Uninterruptible Power Supplies (UPS) & Data Center
March 15, 2015 | by Hubnetix
Electricity delivered from utility corporations doesn’t remain constant. A slight power surge, power sag or outage could be detrimental to your organization’s objectives.
Infrastructure equipment works best when it gets a steady, regulated source of power. This helps ensure the longevity of the equipment we are using within your data center. When devices such as SANs or other types of storage appliances receive inconsistent power, we are directly putting the integrity of your organizations data at risk. Having a UPS within the onsite data center is easily one of the first things a data center architect should look at implementing within the facility.
How can we determine the best UPS for our requirements?
We must first determine what we actually have. UPS devices come in large, small and modular designs that will fit inside of racks or as a standalone appliance within a data center. We should research the specifications of the specific UPS device we are interested in purchasing so that we can gather enough information which will enable us to make an educated decision.
Another factor we should consider is whether or not our site has a generator that could kick in during an outage. Most UPS devices use lead batteries to keep devices running during a power outage. If we do not have a generator onsite, we may want a more robust UPS solution. If we have a generator on site and we know that the generator will repower our facility within 60 seconds, having a super robust UPS could be overkill.
Uninterrupted Power Supplies sometimes comes with a flywheel design versus the traditional lead battery model. There are pros and cons and many companies only utilize the flywheel design based on space constraints or green energy endeavors. The flywheel spins and when power loss is detected, the energy generated from the wheels motion is used by the data center’s equipment. The fly wheel slows down thus indicating that the perpetual motion that keeps the flywheel moving is waning. The flywheel design is gaining more popularity because it leaves a much smaller environmental impact than the traditional UPS systems, especially within green data centers of the future.
