Data Center Disaster Recovery – Don’t Forget About Power

Rick Gonedes
May 2, 2017

When a data center suffers from disasters that result in a power outage, it affects more than just the data center. It has the potential to impact the entire operation with drastic consequences on service delivery and overall profitability. The root causes of downtime in data centers are inadequate power management and human error, which leads to a staggering cost per minute of $9,000 in 2016.

Addressing These Challenges

Regardless of the type of situation, you're trying to prevent, all data center operators need to review their backup plans, their infrastructures, and their vulnerabilities on a regular basis. A vital part of the back plan must involve a thorough review of power distribution. The fact that one or more of your servers is not wired to backup power isn't necessarily a problem today but will become critical in case of an outage and dramatically impact your operation.

When considering your data center disaster recovery plan it’s important to note that power management is an integral pillar and remember “you cannot manage what you don't measure” - end of story. This is a large part why intelligent cabinets have become one of the keys to not only recover service quickly in case of an outage but also avoid outages and downtime altogether.  With intelligent infrastructure, you get actionable insight into your power consumption and capacity, which helps you make better equipment provisioning and change decisions quickly.

Within an intelligent cabinet, intelligent PDUs provide different types of metering - you can collect real-time information in different areas, including input/inlet level metering, circuit breaker status monitoring, outlet/device level metering, remote outlet switching/control and more. All of this monitoring gives you the ability to collect real-time information from the input power feed, branch circuits, and all the way to the device level with outlet level metering.

This type of information is of paramount importance when it comes to taking a proactive approach to power management. It paves the way for advanced alarming for early visibility to issues, allowing you to stop small problems before they have a chance to become much bigger (and more expensive) ones. Intelligent PDUs also provide additional benefits by enabling asset management, remote server access and control, intelligent rack power distribution - all of which can lead to additional benefits like cost reduction and increased operational efficiency.

Remember that we're living in a world where human error is to blame for more than 70% of all data center outages. Intelligent monitoring and power management are key to preventing outages that could harm your business and ultimately your customers. To learn more about Raritan’s power and infrastructure management solutions visit us at http://www.raritan.com/products/power-distribution/intelligent-rack-pdus.