Data Centre Solutions Part of an Aggressive Global Expansion Program

Black Box, the trusted digital partner for enterprises across the globe, today announced that it is partnering with one of the world’s most renowned and prominent social media organisations on its global data centre expansion program. The potential data centre work could total $300 million or more for Black Box—making it the largest customer and deal in the company’s history.

Leading Swiss Uninterruptible Power Supply manufacturer, CENTIEL SA, has introduced a simple solution to allow either top or bottom cabling connection for its three-phase, modular UPS system, CumulusPowerTM. This innovative new design now means the UPS can be connected from either high or low level, without the requirement for a separate cable entry enclosure, enabling a more flexible layout within comms rooms and data centres, maximizing the use of space and potentially reducing installation costs.

Mike Elms, sales and marketing director, CENTIEL UK explains: “Up until now, the majority of most UPS units’ final power connections are at low level within the UPS frame. This made the bending radius of larger cables a problem whether the cables were installed at floor level or, even worse, at high level and then had to be run down tray/ladder to then be worked into the bottom of the UPS frame. The solution was to install a separate: ”top cable entry” (TCE) enclosure meaning additional cost and space which can now be saved. The flexible, modular configuration of CumulusPowerTM means we are able to provide the option of having the UPS input terminals at either low or high level within the frame to accept cables from below or above depending on the site requirements.

“Our focus is to work with our clients to provide the very best UPS solutions which are most applicable for their needs. This simple but highly convenient addition of optional top or bottom cable entry, is another example of CENTIEL leading the field in UPS design for benefit of our valued customer base.”

CumulusPowerTM is CENTIEL’s leading 4th generation modular UPS system with unique Intelligent Module Technology (IMT), a fault-tolerant parallel Distributed Active Redundant Architecture (DARA), offering industry leading “9 nines” system availability and very low total cost of ownership. This excellence in system availability is achieved through the fully independent and self-isolating intelligent modules – each with individual power units, intelligence (CPU and communication logic), static bypass, control, display and battery. The solution has been designed to reduce the total cost of ownership through low losses: the high double conversion ef?ciency of 97.1% at the module level means it is currently the best solution available to protect data centre infrastructure as its configuration also reduces downtime risk, avoiding costly errors as well as increasing energy efficiency.

Calorex will be part of the Data Centre World Asia 2018, offering refrigerant and desiccant drying solutions as well as ventilation and cooling equipment for data centres, power supply rooms and electronic enclosures.

For those organisations where failure of critical power/plant results in significant downtime costs, continuous predictive maintenance can no longer be regarded as a luxury option, but should be seen as a necessity for critical risk management. For example, in a steel or aluminium manufacturing plant, the typical cost of production downtime may be as high as £100,000 per day, whilst in a building such as a data centre this could be as high as several million. 

Of course, many buildings have a maintenance department to deal with problems like these, but often, because of time and resource constraints, the maintenance team becomes reactive, firefighting problems as they occur, with no predictive maintenance systems, little preventive maintenance, and often with no maintenance strategy at all. The more enlightened maintenance departments are using the latest condition monitoring and predictive maintenance systems, including bearing vibration monitoring, acoustic emissions monitoring and thermography to protect plant and machines.

For Data Centres, power protection systems must be available every second of every day and therefore maximizing system availability must be the overriding objective of any installation.   Availability is best described as the percentage of system uptime achieved in a year.  To achieve maximum availability, all single points of failure within the UPS need to be removed.  Over the years, many improvements have been made in relation to UPS technology and configurations to increase availability.  

Availability requires duplication and redundancy which naturally introduces inefficiencies, thereby increasing energy requirements.  For example: thirty years ago, the only way to achieve redundancy was to install a number of standalone UPS modules in a parallel topology.  These stand-alone systems could be pretty big, for example: 60KVA UPS weighed around 600kg and was the size of a double wardrobe!  In addition to the UPS modules were the associated battery systems.

The introduction of transformer-less technology in the early 1990s, by Filippo Marbach, dramatically increased efficiency, decreased size, weight and reduced costs.   The true modular UPS concepts, introduced after the year 2000, resulted in even further improvements

The 4th Generation true modular UPS systems now available, provide a significant improvement over previous system designs.  This is because each module contains all the power elements of a UPS – rectifier, inverter, static switch, display – and critically – all control and monitoring circuitry.  This places it above other current designs that have a separate, single static switch assembly and separate control or intelligence modules as there is no single point of failure.  Availability for our CumulusPower UPS which incorporates this Distributed Active Redundant Architecture (DARA) system is now ‘nine-nines’ or 99.9999999%.  Hot-swap capability lowers the Mean Time to Repair (MTTR) to only around three minutes.

Scalability and flexibility are also important when installing a system to ensure the continual ‘right sizing’ of the UPS.  A system which is too small will be overloaded, compromising reliability and availability.  One which is too large will waste energy, be inefficient and costly to run.  CumulusPower offers a flat efficiency curve across the whole load range, particularly at lower loads which are inherent in parallel redundant UPS configurations.  CumulusPower offers 97% efficiency even at these low loads.

Duplication and redundancy of UPS components must also apply to the communication cables between UPS modules.  The most simple communications bus is a single cable.  If this breaks or becomes disconnected, the entire system could be compromised.

For this reason, the ring circuit was introduced to the majority of modern UPS systems.  If the circuit breaks the signals can simply communicate the other way around the ring.  The recent introduction of the Triple Mode communications bus increases system availability even further.

Like its name suggests, there are three paths of communication between UPS modules and frames made up of three separate ring circuits.  Three brains communicate with three other brains – it’s the belt, braces and buttons approach.

We liken Triple Mode to the comparison of a tightrope walker.  If a tightrope breaks, the consequences will be dramatic and far-reaching.  In the same way, a single communications bus is far more precarious than a Triple Mode ring connection which is more like a bridge with multiple supports.  Here the single points of failure are completely removed.   Even if one or several bridge struts fail, the others will support the load.  It does beg the question: how would you prefer to cross the chasm?

UPS technology has seen huge developments over the years.  With reductions in footprint and increases in efficiency and availability, the Total Cost of Ownership is now significantly lower. The most modern UPS have become about as close to perfect as possible, keeping in mind there will always be some losses due to the very nature of switching.  The incorporation of Triple Mode communications buses further mitigates the risk and moves us further towards power protection perfection.

The team at CENTIEL has been at the forefront of UPS development over the several decades.  Our goal is clear: to achieve the ultimate availability of power for our client base.  Our leading-edge technology, backed-up with our comprehensive maintenance contracts ensure our clients’ power has the very best protection at all times, now and in the future.

Originally featured in UK Power August 2018

Global ITN at Data Centre World, 10-11th October 2018

Singapore: For the third year in a row, market leaders Global ITN are proud to be exhibiting at Data Centre World Asia in Marina Bay Sands, Singapore on the 10th and 11th October 2018.  Global ITN are experts in providing IT infrastructure services for all business sectors. 

CAREL complete solution for data centres focuses on efficiency and energy saving
both on each individual device and across the entire system.
Over the last 40 years, CAREL has been investing in research and development so as
to offer highly-efficient technology and increase its specific knowledge of data centre
applications, with the objective of maximising the benefits provided by the entire
solution.
One of the key technologies that CAREL has introduced into this market is the use of
electronic expansion valves to control the refrigerant circuit.
Another highly important aspect is the control system for DC compressors. The
CAREL inverter can control compressors on the latest Computer Room Air
Conditioners (CRAC), with a direct expansion system that modulates cooling capacity
so as to deliver the right air temperature to meet requirements. The inverter also
helps provide redundancy: having units operating at 75% means there is reserve
cooling capacity available if a problem occurs on another unit. This means the units
operate most of the time at part load, bringing energy savings of up to 25/30%.
The CAREL solution for data centres is enhanced and completed by the humiSonic
direct ultrasonic humidifier and boss monitoring system.

Leading Swiss UPS manufacturer, CENTIEL, has announced it is to expand into the Asia Pacific market. The creation of CENTIEL Asia Pacific, based out of Singapore, is a joint-venture with industry pioneer, Cliff Lee, who has been in the UPS Industry for more than 30 years. He was a distributor of UPS systems and has been covering the Asia Pacific region for many years.

Cliff Lee, executive director, CENTIEL Asia Pacific comments: “There is a growing data centre market in the Asia Pacific region and this offers a significant opportunity for CENTIEL’s pioneering 4th generation modular UPS system: CumulusPower to meet the critical power demands in these facilities. Unlike traditional multi-module systems, the CumulusPower technology combines a unique Intelligent Module Technology (IMT), with a fault-tolerant parallel Distributed Active Redundant Architecture (DARA), to offer industry-leading availability of 99.9999999% (nine, nines), with low total cost of ownership (TCO) through its Maximum Efficiency Management (MEM) and low losses of energy.

“I have known the team at CENTIEL for many years and am familiar with their approaches at the very forefront of technological development,” continues Lee. “CumulusPower is currently the best solution available to protect Data Centre Infrastructure. In addition to its class-leading availability, its configuration also reduces downtime risks, as well as increasing energy efficiency to save costs on energy.

“However, as well as the demand for UPS systems to provide last mile critical power, Data Centres need an experienced and reliable support team, who can provide them with the confidence to achieve 100% uptime and this is what we can now offer. The technical support CENTIEL provides, includes access to experienced engineers in the event of an emergency plus regular UPS health-checks to ensure solutions are always properly maintained and right-sized for clients’ changing power protection requirements.”

David Bond, non-executive director of CENTIEL SA and CENTIEL Asia Pacific confirms: “With more than 30 years’ industry experience, plus extensive knowledge of the business and cultural values of the region, Cliff Lee and his team are ideally placed to manage our growth strategy into the Asia Pacific market. Such expertise, combined with an established reputation for high quality products, services and support, will enable the new CENTIEL Asia Pacific entity to drive our expansion and take full advantage of the opportunities that this growing economy offers.”

CENTIEL Asia Pacific’s growth will initially focus on: Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Brunei with more countries being added in due course.

CENTIEL Asia Pacific will provide and support CENTIEL’s full range of power protection solutions including: CumulusPower and PremiumTower a three-phase standalone UPS designed for critical loads of between 10kW and 60kW and EssentialPower a single-phase UPS for critical loads of between 1Kva and 20kVA.

Strategic Acquisitions, New Locations and Enhanced Solutions Enable Rahi to Support Integrated Environments and Workplace Productivity

Server Technology, a brand of Legrand and a leading provider of intelligent rack power distribution units (PDU's), today unveiled its HDOT Cx. The new data center PDU represents a groundbreaking advancement in rack mount power strips by allowing the outlet to easily conform to any combination of hardware power configuration needs.

The HDOT Cx PDU welcomes change as data center equipment is replaced. The Cx outlet is a UL tested hybrid of the C13 and C19 outlets. HDOT Cx accommodates both C14 and C20 plugs. This innovative design reduces the complexity of the selection process while lowering end costs. With HDOT Cx, you won't have to buy a new set of PDUs when equipment changes.

What do data centres require of their power delivery? The answer is easy: 100% power availability, 100% of the time. In other words, they want a system that never fails.

However, reliability is often considered the key attribute for any UPS solution. Yet, a system can be reliable over a period of time, but still fail on a particular occasion with far-reaching consequences. Therefore, availability must be the number one priority when purchasing any UPS solution.

Availability can be expressed by the following equation where MTBF equals Mean Time Before Failure and MTTR equals Mean Time To Repair:

Availability = MTBF

MTBF + MTTR

Availability is expressed as a percentage. The key number here is MTTR (if MTTR = 0 then Availability is always 100% regardless of MTBF).

In recent years, modular systems have introduced a significant step-change in the industry as, when properly configured, they are designed to maximise load availability and system efficiency simultaneously.

This is achieved because modular systems have a single frame, containing a number (N) of power modules. These run together and share the load equally between them. The advantage of this N+1 configuration is that if one module fails it becomes isolated. The remaining modules support the load and the system availability is preserved. UPS modules are paralleled vertically within a single frame, and frames can be further paralleled horizontally to provide a completely flexible system. There is no single point of failure, contributing to the highest level of availability for power protection. The load also remains protected even when any individual module is being replaced.

CENTIEL’s CumulusPower is the latest 4th generation of true modular UPS systems, incorporating Distributed Active Redundant Architecture (DARA), it provides a significant improvement over previous system designs. The critical power protection industry is, understandably, extremely riskaverse, and is particularly attentive regarding potential single points of failure. Therefore, each individual CumulusPower UPS module contains all the elements of a standalone UPS unit – rectifier, inverter, static switch, display – and critically – all control and monitoring circuitry. This eliminates the potential single point of failure associated with designs that have a separate, single static switch assembly, separate control or intelligence modules. Availability for the 4th generation Centiel system is now Nine 9s or 99.9999999%.

In addition, with all the focus on the UPS units themselves it can be forgotten that an integral element of a system is the associated batteries which provide power in the event of an electrical supply interruption or blackout. Equal consideration needs to be given to the design of the battery system, including rigorous battery autonomy calculations, selecting a quality supplier, the provision of redundant strings, individual string protection/isolation, ambient environment to name but a few.

With all the time, effort and expense of designing and installing the very best UPS system it is important that it is properly maintained to ensure availability is not compromised. Suppliers offer a variety of maintenance proposals and SLAs and diligence must be applied up front, in scrutinising and choosing the correct solution for each installations requirement. Any UPS that is not maintained properly may ultimately compromise overall system availability.

As well as availability, organizations need to consider the total cost of ownership of a UPS system and this is related to the purchase price, system efficiency (running costs) and the cost of maintenance.

I’ve touched on maintenance, so how a system is configured to maximize efficiency is another area demanding attention. The challenge is that IT requirements change quickly. So how can an infrastructure be built to meet these dramatically changing demands? Put simply, a UPS needs to operate on the best point of its efficiency curve. A system which is too small will be overloaded and a system which is too large will waste energy and be inefficient and costly to run. Scalability and flexibility are key when purchasing, to ensure the continual ‘right sizing’ of the UPS.

Modular systems offer all the advantages of high availability, scalability and flexibility to match an organization’s changing requirements. In addition, they offer the benefits of: fast replacement of modules, small footprint with high power density and, when correctly configured to ensure system “right sizing,” operating costs can be kept to a minimum.

In our ever-evolving world, future-proofing systems is one of the greatest challenges faced by system designers. The good news is that modern modular UPS systems can be quickly and easily reconfigured to adapt to changes in load requirements over time. This not only ensures the highest efficiency is maintained, but more importantly it guarantees availability of power protection whatever the future holds.

Article written by Mike Elms, Sales & Marketing Director, CENTIEL UK Ltd

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