About the customer
Innovation Group is a provider of IT technology solutions and business process outsourcing services to the insurance market. It is a global organisation employing over 2000 staff with offices located in UK, Germany, France, Spain, North America, South Africa and Australia.
Summary
The Data Centre team were responsible for the management of the Innovation Groups data centres and IT equipment rooms across the UK and Europe. To maximise the capacity and improve the efficiency of its data centres, the Data Centre team implemented a service improvements programme.
The Challenge
Innovation Group provided services from their dedicated data centre facilities based in Kent and Hampshire. These facilities had grown organically with no planning or strategy, which created a number of design issues. This growth had led to a rise in the volume of IT equipment being hosted in the data centres which put increased pressure on the infrastructure and caused issues with the stability of the operational environment.
With the data centre services at the heart of Innovation Groups business, these problems could not be tackled by a single ‘quick fix’ but required a holistic effort to address the underlying issues.
The Solution
The Data Centre team began an improvements programme to implement best practices for data centre design and management.
The objectives of this programme were;
- improve airflow and heat management
- minimise the impact of component failures
- reduce the effects of environmental changes
- maximise the available capacity of the data centres
Identifying the Problems
The first step in achieving these objectives was to identify the problems. Firstly, there were a number of issues with the cooling in the data centres.
Pressure leaks in the raised floor reduced the air pressure in the floor plenum and reduced the airflow to the cold aisles. Brush gaskets were then installed on all openings and any pressure leaks in the raised floor were repaired.
There were also issues from obstructions in the ceiling and floor plenums which reduced the effectiveness of the cooling systems. Any redundant services that had not been decommissioned during previous works were removed. The electrical infrastructure was also reorganised and an overhead structured cabling system was implemented.
Breaks in the aisles and gaps between IT equipment allowed uncontrolled mixing of hot and cold air. Blanking plates were installed to close any empty space in the cabinets and the old, bulky light fittings were also replaced with new smaller, high efficiency lights controlled by occupancy sensors to reduce their consumption.
Optimise the Infrastructure
The next step was to ensure that the infrastructure was working at optimum efficiency.
The ASHRAE recommended operating envelope for IT equipment provided a broad operating range for data centre environments. The equipment manufacturers and maintenance providers were consulted to determine the performance profile of the individual units. The performance of the units was then measured against this profile and corrective works were carried out on any units not operating at peak efficiency.
Managing air quality is an essential part of data centre maintenance as contaminants in the air can affect cooling efficiency, which can result in increased power consumption and a reduction in the reliability of the IT equipment. The data centres underwent a full decontamination by a specialist cleaning company and the air quality of the data centres were certified to ISO14664 standards. Processes and policies were then put in place to ensure the air quality was maintained.
The existing monitoring systems were enhanced to provide additional information about the conditions within the data centres and processes were put in place to regularly analyse this data to identify any changes that might indicate a fault. This proactive approach to data centre management ensured that issues were identified at the earliest opportunity and were resolved before there was any impact on the operational environment.
Driving Change
The last step was to address how the data centre resources were consumed and the effect this had on the performance of the data centres.
Nearly all energy consumed by IT equipment is converted to heat that must be removed to maintain the operational environment.To maximise the efficiency of the cooling systems, a thermal management strategy was put in place to ensure the heat loads were evenly distributed across the data centres.
When deploying new hardware, the heat load of the equipment was carefully assessed.Hardware with high heat loads was placed lower in the cabinet to maximise the airflow to this equipment.Positioning within the data centre was also essential by ensuring that cabinets with high heat loads were placed closest to the cooling units to provide the best airflow to the equipment inlets and the shortest return path for the hot air.
As IT equipment was notorious for high-energy consumption even while idle, energy efficiency is a key feature of modern servers. Most vendors now include energy saving features as standard on all new hardware and standards were put in place to ensure these energy saving features were adopted.The standards were developed in conjunction with both internal and external technical teams as well as vendors to ensure a balance between the needs of individual solutions and energy efficiency.
The Benefits
All of the improvements and practices developed as part of the optimisation programme were tied together into a set of standards for the data centres that define how the resources were consumed.
These standards and strategies have provided ongoing improvements in the efficiency and capacity of the Innovation Groups data centres.
These benefits included;
- Improved stability of the data centre environments
- Improved reliability of the data centre infrastructure
- Improved cost effectiveness of IT services
- Increased data centre efficiency by 7%
- Reduced energy consumption by 5%
- Increased data centre capacity by reclaiming stranded capacity
- Deferred investment in new facilities and infrastructure upgrades
The improvements programme reduced the overall demand on the cooling and power infrastructure which resulted in a significant improvement in the resilience of the data centre infrastructure