Physical Security for Mission-Critical Facilities and Data Centers

Purpose As smart cities flourish amidst rapid urbanization and information and communication technology development, the demand for building more and more data centers is rising. This paper aims to examine the principal issues and considerations of data center facilities from the cost and benefit dimensions, with an aim to illustrate the approaches for maximizing the net benefits and remain “green.” Design/methodology/approach A comprehensive literature review informs the costs and benefits of data center facilities, and through a case study of a developer in Hong Kong, the significance of real estate costs is demonstrated. Findings Major corporations, establishments and governments need data centers as a mission critical facility to enable countless electronic transactions to take place any minute of the day. Their functional importance ranges from health, transport, payment, etc., all the way to entertainment activities. Some enterprises own them, whilst others use data center services on a co-location basis, in which case data centers are regarded as an investment asset. Real estate costs affect their success to a great extent, as in the case of a metropolitan where land cost forms a substantial part of the overall development cost for data centers. Research limitations/implications As the financial information of data center projects are highly sensitive due to the competitive status of the industry, a full set of numerical data is not available. Instead, the principles for a typical framework are established. Originality/value Data centers are very energy intensive, and their construction is usually fast tracked costing much to build, not to mention the high-value equipment contents housed therein. Their site locations need careful selection due to stability and security concerns. As an essential business continuity tool, the return on investment is a complex consideration, but certainly the potential loss caused by any disruption would be a huge amount. The life cycle cost and benefit considerations are revealed for this type of mission-critical facilities. Externalities are expounded, with emphasis on sustainable issues. The impact of land shortage for data center development is also demonstrated through the case of Hong Kong.

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Application of Exploratory Data Analysis (EDA) Techniques to Temperature Data in a Conventional Data Center

ASME 2007 InterPACK Conference, Volume 1 ◽

10.1115/ipack2007-33700 ◽

2007 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Ratnesh Sharma ◽

Rocky Shih ◽

Chandrakant Patel ◽

John Sontag

Keyword(s):

Data Analysis ◽

Thermal Management ◽

High Power ◽

Data Center ◽

Data Centers ◽

Exploratory Data Analysis ◽

Temperature Data ◽

High Density ◽

Exploratory Data ◽

Mission Critical

Data centers are the computational hub of the next generation. Rise in demand for computing has driven the emergence of high density datacenters. With the advent of high density, mission-critical datacenters, demand for electrical power for compute and cooling has grown. Deployment of a large number of high powered computer systems in very dense configurations in racks within data centers will result in very high power densities at room level. Hosting business and mission-critical applications also demand a high degree of reliability and flexibility. Managing such high power levels in the data center with cost effective reliable cooling solutions is essential to feasibility of pervasive compute infrastructure. Energy consumption of data centers can also be severely increased by over-designed air handling systems and rack layouts that allow the hot and cold air streams to mix. Absence of rack level temperature monitoring has contributed to lack of knowledge of air flow patterns and thermal management issues in conventional data centers. In this paper, we present results from exploratory data analysis (EDA) of rack-level temperature data collected over a period of several months from a conventional production datacenter. Typical datacenters experience surges in power consumption due to rise and fall in compute demand. These surges can be long term, short term or periodic, leading to associated thermal management challenges. Some variations may also be machine-dependent and vary across the datacenter. Yet other thermal perturbations may be localized and momentary. Random variations due to sensor response and calibration, if not identified, may lead to erroneous conclusions and expensive faults. Among other indicators, EDA techniques also reveal relationships among sensors and deployed hardware in space and time. Identification of such patterns can provide significant insight into data center dynamics for future forecasting purposes. Knowledge of such metrics enables energy-efficient thermal management by helping to create strategies for normal operation and disaster recovery for use with techniques like dynamic smart cooling.

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Smart Power Supply Systems for Mission Critical Facilities

IEICE Transactions on Communications ◽

10.1587/transcom.e95.b.755 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol E95-B (3) ◽

pp. 755-772 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Keiichi HIROSE ◽

Tadatoshi BABASAKI

Keyword(s):

Power Supply ◽

Smart Power ◽

Critical Facilities ◽

Mission Critical ◽

Supply Systems

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Discrete Control of Air Conditioning Units in Mission Critical Facilities

Volume 1: Thermal Management ◽

10.1115/ipack2015-48593 ◽

2015 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Sergio A. Bermudez ◽

Hendrik F. Hamann ◽

Levente J. Klein ◽

Fernando J. Marianno ◽

Alan C. Claassen

Keyword(s):

Air Conditioning ◽

Control Method ◽

Discrete Control ◽

Variable Frequency ◽

Variable Frequency Drive ◽

Variable Frequency Drives ◽

Critical Facilities ◽

Mission Critical ◽

Safety Features ◽

Almost All

For redundancy, almost all mission-critical facilities such as data centers are fitted with more air condition units than required. These units are most of the time heavily underutilized, where the fans within the units are still consuming energy circulating air without actually providing cooling. In more modern facilities such fans are equipped with variable frequency drives, which can reduce substantially the energy consumption if proper controls are implemented. While there have several solutions for controlling and optimizing such variable frequency drive operated air conditioning units, control systems without variable frequency drives (discrete on/off ACU controls) have not been addressed thoroughly. In this paper, we present a practical, distributed and automatic control method for such discrete air conditioning units. The technique includes several safety features and is based on dense environmental sensing and events like hotspots or device failures. We discuss this approach by way of example of a case study.

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