the neutral-earthing strategy for complex infrastructures.

A well designed neutralearth strategy enhances the power continuity of the infrastructure, protects the equipment and maintenance personnel and provides a safe electrical scheme.

E

UPS

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29 Figure 2: indicative schematic configuration with closed transition switch

N/C

N/O

4-pole

4-pole

Closed transition transfer switch

UPS

Figure 3: indicative schematic configuration with automatic 4-pole breakers and load side neutral earth contactor Signal from GEN PLC

where the transformer and generator changeover scheme comprises of automatic four pole breakers.

During the source transition window, the downstream UPS neutral will lose its earth reference.

Most transformerless UPS manufacturers argue that their product can withstand this loss of neutral reference for a few seconds until the generator is available. Shock and electric hazards, a neutral earth contactor may be employed controlled by the generator’s programmable logic controller (PLC).

During the source changeover, the contactor closes, making the UPS a separately derived source (see figure 1).

When 4-pole transformer and generator breakers are used combined with a closed transition changeover switch – similar to an Asco switch – the neutral earth continuity is maintained during the source changeover.

A closed transition switch maintains the UPS neutral earth reference, without missioncriticalpower.uk

Transformer

N/C N

GEN

4-pole

E

4-pole N/O

UPS

Figure 4: Indicative schematic configuration with 3-pole protective devices Transformer

GEN

TPN N/O

N/C

UPS

any additional controls and switching via the generator PLC. The disadvantage in employing closed transition switches is the additional cost and the additional space requirements (see figure 2).

A more cost-efficient alternative to an Asco switch is to provide automatic 4-pole breakers with a neutral earth contactor on the load side of the infrastructure.

The neutral earth contactor would close during the source changeover, thus maintaining a solid neutral, and open again once the generator becomes available (see figure 3).

Another design approach uses 3-pole transformer and generator breakers. With a solid neutral, the UPS does not lose its neutral earth reference during a source changeover. When three pole transformer and generator breakers are employed, the earth fault protection needs to be carefully designed to ensure that multiple return paths are not provided for a prospective earth fault current (see figure 4).

Neutral continuity key Neutral-earth strategy is important when designing any electrical infrastructure.

Particularly in resilient electrical infrastructures with transformerless static UPS, neutral continuity is key for power supply reliability and safety in design.

There are several available design solutions that ensure UPS neutral earth continuity upon source changeover.

Several factors need to be considered before selecting the most suitable design approach such as the application, the capital cost, space availability or site restrictions.

New infrastructures may offer more design flexibility, as opposed to refurbishments, where designers engineer solutions to reuse electrical components in the most efficient way. l April 2018 MCP

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THE ENERGYST EVENT

Why you can’t afford to miss The Energyst Event The event in Birmingham, on 17-18 April, highlights the impact of the convergence of energy procurement, efficiency and flexibility on your business. Mission Critical Power magazine will launch its demand-side response report at the event, focusing on critical sites

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he decentralisation of energy is having a profound effect on all aspects of the system. The Energyst Event aims to discuss what this means for businesses – and how organisations across the public and private sector are turning challenges into bottom line benefits.

The two-day conference and exhibition covers all aspects of energy procurement, efficiency and flexibility, joining the dots between disciplines that are converging and highlighting what that means for energy strategies.

Within the conference streams, speakers and panellists will share their expertise, experiences and insights, arming delegates with knowledge that can be transferred directly to their organisations’ bottom line.

These include: Energy Institute, National Grid, NHS Property Services, Marks & Spencer, Lineage Logistics, Nottingham City Council, The University of Bristol, Unite Group, BT, Gateshead Energy, Yorkshire Water, Anglian Water, Cornwall Consulting, Baringa Partners, Aurora Energy Research, Bloomberg, The Green Investment Group, Ingenious Infrastructure, Investor

Confidence Project Europe, EEVS, Esta and the ADE. Conference sessions will explore: • What the convergence of procurement, efficiency and flexibility means for energy strategies • How changes to charging regimes will affect businesses • Decentralisation: What’s coming and how can businesses harness their assets • How to deliver greater benefits from generation, storage and flexibility • How to build businesses cases that look beyond energy • How data and intelligence is disrupting procurement • Emerging service and finance models for decentralised generation and efficiency • The implications and opportunities of heat, power and storage convergence The conference will also mark the launch of two new reports: one around lower carbon heat for businesses; the other around demandside response within mission critical environments.

Meanwhile, the exhibition brings together the energy

industry’s most forwardthinking companies, many of whom will unveil new services and technologies designed to deliver energy and carbon savings and flexibility benefits to organisations large and small.

Sponsors include: Green Energy Consulting, Ørsted, Restore, Baxi Group, Gridbeyond (formerly Endeco), Enernoc, Engie, Flexitricity, Haven Power, Inenco, and PCMG. Exhibitors also include: Chauvin Arnoux, Danlers, Edina, Electroroute, Energy for Good, Energy Institute, Flo Gas, G59 Professional Services, Kiwi Power, New Found Energy, Open Energi, Ørsted, Packaged Plant Solutions, ReStore, Smartest Energy, The Energy Hub, Total Gas & Power and Wilson Power Solutions.

Delegates can also learn how they can take advantage of the latest opportunities to generate revenue from their power. assets, the challenges of participating in demand-side response schemes, as well as the potential solutions.

Power supply is falling, leaving the UK in an energy crisis, with increased electrification of domestic lives and a growing population prompting a seismic escalation in electricity demand. l

The conference and exhibition is free to attend and event organiser Energyst Media aims for it to become the industry’s most focused, and most valuable, event for professionals with an interest in energy.

Please join us on 17 and 18 April at the National Motorcycle Museum, Birmingham to contribute to the discussion and make full use of extensive knowledge sharing, networking and collaboration opportunities.

Secure your free ticket at: theenergystevent.com

Register for your free ticket at theenergystevent.com MCP April 2018

missioncriticalpower.uk

Sponsored column

Intelligent connections for data centres

Dongguan, a leading internet and mobile network service provider, needed a reliable switching solution for its super-scale data centre

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Society is relying ever more on data, computing power and connectivity as the popularity of the Internet of Things, 5G networks and other digital services soar. It has been forecast that by 2026, the number of connected devices will grow from eight billion to more than 20 billion. Stuart Grattage, ABB’s general manager for transmission and distribution infrastructure and grid integration, explains how power supplies are evolving.

In response to the challenge of the rapid growth, data centre operators use modular and flexible infrastructure that they can deploy quickly. This has the added benefits of simplifying operations and enabling fast reaction to customer needs.

A second challenge is represented by the need to control costs and meet tightening government legislation for energy efficiency. Data centres typically use 30 times more power per square metre than a commercial building.

By reducing energy consumption, operators can cut bills and work towards energy efficiency targets.

An additional way to control costs is by adopting compact equipment, which reduces land take and maximises the space allocated to server racks.

Third, operators are keen to avoid power outages that may lead to downtime of data services.

In 2016, a survey found that data centre outages cost $9,000 per minute on average, as well as indirect cost of reputational damage. In turn, it is vital that power connections and distribution systems are resilient and have high availability.

Every element of the power supply Electrical technologies have a role to play in overcoming all

three challenges. In response, ABB provides a complete suite of hardware and software to supply and distribute data centre power – from the grid substation to the miniature circuit breaker at the server, as well as monitoring and control systems.

While a new utility connection is essential to establish the power supply, procurement can be challenging, with some uncertainties in terms of cost, risk and on-time delivery.

Some of the UK’s Distribution Network Operators may not be able to provide a new connection and the associated works in the desired time frame. However, data centre operators can turn to ABB as a licenced Independent Connection Provider (ICP) that is able to deliver new connections from 11 kV up to 132 kV, including managing major contestable connection projects for large data centres.

Power security for Telehouse One example of ABB’s capabilities is the dedicated primary 132 kV substation for Telehouse’s data centre campus in London’s Docklands. (pictured). Separate grid connections to two individual 132 kV transmission grids give Telehouse the ultimate in redundancy and the state-of-the-art substation supports reliability of 99.999.

The new substation has also enabled Telehouse to future-proof its supply to meet future demand.

Maximum demand from its existing campus was 16 megavoltamperes (MVA) via an existing feed from the local 11 kV distribution network.

However, the new substation is able to handle peak demand by drawing 40 MVA direct from the 132 kV transmission grid.

ABB designed, supplied, installed and commissioned the electrical network, enabling the local DNO to focus only on providing the 132 kV supply points.

ngoing safety and performance – and guaranteed business continuity – are vital components of every hardworking data centre. Central to every operator’s objectives is guaranteed high availability and maximum uptime.

While ensuring that the operation maintains peak performance at all times and making the best use of existing infrastructure, it is vital to guarantee the protection of critical assets, infrastructure and people.

The ability to deliver optimised safety and guaranteed performance were key factors in the selection of Socomec as a partner for a high-profile project with Dongguan Telecom, which included the development of a super-scale data centre, towering six floors high with a further two floors underground. A subsidiary of China Telecom – the largest telecommunications operator in China – Dongguan is a leading national internet and mobile network service provider.

A key requirement for this data centre facility was to ensure transfer between a 2000kVA transformer and a 2000kVA genset. Guaranteeing mains incoming power across the whole infrastructure, 4000 4P 380 VAC, the power supply interruption to the load is minimal during transfer.

Socomec’s ATyS motorised and automatic changeover switches are deployed in the most challenging applications around the world and are specifically engineered to be virtually maintenance-free.

Socomec’s ATyS d H – a remote three-phase transfer switch with 3 and 4 poles and integrated dual power supply – has been engineered for low voltage, high power

applications that demand high performance and rapid, reliable switching. The open transition transfer is performed on-load, in line with IEC 60947-6-1 and GB 14048-11 standards (Class PC). Offering high withstand short circuit current ratings of 143kA lcm (making) and 65kA for 0.1 second lcw (withstand), the performance in terms of load switching capacity is AC33iB (6xIn cos Ø 0.5) without derating. Eight units of 4000A 4P have been supplied for the Dongguan project.

The multiple mounting options made integration easy, whether into standard enclosures or custom-designed structures. Two switches are mounted one above the other, with accessible power connections located at the rear.

The installation time can be reduced even further as the load side is connected within the product – eliminating the need for external bridging bars.

The ATyS d H includes two mechanically interlocked switches to ensure fast switching while providing a neutral (Off – 0) position. This ensures that the main and alternative power supplies do not overlap. The 0 position can also be used for safe maintenance of the installation, providing isolation between both sources and the load – a vitally important factor in this specific application.

The ATyS d H is an RTSE that can be easily used in conjunction with an ATS controller – C20/30 or C40, depending on the application – in order to operate as an ATSE. As the original manufacturer, Socomec’s engineering team has an in-depth understanding of changeover technology, the product itself and its software – as well as in inspection and testing safety procedures and the integration of equipment missioncriticalpower.uk

SWITCHGEAR

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High-performance switching for Dongguan data centre It is critical that the products and services that we specify to keep our data centre running, operate at the highest possible performance levels

within the customer’s unique working environment.

Dongguan Telecom comments: “The wider project represents a significant investment within our

missioncriticalpower.uk

business, so it is critical that the products and services that we specify to keep our data centre running, operate at the highest possible performance levels. Socomec worked hard to

anticipate our challenges and needs – and recognised that we take performance extremely seriously, both in terms of safety and power.

“Socomec provided

practical support during the installation and commissioning process – and the quality of training delivered has meant that ongoing maintenance is simple.” l

April 2018 MCP

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DATA CENTRE INFRASTRUCTURE

Making the switch in record time When Amdocs had less than 90 days to move to a new purpose-built site, it relied on Eaton to deliver the UPS and switchgear on time, while future-proofing its new facility

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or data centre operators, speed is not just a server issue, often it is a vital factor in getting new sites operational. That was the case for Amdocs – a global software and services provider that operates data centres in 85 countries – which had less than 90 days to close an existing site and move itself, and all its customers, into a new purposebuilt facility.

Amdocs is a global organisation, with more than 25,000 employees and customers in 85 countries, comprising some of the world’s most successful wireless, wireline, broadband, cable and satellite, mobile and financial services providers. It provides a range of technologies that help drive its customers’ digital and network transformation, such as Cloud, IT modernisation and DevOp, and its data centres, which are a critical component of its service.

What all its customers have in common is their high expectation for the integrity and availability of its data centres.

Amdocs had a base in the heart of London’s Square Mile, close to major corporations and financial institutions but took the decision to consolidate its satellite offices into one purposebuilt, modern building. Doing so meant Amdocs could reduce the overheads that come with being MCP April 2018

in central London and running multiple sites but, more than this, it gave the company the opportunity to build a site that would address all current needs, as well as being future-proofed, and it meant it could design a more efficient data centre and pass those cost-savings onto its customers.

Immovable deadline Timing was the crunch issue.

Amdocs had acquired a new site, all the design and planning work was complete but the company had less than 90 days to move out of its current site and into the new facility, which was as yet unbuilt but which had to be fully operational. No ifs, no buts, no half measures – the 90-day date was fixed and immovable.

For Amdocs, the pressure was to identity partners that could be trusted to hit every deadline throughout the move.

Mark Goulding, the customer manager for Amdocs at Eaton, says: “This project was all about trust – Amdocs needed to know it was in safe hands and the project would be delivered on time.”

Eaton responded to Amdocs’ tender, with its own trusted partner, Carter Sullivan, which specialises in the design, manufacture and installation of complex UPS systems, high-end data centre solutions

and bespoke switchgear.

Working together, the two companies put forward a solution using Eaton switchgear and UPS back-up. At the same time, Carter Sullivan coordinated the fit out of the air conditioning system throughout the data centre and a separate tender for the office itself.

Goulding continues: “We’ve had a long, successful relationship with Eaton, so we knew they understood our capabilities. Likewise, we’ve worked with Carter Sullivan on many builds over the years and knew they’d be up to the task.

It made for a very positive and effective working relationship on what was a challenging, short timeframe for a data centre build.”

In the first phase of the installation, Eaton and Carter Sullivan implemented a complete power security solution, based on Amdocs’ design, and built around Eaton’s uninterruptable power supply (UPS), switchgear, transformers, and cold aisle containment.

The solution also factored in

isolation transformers to ensure electrical isolation for the system and prevent downstream issues from the building’s 4-pole main circuit breaker.

For the UPS, Eaton first researched Amdocs predicted data centre loads and proposed using its 93PM UPS range – one of the most efficient on the market and quite a simple, straight-forward solution for its needs. According to Mark Goulding at Eaton, the 120kw unit is “bang on their requirement” and the battery system is sized accordingly.

Critical protection The 93PM UPS guarantees power supply for a defined period to critical loads in the event of a power failure. The unit also protects critical loads by filtering out power fluctuations, such as voltage spikes, and providing continuously highquality power.

The design of the 93PM is based on online double conversion technology, which is widely recognised as giving the best possible protection because

The data centre is delivering immediate results and cost savings; in fact it has the lowest PUE of any Amdocs data centre worldwide missioncriticalpower.uk

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ATS installation time 80% faster

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it guarantees a clean and reliable power supply regardless of the quality of the grid. Energy loss with the 93PM is minimal, compared with traditional double conversion UPS devices, and it can achieve an efficiency rating of 96.7%.

Once the power solutions had been installed, Eaton and Carter Sullivan worked with Amdocs to design a system that would make the data centre as energy efficient as possible.

This is based around Eaton’s variable module management system (VMMS), which increases efficiency without compromising reliability. On the physical design, the two companies came up with a concept of two rows comprising 30 42U server cabinets sat in an open area, coupled with a cold aisle containment to provide more effective airflow. This was a completely bespoke design that mixed racks from various manufacturers into one solution and comprised a set of aisle doors with roof panels.

In the second phase of the installation, Eaton designed and built a future-proof electrical panel that incorporates all of Amdocs’ requirements for the building infrastructure, IT, generator and bypass facilities.

It is designed so that Amdocs can avoid interrupting the data centre’s operation during any missioncriticalpower.uk

future expansion. The panel is based on the Eaton xEnergy LV Switch system, which is designed to meet constantly increasing requirements, providing optimum conditions for building infrastructure up to 5000 A. As well as providing the hardware and software for the power security solutions, Eaton also provides Amdocs with ongoing remote monitoring and maintenance services. In the event that there is ever a power issue, Eaton would have service personnel on site in less than four hours.

Model development The move was completed within the 90-day timeframe and the modern facility is now operating successfully using the new power management concept. The company plans to use the data centre design and infrastructure as a model for the development of its other data centre projects around the world. The data centre is delivering immediate results and cost savings, in fact it has the lowest PUE of any Amdocs data centre worldwide.

Looking ahead, Amdocs has installed a second UPS for the B-side of the data centre and plans to roll out this approach in its other data centres around the world. l

ritical power applications use an automatic transfer switch (ATS) to sense when power is lost and to switch automatically to the backup generator.

The ATS is usually a complex installation with various sensors, controllers, switches and operator interfaces all wired together.

Putting everything into a single package, including an integrated controller with detachable human machine interface (HMI), the TruONE is designed to make ATS installations faster, simpler and more reliable.

With seven communications protocols, the ATS is part of the ABB Ability portfolio of software-enabled and connected solutions that help customers to be more productive, with features including predictive maintenance and condition monitoring.

Giampiero Frisio, managing director of ABB’s protection and connection business, says: “The all-new TruONE ATS is the first to integrate everything that critical power applications need into one seamless unit. Designed and tested to exceed industry requirements, it ensures the

reliable delivery of critical power.”

The solution is simple to install, requiring only a single wire and standard enclosures.

Ergonomic studies indicate this will make installation up to 80% faster and will cut cabling and commissioning times and costs by up to 90%.

The TruONE’s all-in-one design is factory-assembled and fully tested to ABB’s exacting quality standards.

Protection during manual operation is increased, even under load, with the elevated handle mounted to the ATS frame so there is no need to open the panel door.

TruONE is also claimed to set a new industry standard as dangerous line voltage no longer needs to be connected to the door, as the detachable HMI is completely isolated from the lines, resulting in significantly increased safety of the equipment operators.

The solution has a builtin predictive maintenance functionality that monitors its own condition as well as its environment with temperature monitoring. This ensures that when operations need to switch to backup power, ABB’s ATS is always ready to perform. l

TruONE ATS integrates everything critical power applications need into one seamless unit April 2018 MCP

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UNINTERRUPTIBLE POWER SUPPLIES

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he perfect UPS is 100% available, 100% efficient, takes up no space, costs nothing to purchase and does not require maintenance. With this in mind, how close is the new 4th Generation modular UPS technology to perfection, and what else needs to be done to achieve power protection perfection?

To answer these questions we need to look at where the industry has come from.

Thirty years ago, the only way to achieve redundancy was to install a parallel UPS system.

These standalone systems were large. A 60KVA UPS was the size of a double wardrobe and weighed about 600kg.

You needed two of these for a parallel redundant system, plus batteries, which were typically at least the same size.

The transformers inside were heavy and used copper, which was expensive. The units, typically 1VA, cost £1 to purchase. So a 60KVA UPS cost £60K and again you needed to double up for a parallel system. Usually, efficiency was at best around 85%, and they were limited by a mean time to repair (MTTR) of about eight hours needed to fix a fault.

Large, high-loss power components required equally large heatsinks and cooling fans to keep them cool.

Environmental concerns and green house gases were also not considered in those days.

These systems consumed huge amounts of power, were big and noisy, cost a lot of money and required regular, invasive maintenance and component replacement. In other words, the UPS systems of 30 years ago were far from perfect.

In the early 1990s, transformerless technology was pioneered by Filippo Marbach and his design team, radically shrinking the UPS units. While transformerless technology has become mainstream today, at the time, it offered dramatically increased efficiency, decreased size and weight and reduced cost. However, although better power components MCP April 2018

Perfect UPS: how close are we to the holy grail?

Centiel managing director Michael Brooks recently presented on ‘How Close to The Perfect UPS is 4th Generation Modular UPS Technology?’ at Data Centre World. He examines whether the latest technology, if correctly configured, can significantly improve both power availability and operating efficiency resulted in improved switching efficiencies and quieter operation, customers looking for system redundancy still required two of these units to ensure a parallel redundant UPS system. It still took hours to fix faults in these single units.

Fast-forward to the modular UPS introduced after the millennium and we see further improvements. All the circuitry is contained within each module, making repair more straight forward, and therefore improving availability as well as

reducing system footprint.

Today, the fastest growing market sector we see are midrange three phase modular systems. This is because properly configured modular systems simultaneously maximise load availability and system efficiency. Modular systems are increasingly replacing traditional stand alone and parallel systems with the drive for high availability, fast repair and commonality of parts, as well as reduced system footprint.

The 4th Generation

modular UPS systems now available, such as Centiel’s CumulusPower, incorporating distributed active redundant architecture (Dara), provide a significant improvement over previous system designs.

Each module contains all the power elements of a UPS – rectifier, inverter, static switch, display and, critically, all control and monitoring circuitry. We believe this places it above other current designs that have a separate, single static switch assembly and separate control or intelligence missioncriticalpower.uk

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UPS systems have become significantly more efficient, take up less space and cost less to purchase and run, and reliability and power availability have increased missioncriticalpower.uk

modules as there is no single point of failure. Availability for this system is now ‘ninenines’ or 99.9999999%. This is because the MTTR is around three minutes.

There are other advantages of 4th Generation modular technology which takes us even closer to the perfect UPS. Systems in the past only ever reached maximum efficiency when operated at high loads, typically over 80% load. Obviously for the most common parallel 1+1 system, the maximum they could operate at would be 50% to ensure the parallel UPS could take over in the even of failure without overloading.

Maximum efficiencies could reach around 80% typically in real world conditions.

From an efficiency perspective, the big challenge is that the IT power requirement in most organisations will change over time. Over a sixyear period, a comms room with an initial load of 6kW, might easily have expanded to a 30kW load.

So how can the infrastructure be built to meet these dramatically changing demands?

Put simply, a UPS needs to operate at the most efficient point of its energy curve. A system that is too small will be overloaded, compromising reliability and availability. A system that is too large will waste energy, be inefficient and costly to run. It will also cost more than necessary to maintain due to its size.

Scalability and flexibility is therefore an essential consideration when purchasing, to ensure the continual ‘right sizing’ of the UPS. Our most modern technology now reaches peak efficiency at low loads and the efficiency curve is flat, offering more flexibility.

In this way, 4th Generation modular technology such as CumulusPower offers 97% efficiency even at low loads.

Modular also offers the advantage to ‘pay as you grow’ unlike older fixed-size systems.

£1874

Typical annual energy saving of a new Centiel PremiumTower 30kVA UPS - meaning the UPS will pay for itself within six years It is also possible to calculate the energy savings when installing new equipment.

A 10-year-old UPS will waste energy at a higher rate than a modern system, and we are able to quantify precisely the energy and cost saving of a new installation. A recent example was a transport operator looking at replacing a 30kVA UPS running at best at 92% efficiency. A new Centiel PremiumTower 30kVA UPS, for example, operates 97% efficiency. We were able to confirm, with the cost of a system typically running at £0.12p/KWH of power, an annual energy saving equating to £1,874.32. This meant the new UPS system could pay for itself within six years.

There are further benefits of replacing UPS systems and we should aim to be transparent with clients to enable them to understand these advantages.

For example: older equipment is less efficient and the waste energy is produced as heat. This requires more air conditioning to keep it at a suitable temperature. The calculation above actually did not include the increased cost of air conditioning to cool older equipment and so, in reality, the actual energy and cost savings would be far higher.

So, UPS technology has seen huge developments over the years. UPS systems have become significantly more efficient, take-up less space and cost less to purchase and run, and reliability and power availability have increased.

The most modern systems have become about as close to perfection as possible, keeping in mind there will always be some losses due to the very

nature of power conversion and switching. There simply isn’t much room for improvement at 97%.

For the future, the next barrier to be tackled to improve UPS systems further will be developments in energy storage technology. We have seen several attempts over the years to move away from the traditional lead acid battery as the primary energy store for the UPS. We have seen flywheels, compressed air, fuel cells, super capacitors, and more recently lithium ion batteries.

However, the traditional lead acid battery has steadfastly remained the simple, costeffective solution for the vast majority of installations.

The increasing use of Li-ion technology in the automotive industry has brought the technology forward a long way, and hopefully will eventually drive down costs with higher volumes once supply shortages have been resolved. It is then likely we will see a breakthrough to the mainstream UPS market.

Incorporating Li-ion batteries will inevitably reduce the size and weight of UPS systems further and the longer useful working life of Li-ion will mean fewer costly replacements. However, the charging and discharging characteristics of Lithium ion batteries are totally different from lead-acid batteries and so UPS systems need to be able to accommodate these different characteristics.

Therefore, the systems of the future will need to be designed with Li-ion in mind. Centiel’s technology is already Lithiumready, so installations with existing lead acid batteries will have the option to upgrade to Li-ion in the future, without needing to replace the UPS. So have we developed the perfect UPS? Well not quite, but with an average of 3 milliseconds downtime per year for a correctly configured system, we are well on the way to achieving power protection perfection. l April 2018 MCP

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DEMAND-SIDE RESPONSE

Balancing the grid: new technology driving DSR value Marc Borrett, CEO at Reactive Technologies, says that new technological advances will disrupt the way businesses interact with their energy and the way grid operators manage their systems by making them smarter

T

he global energy sector has been undergoing a significant shift in recent years from large, centralised conventional power sources, such as coal power stations, to decentralised, renewable generation, such as wind and solar. Renewables are experiencing exponential growth; globally there is now 305GW of solar power capacity, up from around 50GW in 2010 and virtually nothing at the turn of the millennium.

The rising proportion of renewables in the energy mix, alongside flexibility for the demand side, is driving the biggest transformation in the power industry since its inception. However, it is not without its challenges.

This shift to a lower carbon energy system is causing a host of new technical quandaries for grid operators, the most pressing of which is how to maintain grid stability, and therefore security of supply, as the energy mix becomes more distributed and intermittent in nature.

Previously grid operators had relied on fossil fuel power

MCP April 2018

stations to provide grid stability as their turbines injected inertia into the network, which contributed to maintaining system resilience in the face of a disturbance, such as a fault.

Conversely, renewable generation by its nature is unable to produce inertia, and therefore does not positively contribute to grid stability. As a result, as more renewables come into play, energy systems are becoming more volatile making safe and cost-effective grid operation increasingly challenging.

In addition, this will also have an impact on end users, such as industrial and commercial customers, who could experience increased energy prices and decreased security of supply.

Grid operators are therefore proactively looking for new tools to accurately measure grid inertia – which until now could only be estimated – to give them better visibility into the workings of their network.

Akin to finding the energy industry’s equivalent of the Higgs Boson particle, inertia was successfully measured missioncriticalpower.uk

39 A partial outage from the interconnector between the UK and France knocked 0.5GW from the UK’s available supplies, which combined with unplanned nuclear plant shutdowns and a continued heatwave saw National Grid close to having to issue an emergency alert to call for more power for the first time ever during a recent innovation project with the UK’s National Grid and Reactive Technologies where the latter’s unique grid measurement and insight platform GridMetrix was proven to directly and continuously measure grid inertia, among other critical data points.

Having this level of realtime visibility of grid inertia means grid operators can detect network events almost immediately so they can quickly dispatch reserve services, enabling them to rectify grid imbalance safely, cost-effectively and quickly.

This allows grid operators to also design faster, higher value demand-side response (DSR) mechanisms, which will benefit businesses who participate – by responding to short-term changes in demand by increasing or decreasing electrical consumption or generation.

This is a low-cost and carbon-friendly way of balancing the electricity system and would help to absorb more renewable generation.

It also opens up significant opportunities for businesses to turn energy system risks into commercial opportunities through participation of DSR programmes, support a

greener environment, and drive their own corporate social responsibility goals.

While DSR in itself is not a new concept, it will increasingly become a more important tool for grid operators to call upon to help them maintain system balance and integrate more renewable generation. Recent incidents demonstrate how DSR is becoming critical across Europe, as supply margins continue to tighten.

In the summer of 2016 in the UK, a partial outage from the interconnector between the UK and France knocked 0.5GW from the UK’s available supplies, which combined with unplanned nuclear plant shutdowns and a continued heatwave saw the National Grid close to having to issue an emergency alert to call for more power. Also, in France, prolonged maintenance of nuclear power plants caused a number of very close calls in 2016 where demand nearly outstripped supply.

Should this situation repeat itself, the consequences of system imbalance would otherwise be a source of consternation for the French transmission system operator, RTE, as without demand flexibility from the industrial and commercial sectors, it

would struggle to maintain grid balance.

New technologies are starting to break down barriers for DSR adoption and make it easier for businesses to adopt, opening up new ways of turning energy system risks into commercial opportunities.

By combining a deep understanding of the grid and experience extracting flexibility from businesses, Reactive’s DSR and optimisation platform Tradenergy allows businesses to access the highest value energy opportunities while contributing to grid balance.

Through Reactive’s DSR portfolio, businesses can enter the highest value, system-critical, loadbalancing services. Creating an automated, fully integrated energy management system, where a business’s energy (consumption, generation and storage) can be optimised round the clock, gives businesses access to brand new revenue streams and cost-saving opportunities. »

The consequences of system imbalance would be a source of consternation missioncriticalpower.uk

April 2018 MCP

40

DEMAND-SIDE RESPONSE

New technologies are starting to break down barriers for DSR adoption and make it easier for businesses to adopt

One company already benefitting from the technology is Carrefour Hypermarchés in France, which is now able to deliver demand flexibility to RTE. Reactive has optimised the supermarket giant’s assets from more than 70 sites across France to deliver load flexibility from HVACs and food chillers.

This means it can participate in the first year of France’s Capacity Market, which provides balancing services back to RTE, all without impacting their day-to-day operations nor affecting food quality, which is of paramount importance.

Carrefour’s electrical assets are connected via secure, Cloud-based integrated energy management and DSR platform Tradenergy, which manages them within a comprehensive flexibility portfolio and MCP April 2018

intelligently optimises them across multiple energy revenue mechanisms. The platform delivers accurate, reliable and safe control of Carrefour’s energy consumption in realtime in line with specific, preset food safety parameters.

Tradenergy provides Carrefour with a single stop energy optimisation solution

that extracts full value across a range of opportunities and is built to adapt to any new energy mechanisms that may arise in future, ensuring it will always be fit for purpose.

The transition to a low carbon energy future can’t rely on siloed thinking. It needs to be about bringing everything together – from grids to end

users (such as businesses) and generators themselves.

New technological advances will positively disrupt the way businesses interact with their energy and the way grid operators manage their systems by making them smarter.

The implications of creating flexibility among industrial and commercial customers will be significant.

Firstly, because DSR consumes no fossil fuels in its process, it is the cheapest and lowest carbon option for balancing the network.

Secondly, it will enable renewable generators to operate much nearer their full capacity, helping them maximise their earning potential in a non-subsidy regulatory landscape.

Thirdly, it will empower businesses to become active players in the energy system where they can directly contribute to a greener future, maximise the earning potential of their electrical assets and better manage their energy bills. l

DSR: tackling mission critical concerns Demand-side response is the management of electricity demand and generation and should be carried out within tight boundary conditions to ensure assets are available for their main purpose, using existing controls with minor changes to control philosophies to generate value. Reactive understands how important this is to customers with mission critical activities. A conversation between Reactive’s engineering team and the engineering team responsible for the mission critical site/ assets usually overcomes the perception that it adds any risk quite quickly. The main fear expressed is around risk to the assets and to their availability when needed. The company works with customers and their operational teams to ensure that they set the parameters they are comfortable with and always work within those. Creating a simple strategy to take incremental optimisation steps is usually the best way to overcome any perception of risk to assets. missioncriticalpower.uk

DATA CENTRE OPTIMISATION

41

MOD without cons: uptime ensured for defence contractor Business continuity and disaster recovery are crucial for MoD contractor Kelvin Hughes. The company’s data centre is designed to be ultra-resilient, so having full visibility and control has been vital

K

elvin Hughes is a developer and manufacturer of navigational and radar systems for civil and military applications, with a manufacturing history dating back more than 250 years. The company, which was acquired

by German defence contractor Hensoldt in 2017, is based in Enfield, north London, where its corporate data centre has been located for the past five years.

The data centre and its IT equipment host all of the company’s critical applications including its ERP system, development servers and data storage systems.

As a Ministry of Defence subcontractor, the company has a vital requirement for both physical and cyber security, in addition to strict access control. Business continuity and disaster recovery are

also important aspects of the facility’s day-to-day operation.

“If the data centre fails, the company essentially stops trading,” says Ian Mowbray (pictured above), infrastructure services manager at Kelvin Hughes. “Reliability, both in terms of the data centre hardware, the IT equipment and the services supplied by Kelvin Hughes is an issue on which the company cannot afford to compromise.”

The company’s original data centre, which was designed and built with the help of Schneider Electric, consists of 12 racks containing a mixture of physical and virtual servers and data storage arrays.

However, only eight of the racks are in use today by Kelvin Hughes; the additional four are populated by another company collocated on the business premises.

There is scope for

considerable expansion in the data centre, which would bring with it a need for additional monitoring and management of the facilities to ensure that it continues to operate effectively.

Mowbray’s team comprises six people who are responsible not just for the IT equipment and helpdesk but also for the entire building management including environmental control, access control and maintaining the water supply for the data centre cooling equipment. In recent months, Kelvin Hughes has deployed Schneider Electric’s StruxureOn service, to help maintain its data centre operations while

Reliability, both in terms of the data centre hardware, the IT equipment and the services supplied by Kelvin Hughes is an issue on which the company cannot afford to compromise missioncriticalpower.uk

providing remote management and monitoring.

Mowbray explains that when built, the facility featured a contained hot aisle together with close coupled cooling equipment.

“Schneider Electric’s InfraStruxure with Hot Aisle Containment Solution (HACS) has greatly helped the efficiency and effectiveness of our data centre cooling system,” he says. “A number of the servers have been virtualised making the requirement for physical servers unpredictable. The HACS enables a high density load and the flexibility to reliably accommodate, power and cool an additional number of IT devices.

“We used to have a monitoring server in the computer room which looked after all of the infrastructure and sent us email alerts if anything was amiss,” says Mowbray. » April 2018 MCP

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DATA CENTRE OPTIMISATION

“But during a recent routine upgrade of the batteries in our UPS systems, we learned about StruxureOn and that we could deploy it as part of our existing maintenance agreement with Schneider Electric.”

“Anything that provides additional insights and proactive monitoring or management of our facilities is of great interest because we’re a small team and it’s essential to know what’s happening in the data centre on a daily basis,” he says.

StruxureOn enables data centre managers and operators to both view and control all their equipment from a single central console, more commonly known as the “single pane of glass”. A benefit of the new system, according to Mowbray, is that alerts to any issues that reach a certain threshold of concern can be sent directly to a duty manager via the mobile phone application. “It means we can continue to monitor the computer room remotely at weekends, and should we encounter any issues, they are delivered directly to my Smartphone,” he says.

“The app also makes it much

By using PowerChute software, which selectively shuts down various servers in the case of a prolonged power outage, the autonomy time of the batteries can be increased easier to communicate with Schneider Electric in cases where external support is required,” Mowbray adds.

The data centre is designed to be ultra-resilient and as such has a lot of redundancy built into the UPS infrastructure.

“Due to the fact that we’re running at around 50% of total capacity, we can get about two and a quarter hours autonomy time from the batteries at

our current load. In addition, we can continue to run the water pumps and In-Row cooling units, because we have a 4000 litre water buffer located outside, which gives us substantial cooling redundancy to continue to cool the room even if we experience a power loss,” says Mowbray.

By using Schneider Electric’s PowerChute software, which selectively shuts down

various servers in the case of a prolonged power outage, the autonomy time of the batteries can be increased even further.

“We can actually squeeze about three and a half hours out of the batteries before everything stops,” says Mowbray. “In reality, mains power would typically be restored long before then. The longest power cut we have had in five years only lasted for 20 minutes.”

Mowbray says that the security of the data centre is adequately provided by the Schneider Electric Symmetra UPS systems, which remove the need for a backup generator.

“We considered that option,” he says, “but given the level of risk it wasn’t worth it. It’s more important for us to shut down the kit safely in a controlled way than to have a generator, which may or may not even start.”

“The StruxureOn monitoring service has enabled us to extend our virtual team at literally no extra cost,” says Mowbray. “In order to deliver detailed insights and reporting at a similar level we’d need a far bigger team in place to monitor the facility 24/7.” l

Protecting IP House against downtime

IP House required 24/7 monitoring of its facility

I

P House, a London-based data centre startup and new entrant to the UK colocation market, has selected EcoStruxure IT, the next generation Cloud-based

missioncriticalpower.uk

data centre infrastructure management (DCIM) platform, to provide 24/7 monitoring of its ISO-accredited facility.

IP House operations and commercial manager Vinny

Vaghani says: “One of the biggest drivers for selecting EcoStruxure IT was its vendor-neutrality and ability to integrate with different products to provide detailed data in a single dashboard.

“As a colocation provider we have to adhere to the highest standards of uptime and resiliency, monitoring and management is therefore an absolute necessity for our customers.”

IP House’s carrier-neutral data centre has been built to Tier III standards on the edge of London’s financial district. It contains 14,000 sq ft of white space across two technical suites and will be operational later this month.

The facility also utilises key

components from Schneider Electric’s EcoStruxure for Data Centers architecture, including power distrubution (PDU), Switchgear, NetShelter racks and Symmetra PX UPS. “Our clients depend on both uptime and 24/7 connectivity to business-critical applications hosted within the data centre.” says IP House data centre manager Sean Hilliar.

“Having the ability to proactively monitor all elements of the infrastructure with an advanced software solution like EcoStruxure IT will reassure customers that we’re providing them with a secure, competitive and resilient colocation service, that safeguards them against downtime.” l April 2018 MCP

44

DATA CENTRE INFRASTRUCTURE

D

igital transformation is in full swing, to the extent that at least half global value creation could be digitised by 2021, according to a forecast from IDC market researchers.

Faced with high electricity costs, it is becoming increasingly important for companies to modernise the IT landscape and make their data centre operations more efficient. The following review of managed Cloud services, edge computing and direct current in the data centre, analyses which are the most suitable technologies to make ongoing operations both cost-effective and future-proof.

The multi-Cloud trend Hybrid multi-Cloud environments will dominate future IT agenda. According to IDC, more than 90% of companies could be using multi-Cloud platforms by 2021. There are many reasons why. For one thing, there is no one-stop Cloud provider that can meet all the requirements; complete Cloud stacks always come from multiple providers.

Moreover, performance, latencies, compliance and risk management often have to be implemented individually, sometimes with different Cloud providers.

Typical Cloud services include infrastructure services (IaaS), applications (SaaS), and development platforms (PaaS).

Those who believe the sector is becoming too complex can rely on external providers to deliver managed Cloud services.

Cloud systems in data centres can be operated in a completely fail-safe way and maintained by an IT service provider, while users can easily access its resources via their web browser or a desktop application.

To support this shift in service provision, Rittal and its partners will increasingly be

40%

of IoT data could be processed by edge IT systems by 2019 MCP April 2018

Digital transformation: trends for 2018 Clive Partridge, product manager IT infrastructure, Rittal looks at how the data centre sector is evolving and how alternative energy and cooling concepts could help further reduce operating costs in the future

offering turnkey data centres including Cloud platforms and managed services for fail-safe infrastructures.

Edge computing trend In future, as well as expanding central data centres, many companies will be focusing more intensively on establishing decentralised IT capacities.

The driving forces are, in part, modern Industry 4.0 (IoT) applications. Automated production facilities mean a large amount of sensor data has to be processed on site, in real time; data transfer to a central data centre would delay realtime processing and overload networks and legacy systems.

And that’s not all. Many other Internet of Things (IoT) scenarios also need extra ‘edge’ data centres. These include networked households and smart homes, wearable fitness trackers and smart watches, as well as networked cars and IT infrastructures in smart cities. By 2019, 40% of IoT data could be processed by edge IT systems, IDC analysts say.

The new 5G mobile standard will also drastically increase the volume of data needing processing. At data transfer rates as fast as 10 GBit per second, for example, a movie can be transmitted in HD resolution in just a few seconds.

Those wanting to run IoT

infrastructures as part of fast 5G networks should make sure that the required server performance is provided at an early stage so that applications can use the full network capacity.

Edge data centres can be used for this purpose.

They enable the rapid and decentralised establishment of IT infrastructures to supply remote production sites or smart cities quickly with more computing power on a selective basis. But what makes an edge data centre stand out? They are turnkey IT solutions, which are modular and scalable, either as racks, or complete, within containers and they are suitable for companies of all sizes. missioncriticalpower.uk

45 The components for cooling, power supply, monitoring and security are pre-installed and coordinated with each other; so an edge data centre can be created very quickly.

Higher energy efficiency with DC racks That said, central and homogenous, hyper-scale data centres are still going to be needed. Hyper-scale infrastructure is laid out for horizontal scalability to provide the highest levels of performance throughput, as well as the redundancy necessary for fault tolerance and high levels of availability.

Operators, of course, have to optimise the running costs of their centres. DC racks are one solution, improving energy efficiency, but two new IT rack standards have become established on the market in the shape of the OCP (Open Compute Project) and the Open19. Inside the IT rack only one central power pack supplies the active IT components with DC power. This reduces the energy costs of each rack by about 5%. Certainly worthy of consideration.

Many companies will be focusing more intensively on establishing decentralised IT capacities

missioncriticalpower.uk

IT cooling trends Alternative energy and cooling concepts will further reduce operating costs. Electricity from renewable energy sources, with air or seawater cooling, is one example, as used by the Lefdal Mine Data Centre in Norway.

This is a data centre built in a former mine. It is cooled with seawater and uses electricity generated by from renewable sources. Companies can procure Cloud services directly or operate their own private Cloud systems.

Energy recovery is another IT cooling concept for higher efficiency. This uses the waste heat generated in the data centre for building climate control purposes, in order to heat hot water. The technology itself is not new but the aim is to develop a long-term strategy that exceeds the usual ROI calculation of three to five years. l

Simplified edge infrastructure

W

ith more than 90% of industrial companies wanting a simplified edge infrastructure that can be remotely managed, Stratus Technologies, a global leader in continuous availability solutions for mission critical applications, has unveiled its edge computing product strategy.

This includes the latest version of Stratus’s flagship product, ftServer, along with a converged operational technology (OT) edge system that offers enhanced remote management services in a rugged and easy-to-deploy form factor.

Suitable for users in industrial automation (IA) or in distributed enterprises deploying IIoT applications, these products ensure continuous availability and remote management of mission-critical edge applications, whether in the data centre, on the plant floor or at the network edge.

By delivering a series of highly available edge compute solutions, Stratus addresses the growing need for more intelligent devices at the edge, as demonstrated by a new worldwide market report by ARC Advisory Group. In that study, 91% of IA users surveyed stated having better systems and connectivity at the edge will enable improved real-time decision making.

Yet, more than 90% also indicated that, as edge computing grows, organisations will need a simplified edge infrastructure that can be remotely managed.

To address this, Stratus has released version nine of ftServer, its intelligent, self-monitoring and selfdiagnosing edge server. It is also introducing a new family of multi-function, converged

OT edge systems. The combination of ftServer and the forthcoming OT systems provides a comprehensive selection of edge solutions ideal for customers deploying IA, IIoT or IoT applications.

This set of edge solutions and Stratus’s overall vision for edge computing align with the outcomes of the ARC study, in which OT end users confirmed that their IIoT deployments will be comprised of a mix of edge and Cloud-based technologies.

Dave Laurello, CEO at Stratus, comments: “The more automated and connected applications become, the more critical it is for customers to have a highly reliable, continuously available and simple edge infrastructure to drive true IIoT business value.

Plant operators, in particular, don’t want to adopt, implement and manage complicated edge technology that requires specific expertise or talent.

The more self-managed the infrastructure, the more desirable it is, reducing the need for dedicated resources at each plant.”

Craig Resnick, analyst and vice-president, ARC Advisory Group, says: “Operational issues such as improving asset performance management to improve both production as well as reduce unplanned downtime will drive end users to deploy edge computing.

“Companies that are quick to take advantage of selfmanaged, edge computing infrastructures will be better able to unlock the data that has long been stranded inside machines and processes.

Remotely managing this edge infrastructure will immediately connect operators with offsite experts to more quickly resolve, or better yet avoid, downtime events.” l April 2018 MCP

46

DATA CENTRES NORTH

Networking in the North Data Centres North, the largest regional gathering for those responsible for the region’s data centres and other mission critical environments, takes place on 1-2 May in Manchester

N

ow in its fourth year, DataCentres North brings together leaders in the field of data hosting for a two-day event at Emirates Old Trafford that is free to attend. Combining a product and services exhibition with a multi-stream conference, the event is must-attend for anyone involved in commissioning, designing, maintaining or operating data centres, servers and comms rooms.

The multi-streamed conference programme will address data centre operations and strategy, with workshops, Q&As and brainstorming sessions addressing common issues facing data centre professionals. Topics covered will include certifications and standards, edge computing and smart grids, connectivity (both local and international), fire safety and cooling, and data compliance for Brexit.

MCP April 2018

DataCentres North was founded by StepEx, an exhibitions and publishing company established in 2007.

The event is supported by the British Computer Society, the Data Centres Specialist Group, the Data Centre Alliance, techUK and the Uptime Institute. To register to attend visit: datacentresnorth.com/ registration

Data Centres North offers the chance to refine your data centre strategy, meet the data centre community face-to-face, network at the largest event of its kind outside London, and experience the latest products for power, cooling, cabling, fire safety and security.

The event caters not only to data centre operators but

anyone responsible for a mission-critical environment, including telcos, hospitals and freight, transport and education professionals.

This event is the largest of its kind taking place outside London in 2018.

Data Centres North Dinner The dinner, held at the close of the first day of the event, on 1 May, is an ideal opportunity to socialise and network with industry leaders, speakers, exhibitors, customers and peers. The dinner has a relaxed atmosphere, good food and is a perfect opportunity for companies to meet and entertain clients based in the region.

This year’s after-dinner speaker, sports presenter Garry

Richardson, has worked for the BBC for 40 years. He is best known as the sports presenter on Radio Four’s prestigious Today programme and Sportsweek on Five Live every Sunday morning.

Garry’s big love is performing on the afterdinner circuit. This year marks his 32nd year as one of the country’s funniest speakers.

Tickets to the Data Centres North dinner are priced at £55 plus VAT per person, with tables of 10 receiving a 10% discount.

All tickets include a drink on arrival, three-course meal and half a bottle of wine and entertainment.

To book your place at the Datacentres North dinner visit datacentresnorth.com l missioncriticalpower.uk

PRODUCTS

47

UPS systems ensure high availability and efficiency At Data Centre World, Centiel showcased its CumulusPower three-phase, modular UPS system, which offers ‘nine nines’ system availability and very low total cost of ownership, plus PremiumTower, a threephase standalone UPS for critical loads of between 10kW and 60kW. Centiel managing director Michael Brooks comments: “Availability continues to be the major concern for data centre managers and those working in other environments requiring clean, continuous power. Unlike traditional multi-module systems, the CumulusPower technology combines intelligent module technology (IMT), with a fault-tolerant parallel distributed active redundant architecture (Dara), to offer availability of 99.9999999%.

“This system availability is achieved

through fully independent and self-isolating intelligent modules, each with individual power units, intelligence (CPU and

communication logic), static bypass, control, display and battery,” continues Brooks.

“Also, in the unlikely event of a module failure, the module can be quickly and safely swapped without transferring the load to raw mains. Furthermore, the solution has been designed to reduce the total cost of ownership through low losses.” He adds that the high double conversion efficiency of 97% at the module level means it is ideal to protect data centre infrastructure, while its configuration also reduces downtime risk, avoiding costly errors as well as increasing energy efficiency.

Also available from Centiel is the PremiumTower, which offers very similar reliability and efficiency performance as CumulusPower, in a standalone, parallelable version.

New generation UPS optimises cost and space AEG Power Solutions, a global provider of power supply systems and solutions for all types of critical and demanding applications, has announced a new generation of standalone three-phase UPS, Protect Plus S300.

The system combines high efficiency values with a large set of available options. Optimising costs and space with uncompromised power protection, the Protect Plus S300 range is the solution of choice to protect critical loads for small and medium applications where low power consumption, easy maintenance and floor space are important considerations.

Protect Plus S300 is based on a highly efficient transformerless double conversion technology.

AC/AC efficiency values of the system are close to 96% in operational conditions in double conversion and up to 98% in eco mode. The system ensures one of the lowest levels of operational missioncriticalpower.uk

expenditure on the market in its category.

Best in class for energy consumption, Protect Plus S300 has a very low total cost of ownership.

The system has been designed to respond to all major concerns of facility or data and IT managers. Protect Plus S300 provides enhanced power protection in a compact format, saving valuable floor space for operations. Depending on the power range, the system footprint is up to 50% smaller than the same capacity UPS of the former generation.

Protect Plus S300 can be equipped with integrated batteries or isolation transformer (for total galvanic isolation) up to 80kVA. As the system can cope with tough environments in a very compact footprint, it is an ideal power protection for industrial internet-ofthings applications.

Easy to install and operate, Protect Plus S300 is also easy to maintain with its front access.

Energy efficient chillers Stulz is expanding its product portfolio with additional ze chillers in the CyberCool 2 series. These new chillers are available in air-cooled versions and are designed for use with eco-friendly R-1234ze refrigerant.

This HFO blend has a very low global warming potential (GWP) and, in the context of (EU) regulation No 517/2014 and together with refrigerant shortages, is a future-proof and efficient alternative to conventional HFC-based refrigerants.

Stulz CyberCool 2 ze chillers are available in various output capacities from 300 to 1000kW and offer reliable

and efficient cooling solutions for medium and large data centres, telecommunications and industrial applications.

Like the CyberCool 2 chillers that were introduced in 2013, the ze series is also equipped with the largest possible EC fans and sound-insulated compressor chambers to reduce noise emissions.

Thanks to dynamic control technology, the CyberCool 2 also supports indirect free cooling.

In particular, this intelligent way of changing over between compressor operation and indirect free cooling facilitates resource-saving operation coupled with maximum energy efficiency.

April 2018 MCP

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PRODUCTS

CT tester cuts testing time by 20% A patented technique that allows simultaneous testing on all taps means that Megger’s new MRCT test set can cut the time needed to test current transformers (CTs) by up to 20% compared with conventional test sets.

This instrument also offers enhanced measuring accuracy to support the testing of metering-class CTs and it can now optionally be supplied with a DC excitation feature that allows CTs with knee points up to 30kV to be tested. Facilities for testing single-phase protection relays can also be specified as an additional option.

MRCT test sets are available for use with the Megger STVI touch-screen interface, which has a large highresolution colour display, or with a standard laptop running Megger’s renowned PowerDB software.

It is the smallest and lightest 2kV test set of its type currently available, and is capable of performing simultaneous measurements on up to 10 taps.

The test set connects directly to multi-ratio CTs and, at

the push of a button, automatically performs a comprehensive sequence of tests, including saturation, ratio, polarity, winding resistance and insulation, thereby providing further time savings. No changes of connections are needed during the test sequence.

Grouped testing is supported with automatic demagnetisation and calculation of ratio errors, knee points and saturation curves. For CTs with knee points up to 2kV, AC excitation is used to saturate the core during testing. For CTs with higher knee point voltages, up to a maximum of 30kV, the MRCT can optionally be supplied with facilities for DC excitation. When this is used, the results obtained are automatically converted to their AC equivalent. The MRCT also offers insulation resistance testing at 500V and 1,000V. In addition to facilities for automatic testing, the MRCT test set also makes extensive provision for manual CT testing.

The results from both automatic and manual tests can be stored in a highcapacity internal memory for subsequent download to a PC running PowerDB, which provides a wide range of reporting options.

Intelligent power distribution units Panduit’s next-generation advanced SmartZone G5 Intelligent Power Distribution Units (iPDUs) provide best-in-class outlet density, optimal form factor and high levels of reliability to monitor the data centre power, environment and security, at cabinet level, by continuously scanning for electrical circuit overloads and physical environmental conditions that place critical IT equipment at risk.

The SmartZone G5 iPDU offers comprehensive, accurate, energy measurement data to enable data centre operators to efficiently use power resources, make informed capacity planning decisions, improve uptime, help measure PUE, drive green data centre initiatives to save energy and costs, and provide physical security to prevent unauthorised cabinet access.

There are five families of the G5 iPDU: 1. Basic PDU 2. Monitored Input (MI) Series iPDU 3. Monitored Switched (MS) Series iPDU 4. Monitored per Outlet (MPO) Series iPDU 5. Monitored and Switched per Outlet (MSPO) Series iPDU Marc Naese, senior vice-president, data centre business, Panduit, comments: “Making the right choice in IT equipment is essential for safe, efficient data centre operation. Our full range of G5 iPDUs, environmental sensors, access security accessories and dual locking power cords are the key to fulfilling mission critical data centre needs.”

MCP April 2018

Finger-safe plugin socket system A powerful 250A power bar system from ABB is now available in the shape of the Smissline TP. The power bars have a rated amperage of 250A and therefore allow a side feed of 250A. This extends the spectrum of potential applications, particularly for applications with high-current devices. More high-current outlets can be placed on the same busbar system. The power bar system is compatible with those devices previously directly pluggable.

Smissline TP is designed to permit hot swapping and hot plugging. An added bonus is that it is completely finger-safe (IP 20) – ie no hazard can arise as a result of a shock current. Furthermore, the system prevents any danger to persons arising from arcs or internal faults, so no additional personal protection equipment is required. This offers enhanced personal protection and can help significantly to reduce the costs of the electrical system over the full life cycle.

There are many good reasons for planners, panel builders and building owners to choose a plugin system. That is especially true for buildings in which the focus is on safety, availability and options for expanding and modifying the electrical system.

The power bar system with its 250 A power rails offers particular benefits for applications in remote power panels in data centres. But also, of course, wherever a highcurrent demand is required.

This is primarily the case in public buildings, industrial companies, safety-related systems such as computer systems, UPS systems, transport applications, such as at airports, or in the telecommunications field.

The Smissline TP plug-in socket system and the new power bar system enable upgrades to the wiring in switchgear cabinets to be carried out very easily on site – and at no extra cost since the busbars are automatically inputwired. The plug-in system enables the amount of assembly and wiring work to be reduced. Input and cross wiring are not required, and output terminals can be dispensed of with direct outputs.

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April 2018 MCP

50

Q&A

Russell Poole The managing director of Equinix discusses teleportation, being the King of Slough and the ultimate dream of playing rugby for England

Who would you least like to share a lift with? This is rather negative… I’d rather say who I’d most like to share a lift with: Rosa Parks. She was an ordinary woman who did something hugely courageous.

I’m known within Equinix as the King of Slough.

I like it – I’d want more people to know about my reign

You’re God for the day. What’s the first thing you do? Put an end to all armed conflict.

If you could travel back in time to a period in history, what would it be?

The Victorian era. I would love to meet Isambard Kingdom Brunel.

He was a true genius – I would love to have been there to see his huge and revolutionary projects take shape.

Who are you enjoying listening to? A bit of a shift from the Victorian era… I’d have to go with Pete Tong Ibiza Classics – great nostalgia of some of the music from my younger days. I would highly recommend it.

What unsolved mystery would you like the answers to? How England’s rugby union team managed to contrive to lose against both Scotland and France is one of the world’s great unsolved mysteries. Someone, please explain?

What would you take to a desert island? A large, well-stocked boat. I’d grow tired of my own company very quickly.

MCP April 2018

What’s your favourite film?

Dead Poets Society. Apart from being a good film and Robin Williams being truly outstanding, it is a wonderful story about making the most of every day and a stark warning as to what happens when you stop people from pursuing their dreams.

If you could perpetuate a myth about yourself, what would it be?

I’m known within Equinix as the King of Slough. I like it – I’d want more people to know about my reign.

What’s your greatest extravagance? Agreeing to ridiculous requests from my teenage children. Yesterday it was for a pair of “life or death” high-heeled shoes that had to be delivered before the end of this week.

If you were blessed with any talent, what would your dream job be? I honestly already have my dream job. Although if I was pushed, I guess playing rugby for England would be pretty good.

What is the best piece of advice ever been given?

Recognise when you have been lucky.

What irritates you the most in life? General rudeness and impolite behaviour.

What should energy users be doing to help themselves in the current climate? Use less and generate more. It is a simple mantra but there are so many ways we can become more self-sufficient when it comes to energy.

What’s the best thing – work wise – that you did recently? Attending our global sales kick off, Equinix Connect, in January. Twelve hundred people attended it in Dallas.

It was fantastic and genuinely inspirational. l

What would your super power be and why?

Teleportation. I spend a lot of my time sat on planes or trains, or waiting in airports.

What would you do with a million pounds? I would set up a charitable trust to make donations to mental health charities for young people.

Playing rugby for England would be pretty good missioncriticalpower.uk