Optimising the resilience, efficiency and total cost of ownership equation

Q

Please can you provide some background on Riello – its history
to date, with particular reference to its data centre ‘milestones’?
A
Our parent company, Riello Elettronica, has been
manufacturing UPS for nearly 30 years and is the third largest UPS manufacturer in Europe and the fourth globally. Riello UPS Limited in the UK celebrated its tenth anniversary earlier this year and during this time, we have innovated continuously to ensure that our products meet the evolving needs of the data centre market.

Q
What are the key factors that differentiate Riello within the busy
UPS marketplace?

A
Key factors that differentiate Riello UPS are the quality of our products and technical excellence – both in terms of our products and our service personnel. We also set ourselves high standards of customer responsiveness which is why we are the only UPS manufacturer to hold stock >500kVA in the UK and to offer customers a next day dispatch service on many of our units. We are also one of the few UPS manufacturers to offer products featuring open protocols which enable our customers to have control over how they maintain their Riello UPS products.

Q
In more detail, are there some technologies that give you a
performance edge when compared to other players in the
UPS market?

A

We are able to offer products that meet the high resilience requirements for critical applications along with high efficiency products that help data centres meet and improve PUE. Our new Master Plus HE UPS utilises ultra isolation transformer technology which offers the resilience of a traditional transformer based UPS with the efficiency of the most efficient transformerless UPS technology.

Q

What are the key products you aim at the data centre market?
A
Our key products are the Master Plus HP (High Power) & HE (High Efficiency) range of UPS with modules from 100kVA to 800kVA which can be paralled in a N+1 topology to offer solutions of up to 6.4MVA.

Q
Can you tell us a little bit about your UPS products and how
they fit within the data centre environment?

A
Our products offer high reliability with high efficiency within a small footprint and are fully configurable to run in 4 four modes:
Online – often seen as the most popular way of operating a UPS in a data centre environment since it utilises the full technology and power conditioning within the UPS and offers maximum protection.
Line interactive – when efficiency levels/running costs are of the upmost importance and the load applied to the UPS is not business critical, a line interactive mode can return excellent running costs and offer efficiency levels of up to 99%.
Eco smart mode – here the UPS works within set parameters which monitor the stability of the incoming mains power. When the power is stable, the UPS runs in a line interactive mode. Should the mains fall outside of the programmable tolerances, the UPS automatically reverts to an online mode in case of a potential power outage.
Emergency standby – maximises the operating costs of UPS onsite by placing any paralleled UPS, which are not required to complete a N+1 solution, in standby mode. Should these be required due to increased load or loss of unit, the units can be brought back inline immediately without affecting the load.
These modes of operation offer varying degrees of resilience and high efficiency.

Q
Intelligence – monitoring/measuring many different parameters
(including energy efficiency) - in the data centre is growing in
importance, how does Riello contribute to this trend?

A
Riello products have full monitoring capabilities, taking information from the UPS screen or over the network via our PowerShield software or by Modbus, JBUS or PROFIBUS into a DCIM or EMS system. Our units also offer kW/hr readings to make calculating the basic PUE easy.

Q
You also list product sectors such as: transfer, solutions,
generators and software – please can you tell us a little bit
about each with reference to their relevance to the data centre
market?

A
Alongside UPS we offer a full range of complementary products, including static switches, PDUs, custom switchgear and generator solutions. This enables us to offer a total power solution package that can manage the power chain within the data centre from sub-station to server.

Q
It’s difficult to escape the importance of energy efficiency in
the data centre right now. How does Riello help its customers
address this issue?
A
Efficiency in data centres is critical, however, we encourage customers not to focus entirely on energy efficiency as they run the risk losing sight of the importance of resilient clean power. We spend a lot time with clients helping them to identify the right solution that combines resilience, efficiency and total cost of ownership (TCO). By focusing solely on efficiency, clients may find that they save on electricity costs and reduce PUE and carbon emissions, but, in the longer term, they may end up paying through the nose for high maintenance bills and data centre outages because they paid less attention to the resilience and TCO elements.

Q
What are some of the options available to customers to help
them combat the problem of escalating energy bills (i.e.
running the data centre at higher temperatures etc.)?

A
Riello UPS products are Smart Grid ready so they can be integrated with alternative renewable power sources, such as solar panels, and facilitate the switching between grid and solar, while allowing export back to the grid. With the introduction of Lithium Ion batteries it is now also more feasible to use UPS batteries as energy calculators, which again allows the export of power back to the grid, or to operate the data centre in island mode when a generator is present, which effectively takes the data centre off grid for a short period of time. Few data centre managers realise that this not only creates an additional revenue stream, but that it also offers an opportunity to test the resilient power system in real time with minimal risk to the data centre.

Q
Can you explain the idea of energy storage and how this might
have an impact on power availability/prices in the data centre
market?

A
Energy storage technology is becoming a reality in both the domestic and data centre environments. The principle is to store energy when it is not required and to use it when the demand is high. This works particularly well with renewable energy technologies, such as wind and solar power. In the past, the biggest issue was how to store the energy, which required a piece of apparatus known as an energy accumulator. Battery technology was another issue, as Valve Regulated Lead Acid (VRLA) batteries have a slow recharge time (4-6 hours to 80%) and a limited number of charge/recharge cycles before the battery failed. But Lithium Ion (Li-ion) batteries, which have greater cyclic properties (10,000 cycles compared to VRLA’s 500 cycles) and a faster rate of recharge, are more suited to energy storage applications. UPS products can now be deployed with Li-ion batteries and, used within a Smart Grid configuration, the UPS can now be considered to be an energy accumulator.

Q
Are there any other innovations that look set to help end user
address the problem of rising energy costs?
A

Batteries can have a negative impact on data centre energy costs since they have to be stored at a constant 20ºC. Riello offers a number of alternative energy storage methods, such as super caps or flywheels, as this eliminates the need to maintain the battery room at 20ºC. At the moment, these alternative solutions can be expensive and so building the business case for them can be challenging. That said, with rising energy costs and new product developments in these areas, it is only a matter of time before these technologies become common place.

Q
How does the changing ‘content’ of the data centre – denser
IT real estate – impact on the provision of power/UPS?

A
Thanks to virtualisation and improvements in server technology, increasing power demand within the data centre is well understood. In the early stages of each client relationship, we sit down with our customers and explain to them that what they have now may not be the best solution for their business in five years’ time. When designing the data centre power structure, it is vitally important to give consideration to future expansion requirements and to select the UPS solution that will best meet these needs. As Riello UPS units can be paralleled together (up to a maximum of 8 units) it is easy to design in extra switchgear at the implementation stage to allow for the introduction of further UPS later in the data centre’s life without any disruption. At the outset of any data centre design and build project it is prudent to fall back to the 5Ps adage of perfect planning prevents poor performance.

Q
Specifically, is it possible to characterise the changed demands
placed on the data centre infrastructure by virtualisation,
Cloud and BYOD?

A
No, it is not possible to characterise this, as it depends on the data centre application. For example, if the data centre is for the company’s own use and they implement virtualisation, the server count/power requirement often drops. In other applications, the opposite happens because virtualisation frees up rack space, with the existing virtualised racks having a higher power density. In the case of hosting and colocation, these spare spaces are then used for new servers and the power demand increases.

Q
Presumably, there is increasing pressure on the data centre
infrastructure to offer greater flexibility to mirror the on-demand
IT trend?

A
Yes, that is why Riello UPS and other manufacturers are offering modular UPS solutions alongside standalone units. These modular solutions offer greater flexibility in terms of managing changing power demands, however there is always a cost to benefit ratio to consider. This comes in the shape of common points of failure within the modular design, such as common batteries (the weak link in any UPS), common DC and AC busbars, and common controllers. Also, there is no separation between modules when housed in a rack mounted solution. Modular UPS undoubtedly have their place in the market but the flexibility that can be achieved using standalone solutions avoids the common points of failure, and therefore makes them the more resilient solution.

Q
Do you think there’s still a need for education so that all
involved in the data centre – facilities and IT – understand how
they can meet the challenges they face right now?

A
Yes, based on some of the points already covered, there is still a great need for education at all levels – from CEOs and CFOs through to M&E consultants, data centre and facilities managers, right down to the data centre engineers. Each one is an important stakeholder in the data centre environment.

Q
Are you seeing facilities and ITG working closer together to
achieve this – or are they still very separate disciplines?
A
I would like to say yes, but in reality it is still not happening. Until this issue is overcome, data centres will not achieve their maximum efficiency.

Q
What can we expect from Riello over the coming months – in
terms of new products/technologies?

A
We have some new products on the horizon, specifically aimed at the high efficiency data centre. These products not only offer high efficiency, but they do so without compromising resilience.

Q

What about in terms of market coverage/Channel involvement?
A
Over the last ten years, Riello has grown with double digit figures every year. With our continued commitment to product development and excellence in customer service, we fully expect to continue this growth in the UK data centre market as well as in the global data centre market over the coming years.

Q
When it comes to addressing the whole data centre power/UPS
issue – where should the end user start?

A
When commencing a data centre power project, the first step is to identify what the data centre is there to do and which server technology will be deployed. Time then needs to be spent exploring what the data centre might look like in five years’ time to give an indication of the number of racks and the expected power requirement of each one. Once this has been done, the next step is to work with the cooling and power engineers to start designing the power chain through the data centre. In some cases, the data centre will be restricted in size by the availability of power from the grid and in such instances, it will be necessary to establish the resilience level (tier level) of the data centre. This data will then eventually dictate how much power will be available to the ICT load. In every case, the design should start from the incomer to the server or from the server to the incomer.

Q
Finally, when it comes to the whole energy/power debate – is
the company in the glass half full or half empty camp?!
A
I feel that attitudes to the energy debate across the industry are good and on the whole, the desire is very much there to do the right thing. However, there are still data centres out there that could do more to improve their efficiencies, thereby reducing their power demand. Sometimes it is the little things that have the biggest impact, such as making sure blanking plates are in place to ensure efficient cooling or managing the airflow more efficiently to save up to 20%+ on cooling requirements. Measures like these do not incur great costs but the savings on offer are huge, and a lot of small to medium size data centres are still not implementing the basics.

Q

Any other comments?
A
UPS is a device that is not just there to protect from power outages, it is also there to continuously clean the power – up to 50% of data errors can be attributed to poor power quality. Only a UPS in online mode will give full protection against the dirty power that causes so many disruptions to data centre services.