Planning for power (1)

I've been reading recently on LinkedIn.com forums questions about how much power should be allowed per cabinet/rack in the Data Centre. Making a mistake with this figure can be expensive. If you calculate too low a power supply it can be a very expensive process to remedy the mistake. Retro fitting power upgrades on a live data centre is an expensive and complex process. It usually comes at the time when a business is not expecting a major capital outlay, not a move popular with the Board. I've seen one case where "glowing bus bars" unable to handle any more power led to an international bank having to hurriedly construct a new data centre in a new location. There was still free space in the old data centre just not enough power for any new equipment for business expansion.

Over-provision for power can also prove expensive in terms of wasted initial capital expenditure, increased maintenance costs and wasted energy during the lifetime of the equipment. 

It would take a book to fully describe the steps needed to calculate and install the right power system. The actual design and installation must be undertaken by qualified electrical engineers, but the management or planners of the data centre have information which is vital to the power system design process. Key to the process is an energy budget and forecast process. The team must be able to measure the usage of existing equipment, predict the actual power usage of  equipment which destined to be installed and also facilitate the calculation of power needed for supporting systems such as air conditioning.

The power budget should be an actual document/spreadsheet/database recording the planned/actual usage of equipment. It should also document the physical location of the equipment so it is possible to calculate how much power should be delivered to a specific location within the data centre. It is normal for power to be delivered over three phases (circuits) of electric power. The engineers will need to know how the power demand will be distributed over the three electrical phases. Cable routes and switching arrangements can be affected by the decision to provide dual power routes to cabinets/rack and their physical location.

Power planning and the physical location of usage will affect the design of the earth bonding reference grid. The sensitive equipment in the technology racks will need electrically clean bonding connections. Those connections will need to be sized suitably for the power draw in that area. The electrical engineers should be asking questions about these matters as part of their design process. Data Centre management should ensure the engineers take bonding requirement into account.

The power budget must also have a change control process to ensure any variations in planned/actual usage are accurately investigated, where necessary authorised and scheduled for implementation. In some cases DCIM software (Data Centre Information Management) can assist the power usage/commitment documentation process.

Power demand planning should anticipate how power requirements will develop over the lime time of the data centre. It may be appropriate to increase power provision as data centre space utilisation increases. For example power equipment which can be expanded by adding further modules may be chosen.

From an early stage, the power budget should incorporate cost recovery/allocation mechanisms. The cost recovery process should be transparent and acceptable to the client base. The process of cost recovery, may require accurate power metering down to the level of individual servers. This will affect the design and investment of the infrastructure. The budgetary responsibility may be in different organisational silos such as ICT and facilities management. Part of the provision may affect the charges levied by the building owner/landlord. Carbon Credit recovery may also affect the budgetary process.

The power budget needs to be subdivided into:

• Critical power
• Protected power
• Unprotected power

Critical power is that which should be continuously available without interruption. Facilities should be provided to provide back-up power sources without interruption when the primary source fails.

Protected power is that which should be continuously available, but can sustain short duration outages  while a standby power generator starts up if the primary source fails.

Unprotected power is routinely supplied by the utility company and may be subject to supply outages of a local or regional basis. Even with unprotected power it is sensible for an organisation to increase protection by attempting to provide dual sources from different sub-stations.

Each of these separate power categories will have different capital and ongoing operational costs associated with them. It is no longer really acceptable to lump all power costs into one financial pot.

The power budget should also separately document in power in-rush when equipment is switched on. This figure can be substantially larger than the steady state power draw. While is does not normally affect the power supply to the building it will affect the design of the circuit breakers in the power circuitry and may also affect the specification of electrical back up systems such as generators and UPS battery systems.

Those people calculating the power requirements should not use the "plated" rating on the outside of the unit, but should undertake careful research with the manufacturer's specification as to steady state usage. This should be backed up with actual measurement of power usage on equipment in use in a production environment.

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Demand controlled air ventilation

When building a trading floor and its associated data centre/technology room the designer will need to think about how much fresh air should be pumped into the room. Depending on external climate conditions the delivery of fresh air will need some energy to process it before introducing the air into the building. It may need heating/cooling/dehumidification and it will definitely require filtering.

Keeping the fresh air to a sensible minimum in an air conditioned building will reduce energy costs. If the building has a lot of people present you'll need more fresh air. If the building contains only machinery there will not be a great demand for fresh air. Some basic building ventilation systems will be designed to deliver a certain percentage of fresh air to ensure X air  changes per hour. However in practice many buildings are occupied only 60% of the day. Some rooms such as conference rooms are often empty with little need for fresh air, but when fully occupied the demand for fresh air increases.

Demand air ventilation systems incorporate carbon dioxide sensors to detect whe the people load is increasing the need for fresh air. Such systems are usually capable of air conditioning of the fresh air delivered, so only the specifically required fresh air will need energy. It reduces waste and improves the environment for the building occupants. Here is one such system. Here's a useful (12mb pdf) document. from Carrier Corporation

Reselling software licences in EU

In an article by Stewart Mitchell in PC Pro, and also Cnet (Don Reisinger) it was reported that a recent EU court judgement allows businesses to resell software licensing blocks. The implication is your company can sell software licences which it no longer needs. You can't split the licence blocks into smaller portions, but if you've purchased several blocks for the same software those can be individually resold.

As this ruling was in Germany under EU law you might want to seek legal advice first in other countries before following this route. It will be interesting to see how this affects supplier buyback of licences. No doubt the suppliers will attempt to repackage their licences as services. One company UsedSoft already offers a service in this respect.

Power Outage $30K per second

An article in the Register caught my eye. It gives a really graphic view of the potential costs of power failure. In this case it was an LCD screen manufacturing plant.

Just in Time fuel supply - is it worth it?

In a BBC report we learn that Manchester (UK) airport ran out of jet fuel. They hold between 12 and 24 hours supply, relying on a single 30 mile pipeline from a refinery to provide replenishment. Considering planes can't fly without fuel I'd call the fuel storage and supply an essential asset. Without the fuel the airport would have to close or operate on a considerably reduced  traffic. Not keeping several day's supply in buffer tanks on site seems like a false economy to me.

The same problem can exist for the fuel supply of standby generators . Some organisations depend on fuel tankers arriving within a few hours of a major outage. If there is a regional power outage it is likely the demand for fuel will exceed the logistics capacity of the tanker firms to deliver fuel. Standby fuel storage capacity is a risk which must be formally assessed and the decision signed off by business management. The danger is that some bright accountant will think money can be saved by reducing fuel stocks and utilising a Just-In-Time delivery.

The pace of invention

When I started work in my first job as a Gov't sickness benefits officer life was very different from now. If we wanted to send a letter to a claimant, we'd write the letter in handwriting, pass the handwritten letter to a typist who'd return a typed version complete with a carbon copy a few hours later. After the letter had been reviewed by the supervisor it was put in an envelope  in an out-tray for collection by the post clerk. The carbon copy would be filed in the cardboard file jacket of the claimant. You'd get a rocket from the supervisor if your letter contained any spelling/grammatical errors or there any obvious typing corrections. Our only contact with a computer was that we had to punch a couple of circular holes in punched cards for each case file. There were no keyboards on our desks, just a pencil, ruler, black ink fountain pen and sometimes a government issue ball point pen. 

Lasers were in the early stages of development in scientific research labs. Primitive liquid crystal display (a four inch pane changing from dark to light) was about to be demonstrated on television in the Tomorrow's World programme. Over the years I've seen many developments in the field of technology and computing. I was begining to wonder what was now left for man to invent and exploit. Some basic browsing during last weekend has convinced me there are a lot of new discoveries awaiting.

Here's some examples of recent developments that excite me.:

Willow glass by Corning - a mass produced flexible glass.

Nano-diamond  laser cladding on metals

Nano-diamond lubrication additives.

Corporate Theft

There's one thing a bit off the topic of technology, security or trading, but is in way related. I travel a lot and use hotel and airline loyalty schemes. I rarely claim the awards from the schemes but instead I prefer to allow the points to build up to maybe use for a big trip. As it happens I don't go out of my way to use those airlines or hotels. I travel mostly out of necessity to support my business. What really gets my goat (UK english colloq. "annoys me") is that once the points have been awarded the airline/hotel think they can snatch back the points if I don't use them within a given time frame. So far as I'm concerned that is theft by the supplier, I don't care what legalese grey fine print is tucked away in some obscure place. It is theft, plain and simple.

So when a supplier such as British Airways (BA) of the Hilton Hotels group (Hilton HHonors™ scheme) claws back points from me I always punish them by withdrawing business from them. The punishment always costs them more that the value of the "points" that they've stolen from me, and the business goes to a competitor.

Another extremely annoying business practice is selling my account to another business as though my business with the supplier is some kind of commodity they can package up and sell to another business. The banks and credit card companies are particularly prone to do this. When I do business with another business it is because I choose to do so. Once again I punish the business who "bought" me for assuming that I'll do business with them.  Sorry guys but you have to earn my trust, you have wasted whatever you paid for me and it will go to your competitor.  British Airways have played a similar game by selling my customer points holding to Avios, sorry guys it doesn't wash, you both lose.

If big business had the courtesy to ask me if I had any objections about being transferred to another supplier I might be more amenable, but they don't so they lose. Loyalty is a two way street.