Why modern Data Centers need a resilient Power solutions?

In India, the colocation/third-party data center market is growing at a CAGR between 7% and 8%, raising the utilization levels of servers and increasing power requirements. Different solutions have been proposed to address the continuous power needs at the data centers. Usage of the power grid has gone up significantly; however, it still faces some difficulties that lead to power outrage and flow fluctuations. These variations in the power supply can significantly impact data centers and can even lead to data loss. Hence, designing an uninterrupted power supply is essential at data centers.

A power backup supply of data centers must be responsive, robust, scalable, and energy- and cost-efficient. Eaton is the leader in providing efficient power management solutions. We have been helping data centers add more renewables, storage and electric infrastructure to their energy mix—to become more sustainable and resilient while lowering energy costs.

Eaton provides reliable distribution equipment, DC network power systems, and uninterruptible power supplies (UPSs) to ensure a steady flow of high-quality power—because an outage of just a few seconds can mean catastrophe in a data center.

Here are the few innovative solutions that we provide for modern data centers:

1. EnergyAware UPS: 

The Data Center industry continues to face challenges in reducing its carbon emissions and optimizing energy efficiency. Eaton's EnergyAware technology allows large Data Center operators to give back energy to the grid. The primary role of the UPS doesn’t change, but by creating UPS as a Reserve (UPSaaR) through EnergyAware, organizations can enable Energy Transition. With UPSaaR organizations can offset both their Capex cost, while contributing towards reducing the carbon footprint and enabling renewable energy. It also allows data centers to earn from their UPS investments. 

2. Switchgear: 

Switchgear is used to distribute power and to protect the power distribution system in the data center. Each device has a long life and ease of maintenance. The centralized collection of circuit breakers, fuses, and switches (circuit protection devices) protects, controls and isolates electrical equipment. It is important for data centers to move away from SF6 based Medium-voltage Switchgears. SF6 damages the ozone layer — a grave ecological threat. Also, SF6 leakage is going to temporarily put your system out of order. Handling SF6 is precarious. SF6 carries a GWP (Global warning Potential) of 23500 , which means SF6 is 23500 times more pollutant than CO2.Eaton has a unique product called solid insulated switchgear (SIS) named XIRIA, which is already present across world utilities in more than 100,000 units. This switchgear is available now in 24Kv upto 1250A, 25KA- 3 sec (12KV). Low-voltage switchgears too are critical for a data center set-up to ensure smooth and safe flow of power across the data center facility. New technologies like AFDD (Arc flash detection device) and digital RCDs (Residual Current Device) which offers better safety against electrical fire incidences. Eaton offers these innovative solutions to all segments including Data Centers.

3. Data Center Management Softwares & Services:

Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) products emerged as an initial solution to this challenge, comparable to ERP solutions for the wider enterprise in offering the data center tools for automation, orchestration, high utilization and ease of scaling. As the emphasis shifts to a more business-centred and service-oriented data center, the DCIM approach is evolving into a wider reaching solution that also facilitates data center business planning, cost analysis and control, energy resource management, and converged management of physical and virtual environments. Now, an innovative new category is emerging which turns the whole data center infrastructure into a source of intelligence for IT management. The name of this category? Data Center Service Optimization (DCSO).

Where DCIM systems focus on managing physical assets tooptimize day-to-day operation, DCSO solutions integrate multiple systems and embrace physical and virtual assets inside the data center and beyond to optimize the service a data center delivers to the organization.

Eaton's software applications (Brightlayer Data Centers suite) include everything from data center infrastructure management (DCIM) with capacity analytics and 3D visualizations to advanced, automatic remediations and cloud-based analytics that help predict power component failure. Eaton provides continuous predictive monitoring of switchgear and UPSs in a data center. This identifies and recognizes hotspot issues and problems before they become major failures, while providing insight into the state and availability of the switchgear. It also provides supervisory control and data acquisition systems log data.

4. Power Distribution Units (PDUs):

A rack-level metered outlet PDUs allow you to measure power consumption at the outlet level, gain Level 3 power usage effectiveness (PUE), and to perform accurate department and customer billing. Metered Outlet rackmount PDUs also enable you to monitor and measure critical power quality factors, such as voltage, current and power consumption. Eaton offers varied types of PDUs for data centers -  basic, switched and metered outlet.

1. Automatic transfer switches:

An automatic transfer switch (ATS) is an intelligent self-acting power switching device governed by the dedicated control logic. If the power fails, the ATS will automatically transfer (switch) the load circuit to the other power source (if it is available). It monitors incoming voltage from the utility line. When utility power is interrupted by any chances, the automatic transfer switch immediately senses the problem and signals the generator to start. The purpose of an ATS is to ensure the continuous flow of electrical power from one of two power sources to a connected load circuit (electrical equipment – lights, motors, computers, etc.). When the transfer switch detects a power interruption, it switches to generator power. When the power is restored, it switches back to utility power.