Professional Documents
Culture Documents
in Business-Critical ContinuityTM
1
The advantages of Size
a centralized UPS The small size of network access rooms These factors, along with building layout
with larger, more can limit power and cooling equipment and network equipment criticality, will drive
robust technology configurations. Most network access room the decision on whether to use centralized
installations require UPS systems that will or decentralized UPS systems. Some
include lower cost
take at least 2U of rack space, not including organizations may be able to utilize a single
of ownership and
extended runtime batteries. UPS located in a computer room to protect
higher system network access rooms throughout the same
availability because Existing Cooling building. The advantages of a centralized UPS
of fewer potential Cooling and ventilation will determine how with larger, more robust technology include
points of failure and effectively heat can be removed from the rack lower cost of ownership and higher system
easier management. and from the access room. Equipment type availability because of fewer potential points
This approach also
and access room size will largely determine of failure and easier management (Figure
cooling requirements. Simple ventilation 2). This approach also simplifies service and
simplifies service
may suffice, or a dedicated cooling system maintenance requirements.
and maintenance may be warranted. Initial considerations
requirements. should include ventilation of the access room,
ducting of walls and ceilings, and year-round
availability of building air conditioning. Smaller UPS modules
2
ability of IT and network managers to adapt Again, VoIP may elevate network criticality. High availability
to the requirements of modern applications Whereas power availability for phone protection for network
and IT equipment, including servers, routers systems was traditionally provided by phone access rooms can
and switches that can handle either 120V or companies, today it is the responsibility of each be realized through
208V power with no modifications necessary. organization. Converged applications should
deployment of reliable,
If decentralized power protection is used, be supported with higher power availability
flexible and cost-
be sure to account for UPS losses when – up to 99.9999 percent – to withstand
determining room power requirements. between 31 seconds and 5.2 minutes of total effective solutions
annual downtime. that provide necessary
Determining Network Hardware levels of power quality,
Requirements Most general network access applications power reliability,
use a line-interactive UPS, such as the Liebert cooling and ventilation,
Network hardware required for converged PSI. This type of UPS provides extended remote monitoring and
applications will require a high-availability battery capacities, some power conditioning,
management, physical
infrastructure that may have more in and delivers solid backup power protection
common with systems used in the data security, and preventive
for a wide variety of applications if full power
center rather than those traditionally used in conditioning or a fault-tolerant design is maintenance and rapid
network access rooms. not required. response service.
3
Several important leading to critical equipment downtime. With
considerations the changing nature of network technology
and growth in power requirements, sizing
including UPS
the UPS units to accommodate a 50 to 100
sizing, runtime
percent growth factor is not excessive.
requirement, power
distribution and If PoE is being used, power usage calculations
power redundancy, must account for the inline power to the
must be evaluated network devices (Figure 4). Remember that
to achieve desired PoE draws could grow from the current 15
levels of power
watts per port to 40 watts per port as new
PoE standards emerge. As a result, power
reliability.
densities in network access rooms are often
three to five times greater than traditional
network equipment, which will require larger
or additional UPS systems.
Figure 3. The Liebert NX is a midsize,
three-phase UPS designed for scalability.
Runtime Requirements
parallel. These features work together to Runtime requirements will vary based on
enable a clear, easy-to-manage path for equipment criticality. Organizations wanting
adding capacity or redundancy. to support graceful shutdown of equipment
may only need a few minutes of runtime.
Power Reliability Conversely, organizations wanting to ensure
Reliable power is the lifeblood of fully continuity of critical applications may need
functioning network access rooms. Based on two hours or more, which requires additional
the increasing criticality of applications relying batteries. It’s important to note that battery
on the technologies powered in these rooms, systems may require additional space if
any power abnormalities have the potential extended runtime (beyond five minutes)
to thwart business continuity. Therefore, is required.
several important considerations including
UPS sizing, runtime requirement, power Power Distribution
distribution and power redundancy, must be Power distribution is important for ensuring
evaluated to achieve desired levels of power power reliability. Rack-level power distribution
reliability. units (PDUs) provide basic receptacle-level
power distribution and high capacity designs
UPS Sizing for high-end switches.
When sizing the UPS for a network access
room, use full load calculations for protected Additionally, intelligent power strips can
equipment to help ensure adequate power support remote power control as some
and allow for growth. Some organizations use products provide on-off operation of
nominal loads or estimate their average loads, individual receptacles. This feature can be
which could result in undersized UPS units used to limit how much equipment is plugged
Cisco Catalyst Model Data Power (Watts) PoE Ports PoE Power (Watts) Total Power (Watts)
4503 405 48 830 1235
4507r 920 144 2491 3411
4510 1200 288 4962 6162
Figure 4. Using Power over Ethernet changes network access room power requirements.
4
into the UPS, reducing the risk of circuit For true high
overload and ensuring that only authorized Liebert MP availability
Advanced
equipment can be powered up. Power Strip applications, UPS
redundancy should
Power Redundancy Liebert UPS
be considered. The
Power redundancy has become more Network Switch
highest availability
important with the growth of high-availability Utility
Outlet Risk of utility loss
applications as organizations seek to reduce is achieved with a
single points of potential failure. Most network dual bus system.
equipment now comes with multiple power Figure 6. Single UPS with utility power.
cords to support redundancy. A redundancy
the maintenance bypass switch (Figure 7).
strategy should be driven primarily by
One cord from the maintenance bypass switch
availability requirements.
is plugged into the wall and the other cord is
connected to the UPS.
In a single UPS configuration (Figure 5),
both cords are plugged into the same power
This configuration allows power to be provided
distribution unit, which is then plugged into a
from the UPS to rack equipment in the event
single UPS connected to the wall outlet. While
a utility power outage occurs. Power can also
the UPS provides backup if the utility power
be provided from the wall if a UPS fails or while
fails, there is no UPS redundancy in case the
the UPS is being maintained. Although this
UPS fails.
solution is certainly better than a standalone UPS,
To protect against UPS failure, one cord of it does not provide UPS backup redundancy.
the rack equipment may be plugged into the
wall receptacle, with the other cord plugged For true high availability applications, UPS
into the PDU connected to the UPS (Figure redundancy should be considered. Figure 8
6). This configuration allows incoming power shows a power redundancy configuration
to provide redundancy in the event of a UPS that can be deployed in network closets;
failure but exposes the network to potential the configuration includes a PDU positioned
utility loss. between the protected devices and the UPS.
The highest availability is achieved with a
Using a single UPS with a maintenance bypass dual bus system. With this configuration,
and power distribution switch is a low cost equipment cords are plugged into separate
way to protect against utility loss. With this
configuration, each equipment cord goes to
a separate PDU with each PDU plugged into
Liebert UPS
Liebert MicroPOD
Liebert MP With maintenance
Advanced Liebert UPS bypass switch
Power Strip Utility
Network Switch Outlet
Utility
Liebert MP Advanced Power Strips Outlet
Figure 5. Single UPS configuration. Figure 7. Single UPS and Maintenance Bypass
Switch.
5
When planning the
simple ventilation may suffice. Higher density
cooling system, equipment will typically require a dedicated
determine whether cooling system. In fact, the Uptime Institute
the door, ceiling or Liebert MP has reported that equipment located in the
Advanced Liebert UPS
walls can support Power Strip Utility
Outlet
top one-third of a data center rack fails twice as
ductwork for often as equipment in the bottom two-thirds
of the same rack. The organization estimates
ventilation and
Switch that for every increase of 18 degrees F above
whether the heat
70 degrees F, long-term electronics reliability
can be exhausted to Liebert MP falls by 50 percent.
Advanced Liebert UPS
the outside. Power Strip Utility
Outlet
When determining cooling requirements,
those responsible for the environment should
Figure 8. UPS redundancy with the dual-bus evaluate the existing cooling system as noted
approach provides the highest availability. previously, and determine whether the space
PDUs and the PDUs are plugged into separate has dedicated air conditioning or relies on the
UPS units. In turn, the UPS units are plugged building air conditioning system or ventilation.
into separate circuits. A dual-bus configuration
provides UPS backup redundancy during a When planning the cooling system, determine
power outage and up to nine “9s” of power whether the door, ceiling or walls can support
availability, which translates into just 3/100 of ductwork for ventilation and whether the heat
a second of potential downtime each year. can be exhausted to the outside. If the closet
is cooled by the building’s air conditioning
Cooling and Ventilation system, cooling is probably insufficient
Today’s power-hungry switches generate because building air conditioning systems
more heat than previous generations of cycle on and off and do not run throughout
equipment. As a result, rack temperatures the year.
often exceed safe operating levels and
because the heat will not dissipate, it must be Figure 9 shows options for cooling and
removed from the rack and the room. Heat ventilation. For equipment loads of 100
that is not removed will be drawn back into watts to 1,000 watts, ventilating the closet
the rack. space should be adequate. This should be
accomplished without compromising the
Cooling requirements depend primarily on physical security of the space, which may
the equipment type and room size. In cases require the installation of intakes and exhaust
where switch power requirements are low, grills on the closet door.
6
Rack fans provide another inexpensive equipment in the event of a prolonged power Network management
method of removing heat from equipment outage. It can also reboot network equipment software can be used
with the closet ventilation removing it from and control power usage at the rack PDU to determine the status
the space. receptacle level to ensure adequate total
of cooling equipment
capacity. For example, the Liebert Nform
and automate the
Rooms with more than 1,000 Watts management software can initiate safe
of equipment will need some form of shutdown of critical equipment if absolute graceful shutdown
dedicated cooling. Self-contained cabinets maximum temperatures are reached within of equipment in the
or rack enclosures, such as the Liebert the network closet. event of a prolonged
MCR (Figure 10), are available that include power outage. It
support systems such as computer grade air For organizations using network management can also reboot
conditioning, a UPS, monitoring capabilities software, communication cards are available network equipment
and security features. If rack power is likely that allow power (including batteries) and
and control power
to exceed 5 kW, a high heat density cooling cooling equipment data to be compiled and
option such as the Liebert XDF (Figure 11) analyzed (Figure 12). This tool also provides usage at the rack PDU
may be best, although the system will require the ability to remotely cycle the UPS on and receptacle level to
proper ventilation of the closet space to off. In addition, small monitoring units can ensure adequate total
remove condenser heat. This energy-efficient be integrated into the system to provide capacity.
solution utilizes digital scroll compressors to
automatically match cooling requirements to
the heat load at any time, which ensures
the cooling unit is not always running at
full capacity.
7
combination locks to control access, with
options available that allow access to be
monitored via the customer’s network.
8
Organizations with
Top Causes of UPS Failure business-critical
applications will likely
benefit from dual bus
redundancy, which
End of Discharge creates parallel power
Other 19% paths to eliminate
26%
single points of failure.
Organizations that are
Utility/Generator 4% REPO/EPO 8%
Other
External 6% User Error 7%
Figure 12. Battery problems (37 percent) represent the largest cause of UPS failure and can be
minimized through UPS consolidation or remote battery monitoring.
9
Appendix A
Network Access Room Review Checklist
AVAILABILITY CONSIDERATIONS
YES NO
Do you know what level of power availability you require in your network access room? o o
If not, have you calculated your cost of downtime for network access room equipment to help o o
determine your desired availability level?
10
Power Reliability – Power Redundancy YES NO
What levels of power and UPS redundancy do you need given the criticality of your equipment o o
and your cost of downtime?
11
Emerson Network Power
1050 Dearborn Drive
P.O. Box 29186
Columbus, Ohio 43229
800.877.9222 (U.S. & Canada Only)
614.888.0246 (Outside U.S.)
Fax: 614.841.6022
EmersonNetworkPower.com
Liebert.com
WP160-58
SL-24624