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4 Ways to Save Money in Your Data Centre

4 Ways to Save Money in Your Data Centre

When the cost of data centre downtime averages nearly $9,000 per minute,
avoiding such an event is the first and most obvious way to save money.
However, here are four ways to save that help your organisation avoid downtime
while also optimising performance. 

1. Commission Your Facility 

Increasingly complex systems and assemblies mean more opportunities for
problems that could lead to costly outages for your facility. Commissioning
(Cx) helps identify and correct the major culprits behind failures such as
design, installation, and start-up deficiencies. To further maximise
availability, Cx verifies and documents that all critical systems — power,
cooling, and building automation — function together as a fully integrated
system. 

Cx also helps to reduce the lifecycle costs of the facility. The Cx
process improves system operation while providing benchmarking data that can be
used to maintain optimal performance. When systems are optimised, they’re not
only more reliable; they are more efficient, too. Cx activities can verify
proper functionality of specific efficiency features that are part of the
system design. 

A commissioned data centre often experiences fewer delays than seen with
traditional deployment, making it more likely to be delivered on time and on
budget. You will not only be able to see returns on your capital investment
faster, you’ll also see lower operation and maintenance costs throughout the
lifecycle of your facility. 

2. Optimise Electrical System Performance 

Assessing your electrical system can uncover areas for improvement that
can help you manage significant challenges in your data centre such as
increased availability expectations, moves or consolidations, increased power
and heat density, and regulatory compliance. 

By evaluating your full electrical equipment inventory, you can identify
defective components and connections before they cause business disruption, as
well as identify gaps in equipment maintenance. Additionally, engineering
services such as short circuit and coordination studies or arc flash studies
can be used to improve workplace safety and ensure compliance. 

A work environment that complies with all applicable standards not only
helps you avoid fines and penalties but it minimises threats that can lead to
costly equipment damage and productivity losses. 

Ultimately, electrical system assessments allow for detailed analysis
that leads to recommended corrective actions and risk mitigation strategies,
which help you cost-effectively improve the reliability and availability of
your data centre. 

3. Improve Thermal Efficiency 

An updated approach to thermal management can cut energy costs and
improve efficiency. In a typical data centre, cooling accounts for 38 percent
of total energy consumption. So if you want to make an impact on energy usage,
focusing on your cooling system can provide a speedy return on investment. 

By pinpointing and correcting issues like hot spots and airflow
problems, you take an important first step in reducing your energy draw. From
there, you can implement variable speed technologies and intelligent controls
to realise further efficiency improvements. These technologies are available as
upgrades to your existing equipment. 

With variable speed technologies, such as electrically commutated (EC)
fans and variable speed drives (VSDs), you can vary the speed of your existing
cooling unit fans to better match cooling to IT load. When you reduce fan
speed, you stop spending energy on overcooling that your IT equipment doesn’t
need. By adding intelligent controls, you can network your cooling units to
work together as a team. This eliminates situations where units “fight” each
other, with one unit cooling while another reheats. 

Correcting situations that waste energy and using only the energy you
need to ensure critical system availability can dramatically reduce your energy
costs without impacting availability. 

4. Safeguard Your Emergency
Power System
 

The impact of a power system failure is far reaching when considering
potential damage to data and equipment, business disruption, remediation costs,
legal ramifications, and damage to your brand and reputation. In a 2016 study
conducted by Ponemon Institute, the average cost of a data centre outage was
more than $740,000 with the maximum cost rising to more than $2.4 million.
Avoiding these significant costs is a simple matter of prevention. 

A regular preventive maintenance program performed by expert technicians
is the key to ensuring maximum reliability of data centre equipment including
batteries, uninterruptible power supply (UPS) units, and power distribution. In
fact, in a study that included analysis of more than 185 million UPS operating
hours, reliability of the unit as measured by mean time between failures (MTBF)
increased as the number of annual preventive maintenance visits increased. 

System issues that are just beginning to appear are detected through
regular preventive maintenance. This systematic inspection and analysis allows
you to correct these issues, ensuring you have emergency power when you need it
and helping you avoid costly, unplanned downtime.

PARTNER

Qlik’s vision is a data-literate world, where everyone can use data and analytics to improve decision-making and solve their most challenging problems. A private company, Qlik offers real-time data integration and analytics solutions, powered by Qlik Cloud, to close the gaps between data, insights and action. By transforming data into Active Intelligence, businesses can drive better decisions, improve revenue and profitability, and optimize customer relationships. Qlik serves more than 38,000 active customers in over 100 countries.

PARTNER

CTC Global Singapore, a premier end-to-end IT solutions provider, is a fully owned subsidiary of ITOCHU Techno-Solutions Corporation (CTC) and ITOCHU Corporation.

Since 1972, CTC has established itself as one of the country’s top IT solutions providers. With 50 years of experience, headed by an experienced management team and staffed by over 200 qualified IT professionals, we support organizations with integrated IT solutions expertise in Autonomous IT, Cyber Security, Digital Transformation, Enterprise Cloud Infrastructure, Workplace Modernization and Professional Services.

Well-known for our strengths in system integration and consultation, CTC Global proves to be the preferred IT outsourcing destination for organizations all over Singapore today.

PARTNER

Planview has one mission: to build the future of connected work. Our solutions enable organizations to connect the business from ideas to impact, empowering companies to accelerate the achievement of what matters most. Planview’s full spectrum of Portfolio Management and Work Management solutions creates an organizational focus on the strategic outcomes that matter and empowers teams to deliver their best work, no matter how they work. The comprehensive Planview platform and enterprise success model enables customers to deliver innovative, competitive products, services, and customer experiences. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, with locations around the world, Planview has more than 1,300 employees supporting 4,500 customers and 2.6 million users worldwide. For more information, visit www.planview.com.

SUPPORTING ORGANISATION

SIRIM is a premier industrial research and technology organisation in Malaysia, wholly-owned by the Minister​ of Finance Incorporated. With over forty years of experience and expertise, SIRIM is mandated as the machinery for research and technology development, and the national champion of quality. SIRIM has always played a major role in the development of the country’s private sector. By tapping into our expertise and knowledge base, we focus on developing new technologies and improvements in the manufacturing, technology and services sectors. We nurture Small Medium Enterprises (SME) growth with solutions for technology penetration and upgrading, making it an ideal technology partner for SMEs.

PARTNER

HashiCorp provides infrastructure automation software for multi-cloud environments, enabling enterprises to unlock a common cloud operating model to provision, secure, connect, and run any application on any infrastructure. HashiCorp tools allow organizations to deliver applications faster by helping enterprises transition from manual processes and ITIL practices to self-service automation and DevOps practices. 

PARTNER

IBM is a leading global hybrid cloud and AI, and business services provider. We help clients in more than 175 countries capitalize on insights from their data, streamline business processes, reduce costs and gain the competitive edge in their industries. Nearly 3,000 government and corporate entities in critical infrastructure areas such as financial services, telecommunications and healthcare rely on IBM’s hybrid cloud platform and Red Hat OpenShift to affect their digital transformations quickly, efficiently and securely. IBM’s breakthrough innovations in AI, quantum computing, industry-specific cloud solutions and business services deliver open and flexible options to our clients. All of this is backed by IBM’s legendary commitment to trust, transparency, responsibility, inclusivity and service.

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