Do You Need Data Center Power and Cooling Products to Keep Your Business Always Running?
Especially for smaller server rooms, business leaders can be surprised at how much data center power and data center cooling products can positively impact the bottom line and operational performance.
Here is a small sampling of the many dangers that smaller data centers and network closets face, and how you can overcome them to keep your server room operations optimized and your organization always running.
Data Center Power Anomalies
From surges to outages, data centers of all sizes must have a reliable way to handle the unpredictable power issues that happen all the time. Large data centers often generate their own power and use high-performance stabilization for their three-phase power setups, but smaller data centers and server closets often rely on overloaded circuits and single-phase systems that are much more susceptible to power errors.
Data center power regulation solutions, such as modern power distribution units, can help your organization not only balance and distribute the power load properly to prevent severe damage from power anomalies, they can also help you monitor your power usage over time. This helps you save on energy costs and reduce your overall PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness).
Data Center Cooling Issues
Heat and humidity are dangerous for data centers of all sizes, but smaller data centers, including server rooms and closets, are most at risk from these issues. As IT equipment has become smaller over time, it has become easier to fit more equipment into a smaller space – and the more equipment you have, the more heat it will generate. When your equipment overheats, it is nearly guaranteed to shut down unexpectedly.
Since heat is such a well-known issue, many business leaders choose to blast cold air into their server rooms to prevent overheating, but this causes its own issues:
- High energy costs. If you keep your server closet freezing all the time, you’re wasting energy on unnecessary cooling. Those energy costs impact your bottom line and reduce your profitability.
- Variable temperature zones. IT equipment pushes out hot air but needs to draw in cold air. This can lead to temperature fluctuations in different areas of your server room and may result in inadequate data center cooling. The results of this are equipment shutdown and high energy cooling costs.
- High humidity. It seems a natural choice to cool a server room with a building’s built-in HVAC system, but there is a big difference between comfort cooling (for people) and precision cooling (for equipment). The biggest issue arises from humidity, which tends to be higher in a comfort cooling / traditional air conditioning system. If your humidity is too high in your server room, condensation can build up on your equipment, leading to corrosion and shutdowns.
Data center cooling solutions, such as portable or self-contained cabinet systems designed for small spaces, can help you keep your energy costs down by directing cooling precisely where it is needed. Since these systems are built for data center equipment, they also help you manage humidity levels. Some can even reduce ambient humidity for those wet times of year.
Data Center Outages
Network closets and tiny server rooms are especially susceptible to power failure because, let’s face it, the grid can be highly unpredictable. If the power goes out in your building, your data center power is also likely to go out. Even if you have a backup generator to keep the power flowing for your mission-critical or ‘round-the-clock operations, the time it takes for your generator to start can have a massive impact on your organization.
Uninterruptible Power Supply, or “UPS” systems, can act as the bridge between when the power goes out and when the generator is up and running, keeping your server room operating smoothly so your business doesn’t fall victim to costly downtime.
What Does Always Running Mean for Your Organization?
For some businesses, “always running” means that employees can expect their computers and networks to run pretty well during regular office hours. For the companies that the data center experts at Donwil works with, those networks and servers need to run much more reliably.
Today’s modern businesses require always-available processing to power their mission-critical operations, ‘round-the-clock timetable, or eCommerce sales. If your organization is still relying on regular air conditioning, overloaded power strips, or other hazardous data center cooling and power issues, you may be risking your business’s uptime.
It is time to think about the various data center power and data center cooling products you can turn to, so you can stabilize your server room’s environment and power supply to ensure your critical data center stays always running.
Since 1965, Donwil has been the team to trust for sales backed by responsive and reliable service for enterprises that want to get the most from their critical business process power and cooling solutions. As the exclusive provider of Vertiv, Liebert, Starline, and Hitachi, Donwil delivers a range of critical services and solutions to keep organizations across Western Pennsylvania, Western Virginia, and Eastern Ohio always running.