22 ½done 1_2014
Data center maintenance enjoys speedy progress Jari Innanen, text Granlund, photo
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Finns know how to design energyefficient data centers of international dimensions. Both client awareness of the goals and the requirements of the design are generally well considered. Design often includes references to TIER classifications, maintained by the Uptime Institute, and the national VAHTI guidelines. Regarding building service engineering redundancy (i.e. backup levels) and availability, many companies have their own requirements as well.
An examples of this is that all sites requiring maintenance have to enable maintenance without interruption of site operations, and even without loss of redundancy in IT distribution. The design level and right redundancy has to be evaluated in each project separately, and solutions have to be worked to the right level. The tools, processes and approaches related to maintenance are not yet as precisely defined or standardised as what is customary for the real estate industry in Finland. Will top solutions and stiff requirements move into maintenance as well? Digital maintenance books replaced traditional models in Finland over ten years ago already, and service and maintenance management is carried out with digital tools for all the bigger sites. Granlund has been a forerunner in the development of these approaches, and the maintenance of hundreds of data centers and equipment facilities, as well as thousands of other sites, is already managed by Granlund Manager. New models of data center maintenance and service design have seen strong development in recent years. Earlier, so-called basic level maintenance was sufficient for data centers. However,
Datacenter PUE Period = 9/2011–8/2012
1.9 1.8 1.7 1.6
is big time allocation of resources in construction, the
1.5
same standards must be held in maintenance as well.
1.4
there is work to be done. So, together with its key data center customers, Granlund has allocated resources to the development of a data center maintenance tool.
–6,0 %
2.0
practical projects have clearly shown that when there
In this regard, the industry still has much to learn, and
9/2011–8/2012 1,41 9/2010–8/2011 1,50
PUE prev. PUE site PUE mean
1.3 1.2 1.1 1.0
9/11 10/11 11/11 12/11 1/12 2/12 3/12 4/12 5/12 6/12 7/12 8/12