By Remmy NwekeAs such, erratic power supply has become a major limitation to survival of many businesses in Nigeria. Some of such power problems include frequent outages, spikes, surges and phase failures.
However, this is more prevalent in developing nations of the world of which the West African region falls within Nigeria.
Also given the prevalence of burgeoning evolution of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) more and more people and organisations are now dependent on technologies to not only safeguard their data but needs advantageous solution to preserve both their data and ICT tools.
Hence it was not surprising that global leader in power management solutions, the Rhodes Island-based American Power Conversion (APC), came up with InfraStruXure, an innovative architecture for Network-Critical Physical Infrastructure (NCPI) solutions.
InfraStruXure was developed using an open, building-block approach that is standardized with modular components, to fully integrate power, cooling, and environmental management within a rack-optimized design.
Country Manager for APC West Africa, Mr. Charles Iyo, informed that InfraStruXure enables customers to install only what is required today, yet easily scaled to meet future demands, just as it increases system availability while decreasing design and install time from months to days. Also, it is an architecture suitable for environments of all sizes, from wiring closets to large data centres.
For the wiring closets, for instance, he said that rack-based power, cooling, and environmental management could be accomplished with 1-3 racks. Rack or rack-mounted, is a unit of electronic equipment that is housed in a metal framework called an equipment rack and is commonly used by deployment technicians in reference to the assembly of computer hardware within a system, computer rack or computer cabinet.
Standardized components
But all InfraStruXure systems, Mr. Iyo said, are built from standardized components that are modular, manageable and pre-engineered to work together, emphasising that it would be customised according to the orders of the end-user organisations.
According to him, the modular systems affords the customized-to-order theme facilitated through the online APC design portal, which generates price, value and performance solutions using your – customers - input criteria.
Customers, he said, could explore InfraStruXure for data centres on demand via online so as to discover the very real benefits of its fully integrated power, cooling and environmental management within a rack-optimized design.
“Surf the top level of typical InfraStruXure configurations, or drill down to the component level. Learn just what you need to know, at your own pace,” he asserted, advising interested end-users intending to explore this online tour to ensure they select the typical configuration and then register, adding, “Once in the tour, you may view other configurations.”
Another instance of optimising InfraStruXure, Mr. Iyo said, is that computer rooms are regarded as the heart of many small and medium businesses, often are not originally or specifically designed to provide the ideal environment for Information Technology (IT) equipment, so, special attention is given to NCPI when deploying racks for servers, switches, and other IT equipment, even as these are required to ensure availability.
APC, he said, based on its renowned expertise offers solutions for the computer room to include Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS), racks, rack Protocol Data Unit (PDUs), air-conditioning/airflow, environmental management, and other related accessories to achieve the level of availability required by customers.
The country manager was specific that several challenges have evolved in the computer room environment over the past few years due to trends such as server consolidation, technology compaction, and the convergence of voice, video, and data. He also outlined some of these challenges to include getting enough power and power receptacles to each of the racks to support today’s increasing power densities, effectively cooling all of the IT equipment deployed, organizing the large amount of data and power cables, providing security, and managing the complete system.
Installation Services
Underscoring the essence of InfraStruXure, Mr. Iyo said, that a set of service options have been designed to deliver the vital resources, expertise, and tools needed to quickly and efficiently implement the APC solution by way of system integration and interactive.
He explained that InfraStruXure systems could be installed by application via integration of the APC’s NCPI solutions targeted at specific server rooms and data centres applications, just as APC avails customers the opportunity of self-paced online tour, which is a quick and easy way to learn about InfraStruXure’s innovative approach to network-critical physical infrastructure.
He maintained that InfraStruXure is a solution that provides optimal availability, increased adaptability and a lower total cost of ownership, whereas its design process enables customers to quickly design a solution to individual exact specifications.
The evolution of InfraStruXure, APC said, was based strictly on white papers cutting across airflow uniformity through perforated tiles in a raised-floor data centre, cooling strategies for IT wiring closets and small rooms, the essentials of cooling system and power system requirements for Next Generation Data Centres (NGDC) respectively.
Equally, InfraStruXure has been found to adhere strictly to the essential rack system requirements for NGDC, mean time between failure: explanation and standards, performing effective MTBF comparisons for data centre infrastructure and mechanism for preventing data corruption in the event of an extended power outage as well as 10 cooling solutions to support high-density server deployment and understanding as well as its downtime risks.
He also explained that in building the InfraStruXure design, APC considered that large data center should contain 100+ racks, medium data center 20-100 racks, small data center 5-20 racks, computer room 1-5 racks, while wiring closet ranges between 1 and 3 racks, even as other rack solutions such as Personal Computer (PC) workstation, servers, storage array, Voice Internet Protocol (VoIP) and telecommunications, and networking devices were catered for.
Miscellaneous devices such as fax machines and printers, notebook batteries, UPS batteries and upgrades, service selector and cables, were not left out of consideration by the power company.
Testimony:
For the Head, Information Technology (IT) at Kenyan Imperial Bank, Mr. Don Ochola, whose environment is akin to Nigeria, if the APC InfraStruXure solution was not in place “it would be impossible for Imperial Bank to function and service our customers,” stressing that it would amount to instability and likelihood of loosing data and facing furious customers as well as heavy fines from the Central Bank of Kenya and a loss of reputation.
“From a long-term perspective, our profitability would be eroded and it would be difficult to conduct business in the future,” he said, adding that in monetary terms, this would amount to a loss of income of at least US$ 300,000 to 400,000 per day.
He was quick to add that the challenges faced in attempting to manage data centre include maintaining availability, centralised manageability, the provision of adequate power and cooling and the optimal use of space within the data centre.
“We decided to implement the InfraStruXure after conducting a comparison against other uninterruptible power supply (UPS) solutions, which revealed not only the cost effectiveness of InfraStruXure, but its redundancy and simplified management capabilities. The APC solution also utilised our data centre space most effectively while enabling us to cater for future growth,” Ochola said.
InfraStruXure integrates Smart UPS
Elucidating this fact, Jacqui Gradwell of APC, said that InfraStruXure requires a much lower upfront capital expenditure and fully meets the requirements of a stable and reliable power output.
InfraStruXure’s best feature, Gradwell noted is the effortless management from anywhere as alerts could be sent to a designated employee and the bypass switch allows maintenance to be carried out without bringing down user’s servers.
Commenting on this production, the immediate past, APC president and chief executive officer, Mr. Rob Johnson, said that a recent survey by Ogilvy Research of IT and Facilities professionals demonstrated the tremendous success the company has had positioning its innovative InfraStruXure architecture, with respondents from companies with greater than 1,000 employees.
He noted that the study also showed APC as a “trusted and reliable partner” for data centre solutions at twice the rate of the leading incumbent supplier of cooling products.
He was confident that by optimizing the solutions presented to its customers and ensuring that global brand communications enforce its competitive positioning, “it has become more of a challenge as our success has grown in both transactional and relational sales segments.”
Mr. Johnson expressed believe that its prime objective is to ensure continued excellence in global brand building and more efficient demand creation.
Noteworthy is that InfraStruXure system now integrates its Smart-Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS) VT power module. The integration comes with hot-swappable batteries and integrated power distribution, even as the new InfraStruXure system offers quick connect components and turnkey features to speed up deployment time.
“Since the InfraStruXure with Smart-UPS VT architecture uses a modular and scalable design approach, users can expand the system by adding APC’s innovative in-row cooling, centralized management and security products for enhanced capabilities,” he said.
APC underscored that the new InfraStruXure with Smart-UPS VT is ideal for server rooms and small data centres as well as for remote locations including regional offices, even as it is available in 30KVA and 40KVA, 400V input and are now available in Europe, Middle East and Africa.
Sum up
Based on the aforementioned innovative deployment of APC InfraStruXure, continental award-winning Information and Communication Technology (ICT) newspaper, Daily Champion, through its Champion Infotel, renowned for excellence in science and technology reporting, after due evaluation, hereby declare InfraStruXure, the best solution for server room for the first quarter of 2007.
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