What Facilities Managers Need to Understand About Ups
In general, power protection (specifically uninterruptible power supplies) comes under the remit of the IT department whose responsibility also includes cramming increasing numbers of revenue-earning servers into decreasing computer room space. Secondary to the problem of space is capacity of the electrical system to supply enough energy to power more and more equipment. Electrical capacity usually falls under the remit of the facilities manager and it is here that problems arise if FMs are not aware of how much capacity is being consumed now and in the future as electricity usage continues to rise. Facilities managers are now finding themselves at the forefront of uninterruptible power supply (UPS) implementation. Understanding capacity and IT expansion plans, how fast are applications growing? 82% of respondents to the Uptime Institute’s 2008 Energy Efficiency Strategies Survey stated that there has been a significant increase in their organisation in electricity consumption in the last twelve month. 92% of those indicated that the rise went beyond expectations. In between managing the growing and complex needs of today’s IT departments and planning for tomorrow, consideration as to what impact additional server stock is having on UPS capacity is a key question often overlooked by IT managers but not FMs. Another key consideration FMs must be aware of is the fundamental difference between the ‘future-proofing’ strategies of IT managers and themselves. FMs usually plan for building management infrastructure to offer payback between 15-20 years, whereas IT managers are used to working with much shorter timeframes of 6-8 years. UPS equipment can offer much longer lifetimes than standard IT products but only if future system expansion and capacity increase is planned for at the outset. Aside from capacity planning, facilities managers need to be brought in to assess the logistical aspects of UPS specification and installation. How is UPS equipment (some larger units can weigh over 800kg) going to be transported to site and moved to its final position? Removal by manufacturers of the transformer in some designs of UPS has had a fundamental affect on overall size and weight, resulting in a 50% reduction in footprint and 70% reduction in weight. Where weight is an issue, floor loading is also a consideration, as is the impact of testing power protection equipment, under load conditions, without disruption to protected IT loads. Many UPS today are part of the facility, which puts them far more into the domain of FMs than ever before. Many are connected up to facility monitoring or building management systems so that their alarms (should they sound due to fault conditions) can be visible and audible. This capability adds resilience to power protection overall but must be monitored – an unheard alarm is no alarm at all! As with electrical capacity, it is extremely important cooling requirements are continually reviewed as more and more equipment is brought in to ensure a constant, even temperature. Modern high-end servers are crammed with higher volumes of hotter components. They may be more energy efficient in the sense that they consume less electricity than their forebears but crammed together in overcrowded server rooms, next to UPS, they can generate more heat. This is particularly important for UPS batteries as their design life can be dramatically compromised by fluctuations in temperature over and above 20-25 degrees centigrade. An assessment of UPS loads in terms of their criticality to business continuity in the event of a power failure and how they are synergised will enable them to be categorised as critical, essential or non-essential as well as how they interrelate. UPS loads are also categorised as linear or non-linear, depending upon how they draw their current from the mains power supply waveform, they will be inductive, capacity or resistive and this will have a bearing on UPS system sizing and design. In order to protect investment in uninterruptible power supplies, FMs must be acutely aware of current and future energy requirements and their impact on power protection needs. Logistics, floor loading and siting must also be assessed prior to installation. The impact of UPS maintenance and testing on protected loads must be thought through, alongside cooling capacity and loads types.
Robin Koffler is the General Manager for Riello UPS Ltd the UK subsidiary of Riello UPS (RPS S.p.A) a leading European manufacturer of Uninterruptible Power Supplies and a co-author of The Power Protection Guide(ISBN 978-0-9554428-0-3)- available from Amazon.com
