Maintaining & Extending the Life of your Data Center's UPS Batteries

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The battery is the most vulnerable part of any uninterruptible power supply (UPS) system. The battery is ultimately at the heart of the UPS in terms of reliability. Understanding causes of UPS battery degradation, ways to prevent degradation and maintenance options are fundamental to ensure maximum system availability.

There are a few ways to extend the life of your data center UPS batteries and I'll talk about them here:

• Purchase the correct battery for your data center – There are many things that factor into the purchase of UPS batteries such as life expectancy, front or top access, voltage, capacity as well as other considerations. Be aware of these, for instance a VLRA (Valve Regulated Lead Acid) battery, while relatively low in cost, has low reliability. While a Flooded or Wet cell battery is much more expensive, it will give you the best reliability and a long service life.
• Is the battery manufacturer qualified by the major UPS manufacturers - Companies like Eaton/Powerware and Liebert/Emerson have qualified battery manufacturers they use for their UPS systems. These battery manufacturers include: C&D, Power Battery, GNB and Enersys.
• Is the battery fresh or surplus stock that has been sitting on a shelf - Batteries should not stay longer than six (6) months without recharging. Many times when you see a cheaper price it’s due to the need to move these off the shelf. It is difficult and labor intensive to charge pallets of them and if the batteries stay on the shelf too long they will need to be scrapped. Bottom line; make sure the date codes on the batteries are within six months from the date you received them. Otherwise you may be getting a five year product that is a year or more old.
• Install, manage and maintain batteries properly – Proper installation of the batteries is important and if not done correctly can lead to shortened battery life. These batteries are sensitive to room temperature, so a good maintenance practice is to keep them as close as possible to 77 degrees Fahrenheit. You need to make sure they are all kept as close to this temperature as possible so that some batteries don’t age faster than others, this can make the batteries die quicker.
• Make sure you have regular inspections of your batteries -  the visual portion can unveil problems such as damaged or leaking post seals that can lead to corrosion or fires. Taking readings will tell you if one or more is not operating correctly due to a variety of reasons. A short within a cell will cause a lower float voltage on a battery. A battery with an open cell or low capacity may have a higher float voltage on it. The main problem is if one battery in a string that is wired in series (typical UPS application) starts to fail or fails it will affect the remaining batteries.
• Keep an eye on the battery's discharge status - if a battery isn’t recharged within 48 hours it can lead to damage.

Submitted by Paul Iodice, Power Electronics Supervisor - Electronic Environments Corporation

piodice@eecnet.com

Important Upfront Facts to Know when Building a New Data Center

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Building a new data center or server room is a very complex project, whether you're building a small 1,000-square-foot server room or a 100,000-square-foot data center. Here are some important facts your IT department needs to think about prior to beginning:

1. Determine design requirements early in the process:
• IT hardware load projections and cabinet load densities (blade servers?).
• Electrical and HVAC redundancy options.
• Fire detection and suppression systems options.
  
2. Site selection:
• Square foot requirement.
• Structural requirements (ground floor or upper floor loading issues).
• Proximity to utilities (power, cooling, communication).
  
3. Comprehensive, coordinated design documents ensure a successful construction project:
   
• Partner with a data center consultant with specific experience in this industry.
• A design consultant with data center construction and service experience will incorporate maintainability into the design.
• Engineering site reviews during construction ensure that the design criteria are incorporated into the build-out.
  
4.  Properly document warranty and service agreements:
• Part of the construction project close-out should include warranty documentation.
• Warranties typically carry some level of parts replacement, but do not include preventive maintenance agreements.
• Service and maintenance agreements during and after the warranty period should be planned and can be budgeted at the close of the construction project.

These are just a few critical things that need to be looked at during the construction of your data center - if you don't have staff with the skill set to manage this process, it is extremely important that you hire a construction company who focuses on building data centers or to hire a data center consultant to represent them during the construction.

Submitted by Jim Stark, Design/Build Manager - Electronic Environments Corporation

Where can Thermal Imaging Help in Your Data Center?

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Thermal imaging or thermography is very important for different components in your data center. It is a must for all electrical and mechanical systems and should be part of the regular maintenance schedule.

Thermography allows you to detect irregularities in systems before they can become a problem. The following electrical systems should have this performed:

• Electrical switchgear
• Uninterruptible power supplies (UPS)
• Automatic transfer switches
• Server systems
• Cooling systems

There can be problems in these systems that cannot be detected with the naked eye. Using infrared thermal imaging can prevent equipment failure and unplanned outages and can help detect overloaded circuits or loose connections which can cause degradation.

Thermography also is important role in detecting hot spots in your server racks and network equipment. If these are not detected, these high temperatures can compromise your data center network reliability.

So you can see that using thermal imaging as part of your regular maintenance is really important to keep your data center or server room up and running continuously.

Have you used thermography as part of your data center maintenance? If so, tell us what problems were detected that otherwise might have ended up being a huge problem for you.

UPS Systems Provide Power Protection for Data Centers - Size them Correctly

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A power outage, however brief, can cause most data centers and businesses to grind to a halt. As a result, information, productivity and profit can be lost. Using an Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) is the easiest way to provide secure power to protect your mission critical systems.  

The UPS system protects against all types of power supply failures and disturbances. How does this work? By positioning the UPS system between incoming power supply and the load, when then the main power fails, the UPS system switches to the backup UPS batteries, ensuring an unbroken power supply is available to keep the critical load fully operational.

The need to properly size a UPS system is critical to its reliability and the systems need to be able to grow along with your data center. Data center managers need to make sure that in today's ever changing per-rack power demands - this is done correctly.

Recently Electronic Environments Corporation (EEC) Design/Build Manager, Jim Stark, offered his knowledge on the subject. I encourage you to check out the editorial at processor.com. You will find answers to questions such as:

• What are the main factors to consider when choosing the size of a UPS for a data center? 

• What is important for readers to understand about VA ratings of UPSs?   

• Are there different considerations for blade servers vs standard servers?

• And more...

Does anyone have additional recommendations for sizing a UPS system?