Eaton, one of the big data center UPS manufacturers, is offering a free handbook on uninterruptible power supply (UPS) batteries. Most people know that the most vulnerable part of a UPS are the batteries. Knowing how charged they are and how much juice they have left can mean the difference between having enough through time to get the generators started, and leaving your customers without a data center.

I ordered one. I can always learn more about UPS’s and their batteries. According to Eaton, the guide “covers characteristics, performance and maintenance of UPS battery types along with a comprehensive glossary of battery terms.” Sounds good to me. And since I already get plenty of emails from Eaton for all their products, I didn’t care about putting my information in there. They can only send me so many emails, right?

In June, Chris Johnston, Senior VP and Critcal Facilities Chief Engineer at Syska Hennessy Group wrote a Tip for SearchDataCenter.com, “Uninterruptable power supply load bus synchronization: Yes or no?”. We asked for reader feedback, and heard from Brad Walter, Director of Applications and System Development at Active Power, who shared this story:

The one issue that this article did not address is static transfer switch (STS) alarms. I have a customer who claims that even the STS with asynchronous transfer capability alarms when the phase angle between the two sources drifts beyond a certain limit (say 15 degrees), and that a new instance of the alarm is generated every time the two sources drift out of synch. This would not only be annoying to data center operators but significant time would be wasted in re-setting alarms, and even more importantly, frequent false alarms tend to make people ignore alarms that require attention. Have you seen the same issue, or is this customer either not actually using asynchronous transfer STS as he claims, or has he failed to set up alarm features on his switches correctly for asynchronous transfer operation?

Chris provided this feedback for Brad:

Thanks for your question, Brad. I agree that frequent nuisance alarms are annoying and a potential source of unintended downtime. Repetitive nuisance alarms can obscure our perception of a real problem when it occurs. Human nature is to be lulled into being “asleep at the switch.”

Not knowing any specifics about your customer’s situation, I suspect that the alarm features on the STS may not be set correctly to eliminate nuisance alarms. If synchronization between the two STS sources is unnecessary, then the need for an “out of synch” alarm is unnecessary, regardless of the phase angle between the two sources. I suggest that your customer contact the STS manufacturer.

This lead us to wonder, is this a “Picnic” type problem (problem in chair not in computer) or is this a problem with a certain STS?

I called Brad to follow up, and to get a little edification about how these switches are supposed to work so that I could better understand the problem. Brad kindly talked to me for about 30 minutes, giving me a crash course in Electrical Engineering 101 and a refresher on trigonometry.

He explained that in a large data center with many of these switches and alarms, that the headache from them all going off could be enormous. The particular model involved has software in the switch that is supposed to be able to take care of any out of phase problems, keeping the downstream equipment safe. If the software is working as advertised, there would be no need for an out of phase alarm at all. But for whatever reason, it has an alarm, and it’s going off — all of them, at each UPS in the data center.

Brad declined to point a finger the switch manufacturer specifically (a perfectly sane response), but shared that it was one of the big players in this space: Cyberex, Liebert, PDI, or LayerZero.

Without other stories of the same problem, it’s harder to make a case out of this and ask the manufacturers tough questions. So, this is a bit of a fishing expedition: Have you experienced a similar problem with your STS? If so, did you resolve it? How? Which model STS had this problem?

If you represent any of the four STS manufacturers, are you willing to say that this problem could not happen with your equipment? Or, could it, and what should the end-user do about it?

Data center power and cooling services companyAPC is offering a number of free online tools, called APC TradeOff Tools, that give IT pros a way to view how infrastructure changes effect costs and performance in the data center.

“The tools answer questions like, ‘what will the ROI be if I increase the water chiller temperatures?’ or ‘what do I need to do to hit my energy efficiency or carbon footprint target’?,” said Neil Rasmussen, senior vice president of innovation for APC.

The West Kingston, RI-based company’s new tools include the power efficiency calculator that allows IT managers to generate “what if” scenarios regarding virtualization, power sizing, efficiency, power density, and cooling decisions.

Another new tool is the Data Center Carbon Calculator, which allows users to input data about their infrastructure and see the impact any changes would have on data center efficiency, energy costs and carbon footprint.

“If a company makes a carbon efficiency pledge, they can use this tool to drill down into different ways to achieve that goal,” Rasmussen said.

The Data Center Capital Cost Calculator details the impact of physical infrastructure design changes on capital costs; the Virtualization Energy Cost Calculator shows the impact of server virtualization and data center design choices on energy and space savings; and the Data Center Power Sizing Calculator gives details about the impact of server and storage configurations on IT load capacity and required utility input power.

There is also the Data Center AC vs. DC Calculator, which compares the efficiency of each, and the Data Center InRow Containment Selector, which recommends cooling options based on the data center infrastructure.

All of the tools can be accessed here on APC’s website.

Emerson Network Power released a new 480-volt power distribution unit — a voltage configuration that data center infrastructure experts have been clamoring for recently due to potential energy efficiency gains.

Typically an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) operates at 480 V, and a PDU steps down that power from 480 V to 208 V or 120 V. By eliminating the step-down transformer in the PDU by distributing power at 400 V/230 V and operating IT equipment at higher voltages the power chain would be more efficient.

The rack-sized Liebert FDC was designed for new high-density servers that can handle 480V power, including new models recently unveiled by IBM, said Bill Barcus, product manager, Liebert AC Power.

Data center managers can achieve an additional two percent energy savings by eliminating the step-down losses, according to Barcus. This doesn’t sound like much, but a data center with 1,000 servers could save around $40,000 annually.

Lately, infrastructure vendors are paying a lot of attention to distribution of power at higher voltages. Virtually all IT equipment is rated to work with input power voltages ranging from 100 volts (V) to 240 V alternating current (AC). The higher the voltage, the more efficiently the unit operates. However, most equipment is run off lower-voltage power: the traditional 120 V.

According to new research from Eaton, a Hewlett-Packard Co. ProLiant DL380 Generation 5 server, for example, operates at 82% efficiency at 120 V, 84% efficiency at 208 V, and 85% at 230 V. A data center could gain that incremental advantage just by changing the input power and the power distribution unit (PDU) in the rack.

“People say that virtually everything is coming at 208 V but they have lots of equipment coming in at 120 V,” said Peter Panfil, vice president of power engineering at Emerson’s Liebert Corp. “The IT people are more comfortable with 120 V, but there is no safety tradeoff.”

Robert McFarlane, data center design expert and principal at New York-based engineering firm Shen Milsom & Wilke Inc. offers advice for data center pros exploring this approach in the future. “The first step is to look at your servers,” he said. “See if they auto-sense 208 volts, and see what you can do about running 208 to your cabinets instead of 120. There are plenty of PDUs that will deliver 208 and 120 to the same strip if you wire it right.”

Taking the voltage directly to 480 and avoiding ther stepdown altogether is even more efficient. Vendors have been rolling out these products in Europe, but Chris Loeffler, product manager at Eaton said the main factor holding users back from distributing power at 400 V/230 V in the U.S. is that the equipment to handle these voltages is CE marked (it contains the manufacturer’s seal that it meets the European Union safety standards) but not approved by Underwriters Laboratories, the U.S. product testing and compliance organization.

“The global UPS manufacturers all make 400-volt systems, and we’ve done a number of Google data centers at 400 volt, bringing in our CE-marked equipment,” Loeffler said. “But UL means something for some people and you would have a tough time looking at this as a partial upgrade.”

Barcus said the typical panel board vendors use is UL listed for 240 volts — while they are rated higher internationally — but the new Liebert FDC uses a higher rated panel board, which is UL listed.

“We’ve had some queries from customers, but not a lot of sales yet,” Barcus said. “This is the tip of the iceberg.”

This is pretty impressive; colocation provider 365 Main has been taking advantage of Pacific Gas & Electic Corp.’s (PG&E) power saving program and saved $54,000 in utility costs at its San Francisco data center in 2007.

In all, 365 Main saved 7,477 kWh in 2007 by curtailing power usage below its energy-consumption baseline.

How did they do it? The first step 365 Main takes is inviting their utility provider, PG&E, into their data center at the start of each year for an energy audit to find areas where efficiencies can be added, said Miles Kelly, VP of corporate strategy at 365 Main.

“For example, this year we expanded the areas that utilize motion controlled lighting in the data center and also reinsulated the condenser water lines for the buildings massive air conditioning system. We also reduce lighting levels in public areas during peak days,” Kelly said.

The data center host also adjusted their weekly and monthly generator test schedules to peak days, which reduces their utility consumption by about 8% during test periods. “This adjustment of the testing schedule allows us to reduce utility consumption without ever affecting the reliability or N+1 redundancy of our power system,” Kelly said.

PG&E has gotten a lot of attention this past year for its part in promoting power savings in data centers. Their Critical Peak Pricing (CPP) program encourages data centers to cut back power consumption by offering seasonal discounts to customers that reduce or shift their energy usage away from peak periods.

In addition to savings incentives, PG&E also works with companies like IBM to consolidate servers, reduce heat and cooling requirements in data centers.

And 365 Main has been pretty aggressive in the “green” data center effort as well, if not for the public relations benefits alone. Earlier this year, 365 Main promised to build all its future data centers in line withLEED certification, which is basically a nice label the U.S. Green Building Council gives to companies that make an effort to be environmentally responsible. The standard is said to be tough for power hungry data center to meet though, and is most commonly achieved in buildings with lots of office space.

There’s been tons of clamour from environmental interest groups warning data center managers that if steps aren’t taken to reduce consumption, power availability problems will continue to grow and costs will rise, and several vendors and industry organizations have developed online tools to measure data center efficiency and promote power savings.

One of the many tools is from West Kingston, R.I.-based American Power Conversion (APC), a power and cooling services company, which has a free Web-based tool that rates data center power efficiency.

So, come on people. Let’s save some power.

Good ol’ Data Center Knowledge reported on a great database tool that lists a number of energy incentive programs for data centers.

The Database of State Incentives for Renewables & Efficiency (DSIRE) offers a comprehensive list of state, local, utility, and federal incentives that promote renewable energy and energy efficiency. It maintains databases of incentives for both renewable energy and energy efficiency, broken down by state and utility. It’s a great resource for data centers looking for ways to cut back on power costs - which equates to pretty much everybody.

Pacific Gas & Electric was the first utility to offer rebates to business customers that implement virtualization and server consolidation projects.

Avista Utilities, the utility serving Spokane, Wash., offers rebates of up to $5,000 per rack for customers implementing a chip-level liquid cooling solution from SprayCool.

When I attended Emerson’s AdaptiveXchange show in Baltimore last week, I had a chance to see whether I could glean anything new about data center power and cooling strategies. While many presentations were pretty product oriented, I sat in on a few where the speakers made some compelling and strategic arguments. In particular B.J. Sonnenberg and Ed Miro — Emerson regional sales manager and product manager, respectively — gave an informative presentation on why 48-volt direct current (DC) is such a good idea.

The discussion was in the context of Power over Ethernet (PoE), which basically uses the communications infrastructure to power network devices, such as phones, security cameras and laptops. This kind of infrastructure works on a 48 V system; telco companies have used it for years. As Bob McFarlane’s power efficiency discussion at Data Center Decisions earlier this year highlighted, DC is a more efficient way to get power to equipment; using DC involves fewer power conversions, thus reducing power loss.

The argument is that if you have a 48 V infrastructure built into your system that is powering your office devices anyway, why not bring in 48 v power distribution units (PDUs) and power everything else? You get more efficient and reliable power and it can be centrally monitored and controlled. It’s certainly safe enough, a concern that was brought up during Sonnenberg and Miro’s discussion.

But the session ended before I could ask about the downsides (there are always downsides), so I asked a salesperson on the sales floor why more people aren’t doing this. He said that most hardware manufacturers don’t offer 48 V compatibility as a standard power connection. You have to request it and pay additional costs to make your equipment 48 V-ready. Also, 48-volt PDUs come at a premium (the salesperson didn’t know Emerson’s starting price because each application is unique, he said). And unless you need high availability, you can go with standard power and save money outfitting your data center with new equipment.

A new study by Opengate Data Systems, a data center availability consulting company, found that a 5 kw/rack data center would shut down in about three minutes if a power outage caused there to be no cooling. For a 10 kw/rack data center, the time is even shorter: about one minute.

The study on data center power outages was commissioned by Active Power, which makes flywheel and other non-battery based UPS devices for the data center. Much of the study was meant to promote Active Power’s CoolAir UPS, which can provide backup power and cooling in case of a shut down. But the data from Opengate is still pretty interesting.

Rackable Systems, Inc. was given the 2007 “LinuxWorld.com Product Excellence Award” in the category of “Most Innovative Hardware Solution” for its modular data center product, Concentro at the LinuxWorld Conference & Expo in California this week.

Rackable’s Concentro addresses the need for increased data center space while reducing up-front costs and operational expenses accociated with building a brick and mortar data center. The self-contained, fully portable data-center-in-a-box is packed with servers, storage and highly efficient cooling.

Sun Microsystems has a similar product called Project Blackbox.

Housed in a secure, nondescript, weather-tight 40’ x 8’ shipping container, Concentro can hold up to 1200U of servers or storage systems and compute density levels of up to 9600 cores and storage capacity of up to 3.5 petabytes. Concentro’s unique cooling and DC power technology dramatically reduce cooling costs by as much as 80% over traditional data centers, the company reports.

The ability to deploy a Concentro container rapidly and in any location allows businesses to add redundancy and business continuity, allowing for easy hardware migration and an expedited disaster recovery process. The units can be situated away from the home data center site and remotely managed at the server, rack and container level using Rackable Systems’ Roamer remote management technology.

Data center operator 365 Main Inc. issued information today detailing the root cause behind why back-up power generators in the company’s San Francisco facility failed to start during a PG&E power outage last week, leaving 40% of customers in the facility losing power to their equipment for up to 45 minutes.

It reportedly took customers including Craigslist and Second Life up to 11 hours to get back online when power was restored.

Following the power outage last week, three of 365 Main’s 10 back-up generators, manufactured by HiTec, failed to start up.

After days of testing they discovered a weakness in an essential component of the back-up generator system known as a DDEC (Detroit Diesel Electronic Controller).

A setting in the DDEC was not allowing the component to correctly reset its memory.

The problem was fixed and the Hitec generators successfully passed more than 50 consecutive start-up sequence tests without incident, according to 365 Main.

The company has a pretty good track record. Over the past five years, 365 Main has delivered 99.9967% power uptime to customers in five data centers, including the outage experienced in San Francisco last week.

The customers affected by the outage will receive rent abatements, as outlned in their service level agreements, the company said.

I wonder if the affected customers find the abatement adequate.