Behind all the ‘software-defined this’, and ‘cloud-enabled that’ is a world of electrons and degrees Celsius that keeps it all ticking over. This is the world of critical infrastructure. It’s a world that we conveniently ignore because, the vast majority of the time, it just works.
In this article, we take a peek inside the lights-out data centre to highlight what it is, how it works, and the way it’s changing. We also point out some ways that systems integrators can take advantage of the changes taking place, and ensure they stay relevant into the cloud era.
For all the breathless language surrounding cloud computing, the reality is that the cloud consists of servers and networks installed inside buildings. They need power to stay alive, cooling so they don’t melt, and locks so they aren’t stolen.
Getting these foundational technologies right is an important part of the way modern technology runs. For a start, these are large capital investments, six and seven figures large, at least. With this sort of money at stake, quite a bit of care is taken to ensure the design is right. But customers often don’t get to see the details of these designs, so how can you really know if a data centre is well designed?
Bob Sharon, chief executive of consultancy Green Global Solutions, recommends a strong rating system like NABERS – the National Australian Built Environment Rating System. “The NABERS rating is a thing to ask for,” he says. “You know that the measure is true and correct. The numbers for PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness) are challenging to get right.”
Sharon’s view is shared by many in the industry, and there is a general trend away from using PUE numbers as a selling point. However, NABERS requires a minimum of one year of data collection, so not many newer data centres have been operational long enough to have a rating yet.
Sharon also recommends the Uptime Institute’s tier rating system. “The TIA-942 standard is a great checklist model for the design of a data centre, but Uptime Institute certifications also take operations into account.”
Cooling
A key part of data centre design is airflow management. How air moves around a data centre is the key to keeping it cool, and there have been big changes in airflow management in recent years. “You have to have hot and cold air separation,” Sharon says. “If there’s no separation, there’s a problem before you start.”
At NextDC’s Sydney facility, the entire under-floor area is filled with cold air, maintained at positive pressure. Shuttered floor vents allow cold air to flow into small, fully enclosed areas connected to the front of customer racks, in a hot-aisle/cold-aisle configuration. “Facility rules require customers to blank out unused rack units,” explains Steve Martin, NextDC’s general manager of partnership strategy, “so the only place the cold air can go is through the kit. Pressure keeps the flow even at different heights of the rack.”
The NSW government’s GovDC sites in western Sydney and Unanderra are prime examples of fresh air cooling, using highly filtered fresh air with the evaporation of water from a wetted matrix material, backed up by more traditional mechanical cooling.
The air also needs to be kept clean. Tim Gentle, general manager of Australian IT Services Group, tells CRN that the air circulating within modern data centres is carefully filtered. Some centres supplement cooling systems with free air cooling, mixing outside air with the hot return air, so it’s important to keep dust particles to a minimum. Even so, dust can still get into the centre. “A lot of the dust will settle, into corners, even onto equipment,” Gentle says. “The issue is when it gets disturbed, because then the dust will get into things. We have special filters on our vacuums that help prevent the buildup in the first place.” Few facilities managers want to trust the cleaning of sensitive equipment to office cleaning firms, which is where specialist firms like Australia IT Services come in.
Anyone going into a secure facility like a data centre needs to be appropriately cleared. “Most data centres just want a standard police check,” says Gentle, “but some of the government agencies do their own checks, including negative vetting.”
Next: Security
Security
Some of the security technology comes straight out of Hollywood. “Proximity cards used to be high-tech,” Gentle says, “but now there’s multi-factor proximity cards, hand-print scanners with a PIN, even retina scanners.” Everything is under constant video surveillance. Gentle believes per-rack security systems are just around the corner. “I haven’t seen it yet, but I suspect we’ll see security designed into the racks for particularly paranoid clients.”
There is plenty of innovation going on in critical infrastructure. Take the Piller DRUPS: Diesel Rotary Uninterruptible Power Supply, as used by NextDC. “In normal operations, mains power comes in and spins a 3-tonne flywheel at 3,000 RPM,” explains Steve Martin. If mains power is lost, the flywheel can power the entire facility for up to 15 seconds. That’s plenty of time for the 30-litre, 16-cylinder Perkins diesel generator part of the unit to start up. “They run in stand-by mode, with warm sump oil, all the time, and can start and deliver peak load in six seconds,” Martin says.
At full capacity, NextDC’s Sydney data centre will have 15 of these German-made flywheel/diesel combination UPS units.
Appearance
Gentle has noticed a trend away from boring, plain black racks. “Presentation of kit in data centres is now more important,” he says. Facilities are a lot more concerned with how things look these days, as part of their sales message. “No one wants a messy data centre,” he says, but beyond cleanliness of the entrance, and having an espresso machine in the break room, vendors are putting effort into the physical design of their equipment. “There’s a lot more neon,” Gentle notes.
Modern software is making it easier to link these systems with IT management systems such as VMware’s vSphere. Andrew Sylvester, sales manager for data centre software at Schneider Electric, imagines a world where a fault on UPS A would trigger movement of critical workloads onto equipment served by UPS B, helping to minimise the risk of an outage to mission critical applications.
Sylvester is keen to point out that many of the techniques you find in enterprise technology are very much part of critical systems.
“We call it agile infrastructure. You need to be able to manipulate it to meet demand,” he says. “What happens if a customer puts in some high-performance computing and increases their power load by 50 percent? New technology makes that possible in a modern data centre.”
There are plenty of developments in base technologies like batteries, but the increased sophistication of automation and software-control software is making it much easier to match the performance of critical infrastructure with the needs of modern computing customers. Matching supply with demand more closely directly translates into savings from efficiency.
NextDC has built its own data centre management system, called OneDC, which has turned into a product in its own right. For instance, Australia Post uses OneDC to manage its own data centres.
Channel opportunity
How can resellers get involved with critical infrastructure? Schneider’s Sylvester believes there are opportunities to integrate facilities management systems with traditional IT service management processes. “Traditionally, facilities management will have three or four different systems, all in different silos,” he says. APC uses a software suite called StruxureWare to provide software instrumentation of physical equipment to make managing the data centre easier.
Jacques Tesson, chief executive of leading data centre-focused distributor DPSA, says resellers face a steep learning curve to move into the arena. “The biggest challenge we see for IT resellers moving into the critical infrastructure space is technical know-how. It requires capability in five key areas: mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, building structures, structured cabling and physical security.”
That’s where the likes of DPSA steps in. “Obviously, most resellers don’t have the in-house resources for all of that, but that doesn’t mean they can’t tap into this revenue stream. In most cases, resellers rely on partners for that expertise. To take advantage of the available opportunities, many rely on a specialist distribution partner. Others find individual partners for each area.”
Tesson encourages resellers to expand their remit to include this crucial area. After all, “no power and cooling equals no availability”.
“The resellers that do work in this space not only open up new opportunities for their businesses, they also have an advantage in servicing their customers more completely. We see this particularly with managed services.”
Speaking to CRN earlier this year, Mark Sewell, managing director of Natural Power Solutions, which distributes Eaton, Emerson Network Power and Schneider Electric, said IT providers should consider critical infrastructure for new growth. “To improve their margins, IT integrators need to look beyond their traditional areas of focus into areas such as UPS, power and cooling. We are also seeing a convergence between IT and facilities management, where the management of both is strongly connected.”
Martin points out that NextDC has an extensive channel program, formally launched in July 2014. “We offer a number of key benefits to partners, including joint selling, opportunity registration programs, and promoting and pushing leads to them,” he says.
Given the money piling into cloud, channel players would be wise to keep an eye out for where they can plug into the ecosystem and provide differentiated value. When customers want to make critical infrastructure someone else’s problem, they still want to keep an eye on things.
Helping them feel comfortable with moving their precious systems into someone else’s care is a natural fit for partners who are already looked on as trusted advisors. Adding some critical infrastructure skills through partnering is a smart way to differentiate and stay relevant even as companies move more of their equipment into the cloud.
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