Despite a well-organized infrastructure, many data centers experience unplanned outages, due to a lack of proper capacity planning and monitoring of power demands. As the demand for IT applications grows and more servers and storage are added to the data center, there is a need to expand the IT infrastructure, too. If the IT demand outgrows what the critical infrastructure can supply, downtimes are bound to occur. Downtimes not only cripple your business processes, but can also result in loss of customers, and most importantly, the can jeopardise the business’ reputation. To help minimize outages, this post discusses various techniques and alternatives.
Leverage Data Center Power Monitoring
Many organizations use modern power distribution units (PDUs) for controlling electrical power in the data center. Floor-mounted and rack-mounted PDUs are more advanced than basic large power strip PDUs, and provide data that is used to calculate power usage effectiveness of a data center. If your data center uses an obsolete equipment that can’t be upgraded with modern PDUs, opt for a clamp-on ammeter to analyze data center’s power consumption trends. Lastly, to prevent power outages, keep a record of power draw readings.
Prepare for the Future
Though data center power monitoring helps facility managers forecast the power usage and justify the demand for expansion or retrofit of an existing facility; financial crisis can stall the plans. Here are some relatively economical and easier alternatives to take preventive measures.
Virtualization
Virtualization optimizes IT infrastructure by reducing data center capital and operational cost, offering a number of benefits, such as less heat build up, reduced cost, faster redeployment, and easier backup. Data center virtualization enables designing, developing, and deploying a data center on virtual and cloud computing technologies, and allows users to host multiple data centers using the same infrastructure. Most IT companies that adopt virtualization may do away their expansion projects, even during rapid growth.
Colocation Facility
A colocation is a third-party data center facility where business owners rent space for their server and other computing hardware. These facilities allow corporations to overcome the expense associated with maintaining and updating a large in-house data center facility. In addition, the facility provides cooling, power backup, bandwidth, and physical security while the client provides servers. Data center expansion with colocation facility makes a more economical choice than expanding an in-house data center.
Old Servers Decommissioning
Companies on the verge of exhausting their data center capacity may consider old server decommissioning, as it offers an easy way to recoup space and power, and acquire extra equipment to fulfill lower-tier workloads. Obsolete servers are not only inefficient, but also often drain company’s budget and resources. Data center facility manager needs to audit their servers, identify the devices that are redundant, and coordinate with decision-makers to remove those devices and decommission the servers.
The Bottom Line
One of the best ways to prevent server room power outages is to put in place a properly worked out monitoring system that enables to track the power distribution path. Plan early to avoid data center power growth such as colocation, decommissioning older equipment and virtualisation when expansion becomes necessary. We, at i2k2 Networks, deploy our decades of experience to offer comprehensive data center services that will make power outages issues a thing of the past. Should you wish to learn more about our services, feel free to contact us at +91- 9711774040 or +91-120-466 3031.