How to prevent a power outage in your data center without over provisioning?

By Sanjay Motwani, Regional Director, Asia Pacific, Raritan, APAC

Power, the lifeline of a data center, is a precious commodity. Data centers have a tight rope to walk in keeping their infrastructure performing at the peak while ensuring their power consumption does not hit the roof. Untimely outages, circuit trips or downtime can severely affect the functioning of critical applications.However in ensuring the infrastructure is never out of power, the data centers run the risk of over provisioning and thereby bring on added and unwarranted costs. Strict planning for the current requirements brings down operating costs but leaves very little headroom for future expansion. On the flip side provisioning with an eye to the future can add a lot of burden in maintaining and running the business today, where being competitive takes a beating. The answer lies in right sizing the power provision.

Getting the right sized power provisioning

It requires smart planning and intelligent provisioning to ensure that the mission critical IT assets and associated infrastructure work at the optimum, maintain complete uptime and yet power consumption is strictly rationalized. Continuous monitoring, analysis and reporting of every unit of power consumed at every rack help data center managers to plan and provision appropriately. Even while new equipment is added, it is essential to understand the current power distribution and place it in the right slot to avoid unplanned outage, ensuring cable ratings are not exceeded and circuit breakers do not trip. Further, a clear and granular view of power consumption pattern in each of the PDUs in a data center ensures that power is evenly distributed across electrical system, resulting in higher efficiency.This keeps the personnel alert on the optimal functioning of equipment and allows them the flexibility of switching off equipment not in use. Restrain on undue power consumption results in considerable cost savings. .All ports in a rack end up consuming power when switched on even if not all of them are in use at one point. In such situations, granular monitoring can alert on these excesses and lead to measured use of power.

Intelligent power distribution monitoring

Simply providing uninterrupted power and keeping an eye on its consumption is not always enough, the system needs to be intuitive, responsive and analytical. In short, there is need for intelligent power distribution units that understand and adapt to the current need of the data centers and also give right insights in provisioning for the future.

Here is what an intelligent power distribution unit can help the data centers achieve:

• Having a clear view of power consumption real-time is critical in building a resilient and lean energy strategy. With real-time insights data center managers gain the ability to set thresholds, monitor, intervene and do course correction as an exigency arises. The real-time alert through email, text messages or SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol) helps in quickening response time and is critical in deflating or even pre-empting crisis situations.

• Remote outlet switching is fast becoming an essential functionality that the PDUs must have. Having the right insight at the appropriate time is only effective if it is timely. Most data centres do not have experienced professionals on the spot 24/7 to intervene during an eventuality. Remote monitoring and intervention is critical to ensure that the datacenter assets are not affected and applications run uninterrupted. Remote rebooting of servers and IT equipment via outlet-level switching from anywhere not only helps in ensuring 100% uptime but also prevents any mishap from occurring.

• Cooling is a major costs in data centres, a lot of power gets consumed in maintaining the right temperature for the equipment that may not be required. Having rack sensor information such as temperature and humidity monitoring via a web browser or command line interface (CLI) enables data center managers to take the right decisions regarding cooling requirements of the IT equipment.

Intelligent rack PDUs with outlet switching allow administrators to set user-configurable outlet-level delays for power sequencing, which helps prevent circuits from tripping from IT equipment in-rush currents. Rack level monitoring helps keep a tab on each unit of power consumed as well as health of important equipment. This can help in creating a forewarning system of evident or impending issues concerning equipment, capacity breach or power flow. In the event of any eventuality the impact can be contained as able control and monitoring at each rack will not allow damage to other racks.

The ability to plan for the resources correctly add competitive edge to the data centers. Power, being a critical and expensive resource needs judicious utilization. Outlet level power monitoring and trend analysis provide useful indicators to individual server performance which serves as the basis for optimal power provisioning. Adding more IT equipment to already heavily loaded circuits can lead to tripping and eventually to outages. Ability to provision outlets only when they are required thus becomes critical in not only saving power but ensuring safety of equipment as well.

Decision based on analysis, deep insights and the ability to act from anywhere define the futuristic enterprises that make the most of modern technologies. Data centers are at the fulcrum of leading the businesses to greater productivity and higher efficiency. For enterprises to deliver the best value to their client, it is imperative that they invest in the right technology, gain better control of their environment and be lean in their operations. Intelligent Power Distribution Units thus make for an intelligent choice!