Emergency Power Strategies by Tate Cantrell

Views and Opinions on Green IT (Jul 10 2009) Construction , Power and Cooling

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    One of the most crucial, yet unappreciated topics in the data center world is emergency planning and disaster recovery. When natural disasters or other events occur creating wide-spread power outages, a data center can be put in great jeopardy when power is lost and there isn’t an alternative in place. The issue is more intense in places like the UK and US, where older power stations are being decommissioned and new electricity output is at its lowest level in 10 years, making the risk of power outage even greater. As a result, UK and US businesses don’t have the luxury of waiting for future investment in new power stations - companies need to have emergency plans in place that will address their data center needs today. Common practice for a CIO today is to invoke a combination of uninterruptible power systems and engine generators to remain operational during short duration events. However, in order to survive a long term outage, the engine generators must receive a continuous supply of fuel and be specially outfitted to allow for online filter changes by a well trained staff. Both fuel and personnel are often in short supply when disaster strikes. A more attractive solution available today is remotely located data center sites. By utilizing a remote, or off shore, location for a company’s back up data center needs, a CIO can completely eliminate the risk of the entire data center going down during a power outage in the company’s primary location. In addition to the peace of mind knowing that business can continue uninterrupted, there are other benefits to be had depending on the location of the remote data center site. For example, data centers in locations like Iceland can be a logical and attractive back-up site to a primary UK or US east coast locations. Iceland has close physical proximity (UK 2.5 hour flight and US 4.5 hour flight), and offers an abundance of stable power from multiple renewable energy sources. Additionally, it’s power grid is only a decade old in contrast to the aging grids in the UK and US. In the end, a CIO can develop a disaster recovery plan that makes sense for the business, and do it in an environmentally friendly way. Verne Global will be the first data center in Iceland to provide CIO’s with this carbon-free mission critical option.

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