Issue link: http://cp.revolio.com/i/148754
FACILITY CORNER Monitoring and Modernization: Preparing a Data Center for the Future BY JOHN COLLINS AND BRANDON EKBERG W hen making the investment in a data center, most businesses hope to receive more than two decades of reliable operations. However, some of the vital backbone components that the data center relies on – its mechanical, electrical and plumbing (MEP) systems – are not designed to last that long. Additionally, the only constant in today's data centers is change, and rapidly fluctuating density requirements demand that data centers remain flexible and easily scalable to meet uncertain, future needs. Companies faced with an aging MEP infrastructure have a few options; building a completely new facility, moving operations to a public cloud, colocating space or modernizing their existing data center. Eager to make the most of investments, many businesses find that modernization is the most cost-effective option, and can quickly result in improvements in reliability, efficiency and performance. www.datacenterjournal.com A STARTING POINT A UNIFIED VIEW A typical data center is supported by many pieces of electrical equipment that maintain the entirety of MEP operations: computer room air conditioning (CRAC) units, switchgear, meters, uninterruptible power systems (UPSs), generators, automatic transfer switches (ATS), harmonic mitigating transformers, power distribution units (PDUs), just to name a few. All of this equipment provides a constant stream of data. However, many older data centers do not properly monitor resource usage, and those that do often use outdated monitoring and management hardware and software platforms. By installing or upgrading power and energy metering devices and electrical power management systems (EPMS), facility management can accurately manage, analyze, and trend electrical availability and power usage – providing a dashboard view across an entire enterprise, along with the intelligence required to identify inefficiencies and target upgrades in a cost-efficient manner. The critical purpose of EPMS is to keep systems up and running and ensure cooling and power requirements are always met, by consolidating vast, real-time information on electrical systems across an entire facility. Most data centers are already measuring energy consumption or keeping an eye on harmonics, voltages and other power quality events. However, EPMS systems go a step further to provide accurate data on details including circuit loading, peak demand and equipment status, as well as hundreds of alarms that warn data center management of underperforming equipment and conditions threatening uptime. All of this data can be overwhelming, and users need to be able to see past individual measurements to trend graphs and events across dozens of specific power distribution devices and over multiple sites around the enterprise network. This complex data needs to be analyzed and boiled down to what is really important. Also, it THE DATA CENTER JOURNAL | 9