UPS For Data Centre Facility

[SamSteale]

do you really need a UPS for your data centre?

 

[zuffy]

Yes. How else will you protect your equipments from power failure? Redundant PDU is not enough.

 

[nsafreak]

Data centers rarely just rely on UPSs for power, they're just what's there for a quick switchover. At the data centers I've been through the typical power setup has a set of UPSs and behind that a backup generator along with a backup generator for the backup generator in case the original generator fails for some reason. Some go even further than that depending on how critical it is that a particular data center stays up. One data center in particular had an entire power substation devoted to just its power.

 

[GAO]

^This. UPS for a modern datacenter can't hold it up for very long - just long enough for the generator to automatically kick in.

 

[philipma1957]

well there are some very big ups made by eaton and they have the option of extra battery packs. even so if you are putting in a 30k to 50k ups I would think you would have a backup generator wired to a large propane tank and/or a natural gas line.

below is a 36k ups

http://www.eatonguard.com/Eaton-9E.asp?gclid=CKWuwfPc77QCFUWo4AodWH0AhA


this is made with a data center in mind and it can have external batteries. as you can see it's run time is 21 minutes at half load 30 or 40k watts. If I owned a company that need the backup and I was spending 36 thousand for 21 minutes of backup I know I would have the proper generator on top of this.

fast google a 48000 watt ge gas line powered gen is 16k

http://www.homedepot.com/p/t/202714...0051&N=5yc1vZbx9sZlo&R=202714603#.UPgdY45dVlI


so add 2 or 3 k for setup 18k.

I would think many smart well run data centers combine the two.

 

[Adul]

Data center I am in has a UPS for all of our servers. We have 2 triple bank of batteries that feed into separate inverters the feed into our datacenter. Once power is lost, we are on UPS power, then the diesil generators kick in to provide power. We have 2 of those generators. We only need one to supply power. But like anything else crap happens (and it has) and it is best to have 2.

 

[Red Squirrel]

I would hope so. I would go with something like this:

Hydro In -> ATS -> Rectifier bays -> batteries -> 48v equipment + inverters -> AC power distribution to equipment.

Anything that can run straight on 48v would skip the inverter.

The ATS would be hooked up to generators.

For a even more redundant setup, there would be TWO completely separate of these setups at two ends of the building. If something happens like a rectifier bay blows up, you shut power to the whole thing and still have another side running. Each rack would have a PDU fed from both grids and redundant PSUs would use both. For stuff that does not have redundant PSU it would be plugged into a separate UPS and staff could go manually plug it into the other grid or there could be an automated process to do this.


I work in a telco CO which is actually probably more important than a data center (if we go down ALL REGIONAL COMMUNICATION goes down) and we have a 48v setup as I describe. There's lot of redundancy. If rectifiers fail, there are more to carry the load. If AC fails, the batteries are good for hours, if days, there are also two generators. Each CO is setup like this though lot of them don't have an on site generator but we always say they should. Some have more capacity than others. Cell sites are similar, but are slightly lower priority during a crisis. CO's are highest priority as to keep transport and landline service going. This is why your phone still works if the power goes out.


At home I have a UPS with 2 100ah batteries good for about 4-5 hours. Eventually I want to setup a power inlet on the house and buy a generator. I don't have anything all that mission critical though but lot of my hardware is old and is at risk of damage if shut down so I prefer to do everything I can to keep it running.

 

[imagoon]

For the DC where I was one of the subs building it... It was more like this: Power in from 3 sources, -> whole ton of power control systems to load those feeds to any other phase on need -> side my side centripetal UPS's with traditional battery UPS's running on 480volt DC battery racks -> huge full time 480vdc -> 240 / 120vac to the racks. 16 1 megawatt gen sets feeding in the power control systems.

edit:

One of the more interesting days: Testing it all. 14.5 megawatts of space heaters to simulate load, walking over and throwing the switch to disconnect the power companies. Power surge that the neighbors will never forget along with 16 gen sets starting at the same time.