Taking a modular approach to building a data centre power infrastructure

Designing and building a data centre to meet future needs can often be an expensive and wasteful exercise in over-engineering. Taking a modular approach allows for capacity to be be implemented to meet today’s business demands but readily extended in the future as those demands grow.

With technology and business evolving rapidly, trying to predict an organisation’s IT requirements is almost impossible and can lead to the acquisition of more equipment than is actually required. For this reason, data centre design needs to be modular.

Modular design is particularly important when it comes to data centre power infrastructure. Here, a modular approach means implementing UPSs that can scale for added capacity as well as deploying extended battery modules to support backup runtimes. The design should also incorporate plug-and-play power distribution as well as room-level wiring using row- or rack-level modules.

A building-block approach

Adopting a modular approach to data centre design used to require adding greater numbers of components, which, in turn, created more risk of failure. Today, however, modular designs allow users to add, remove or redeploy building blocks to create variations of an original function or process. This allows expansion to occur without increasing overall risk. Taking such a building-block approach allows an organisation to pay only for the functionality it requires in the short term while also being able to expand as required without requiring an entirely new platform.

Distributed UPS architectures

In the past, many data centre operators tended to choose a centralised power protection strategy in which a large, standalone UPS powered the entire facility. This approach works when growth can be accurately forecasted but proves difficult as business demands increase. More recently, many data centres have adopted a zoned strategy, where the facility is divided into zones and each powered by its own UPS. As well as being more scalable, it also prevents a single UPS outage from affecting an entire data centre.

In a modular centre, the zone concept can be taken even further to where each rack or set of racks has its own UPS. This approach has a strong appeal for colocation and hosting providers where they can segment customers and scale out only when there is an increase in demand.

What to look for in a modular, distributed UPS

While it’s traditional to think that taking a modular approach increases component numbers and therefore risk of failure, this is not actually the case when it comes to UPS devices. Using a bank of 12 kW and 50 kW UPS modules instead of a larger, stand-alone unit improves availability and serviceability while also helping to meet budget constraints and constant changes.

When selecting UPS units for this type of deployment, it’s important to ensure they meet a number of key criteria. These include having a small footprint and high power density, together with the ability to fit into your existing racks. They should be able to share space with any existing power distribution equipment and have swappable components for ease of replacement and upgrading.

Battery back-up is another item for consideration. While centralised UPS units may need multiple dedicated battery cabinets to achieve even a minimum acceptable runtime, in a modular UPS internal batteries can provide sufficient system runtime without adding additional footprint or complexity.

Power distribution

When shifting to a modular data centre design, another consideration is the power distribution infrastructure that will be required. With higher consumption per rack, it’s important to understand how to deliver the required power in the most effective way.

Modern rack PDUs can be installed in many locations and can also be removed and redeployed as needed, making it easy for IT teams to support moves, adds and changes in the data centre. Using PDU tools, it’s possible to monitor and manage network-connected power distribution components at the rack level via a single web-based interface.

Straightforward and budget-friendly software is available to aggregate power data from a virtually unlimited number of rack PDUs and UPSs on an IP network into a cohesive, enterprise-wide view. Going modular doesn’t have to compromise visibility. In fact, it extends visibility further to the edge of the distribution system.

Flexibility for the future

Taking a modular approach to the design and installation of a data centre’s power infrastructure will make it easier to support scalability and future changes in demand. When evaluating components to use in the infrastructure, it’s important to ensure they support modular expansion and future redeployment.

There are now more options than ever on the market that can allow businesses to make use of modular architectures to tailor a data centre power system to meet their particular requirements. Taking this approach can meet the operational needs of today while also providing the flexible platform needed for the future.

Image credit: ©iStockphoto.com/Georgi Byandov