Extend the service life of data center equipment? These strategies to assist
When your data center is facing the problem of insufficient space, power supply or heat dissipation - or all three - you need to consider something troublesome. When your business is likely to continue to expand in the next few years, or when your company has begun to discuss the eventual transfer of some computing needs to the cloud or hosting website, the upgrade of the data center will become more challenging. These upgrading decisions are all crucial, and none of them can be treated in a hurry. In general, the choices made by the company in this regard will be expensive - whether measured by expenditure or operation and maintenance efficiency.
However, on the one hand, the company needs to plan its long-term data center strategy, and on the other hand, the IT part still has to face short-term tasks: keep the data center running and meet the user's use needs reliably.
Therefore, what kind of upgrading method is realistic and reliable? Which way can get the actual benefits with the minimum investment? And equally important, which method causes the least problems in the deployment process? In short, how to maintain the normal and smooth progress of short-term tasks as far as possible in the most economical, effective and efficient way of upgrading.
When your equipment is running at nearly full capacity, a complete data center policy will include which data can be cleaned, which modules can be maintained and used, and which need to be upgraded and replaced.
Improve efficiency by cleaning and discarding old equipment
If the data center is already running at the limit of its capabilities, IT departments may have to shut down and remove most servers with poor performance.
The next step is to test the importance of all applications to see which are low utilization (for example, only 10%). See if these low utilization applications can be virtualized or simply abandoned. If there is an application in the data center that only one user thinks should be retained, it is time to have a good talk with that user. A data center running at the extreme capacity is no longer the kind that adjusts equipment to meet all application requirements without making trade-offs. Moreover, this transformation can also bring benefits of reducing power consumption.
When you turn the viewing angle to the hardware, you need to clean the air filter of the device to ensure that the cable does not obstruct the air flow. These simple steps are very cheap, but they can improve the cooling effect and extend the service life of the equipment. If there are some cartons and other unnecessary things in your data center, throw them away. These things will create more dust, which will block the air filter and reduce the cooling effect.
If your air conditioning system is blowing up from the floor, remove the unused cables. This work is not easy to do, but you can do these things without financial budget authorization. You will be shocked by the improvement of cooling effect brought about by these changes.
It is worthwhile to hire professional data center cleaning services. The effect that a clean device can achieve in terms of equipment operation and power consumption is amazing.
Optimize existing equipment with minimal maintenance
When your equipment is running close to the limit, nothing is more important than good preventive maintenance. This kind of maintenance should be considered, even if it is an extra charge service beyond the service terms. Ensuring that all applications can continue to work at maximum performance is a proof of the value of this extra charge.
Other data center strategies to extend equipment life include replacing air conditioning filters, checking all belts and spindles, and making sure everything is clean. Your supplier should have a complete maintenance list, just like the maintenance list of automobile mechanics. Confirm that all items on this list have been certified and fulfilled. If your equipment is running so close to the limit that you can't afford to turn off an air conditioner for maintenance, rent some portable refrigeration equipment to help you spend the time of air conditioner maintenance.
The uninterruptible power supply (UPS) battery pack is probably the most common disaster recovery equipment in the data center, and it will also fail when it is most needed. The sealing unit of valve regulated lead-acid battery (VRLA) has only a few years of validity. If it has been used for 3 or 5 years, it is better to replace it.
Check the three-phase balance of your power supply system before booking preventive maintenance for your UPS, and before replacing or increasing its capacity. You may have more energy available than you think.
Large UPS systems - generally above 20kW - are three-phase. This means that it has three live wires, but almost all cabinets and equipment are connected to only one or two of them. In the United States, the 208 volt circuit can be powered from any two of the three phase lines. The 120V circuit in the United States and the 230V circuit in Europe can be supplied with power by taking any one of the three-phase lines and adding a zero line. Therefore, it is likely that one or two phase lines are close to full load, but the load connected to the other phase lines is very light.
The front panel can tell you the load condition of each phase line, but this comprehensive display only shows the load proportion of the worst case phase line. Therefore, if the three-phase line is very unbalanced, even if 20% - 30% of the energy is idle and unused, your front panel will still display 98% of the utilization rate.
Rebalance three-phase power consumption so that they are as consistent as possible - the goal is that the difference is not more than 5% - can release a large amount of additional energy from the existing UPS, and solve the potential overload problem at a very small or even zero cost.
Installing blank panels for unused slots on the cabinet can reduce the waste of expensive cooling air. The unit board can have a huge impact on the efficiency of air conditioning. Similarly, expandable panels can be used to close the space between cabinets, and now there are products that can be used to seal the space between the bottom of the cabinet and the floor.
