As Internet of Things (IoT) and Big Data technologies continue to evolve, an application economy has emerged. Today, almost every aspect of business is in some way linked to data-driven applications, which depend on data center power infrastructure to stay up and running. This means today’s organizations are more reliant on their power infrastructures to help deliver business-critical results.
Though it’s critical, effective monitoring and management of the power infrastructure is difficult in the modern IT landscape, when more resources are being shifted to virtual infrastructures and IT professionals understandably prioritize higher-priority tasks. Thankfully, the power industry is keeping up and in many ways anticipating these concerns while introducing sophisticated tools that help professionals focus their attention on more revenue-generating priorities.
The Dangers of Downtime
Downtime carries an enormous price tag, so it is critical to minimize interruption to your operations and customers’ businesses. Some surveys report an average downtime cost of $421,000 per hour, and 23 percent have reported a greater than $1 million per-hour downtime cost. Lost or corrupted files, hardware malfunctions, the inability to access the critical systems—all of these can significantly impact your ability to conduct business.
On top of that is the potential for lost revenue and damaged reputation in the event that customer service mechanisms such as online ordering, phone systems or other sales tools are unavailable to customers. In many instances, there is very little lag between system downtime and financial disaster.
The Payoff of Next-Generation Power Monitoring Services
When outages occur, the fire drills associated with investigation and remediation can be a significant drain on resources. To optimize power infrastructure, IT teams need next-generation monitoring solutions that deliver a holistic approach comprised of monitoring and reporting software, services, and on-site technical support.
By leveraging a next-generation power monitoring service, IT can realize:
- Improved reliability by gaining the critical insights needed to spot troubling trends and address them before issues and outages arise.
- Faster repairs by equipping technicians with the timely, detailed insights needed to more quickly detect and address issues.
- Enhanced staff focus on strategic initiatives by enabling them to avoid the distraction of manual monitoring—and the fire drills associated with outages and issues.
Delivering Data-Driven Insights
The movement toward next-generation power monitoring and management services can be likened to the evolution of auto repairs. In the past, when a car broke down, the attending mechanic would need to go through a process of trial and error to find the issue. This involved replacing parts, testing functionality, and repeating these efforts until the issue was resolved. Today, however, many cars are equipped with an array of sensors.
When mechanics can leverage this breadth of data and intelligent diagnostic tools, they can perform faster, more cost-effective repairs. Furthermore, many vehicle manufacturers are using technology to help preempt issues completely. For example, GM now offers predictive maintenance technology in some of its vehicles. Pairing the vehicle’s Internet connectivity and extensive sensors, data is fed into big analytics programs that can determine whether a component failure is imminent, and, if so, issue a notification to the driver.
In the world of data center power, similar advancements are taking place. By combining comprehensive diagnostic data, effective capture and analytics, advanced workflows and domain expertise, next-generation power monitoring services are enabling maintenance, troubleshooting, and repairs to be much more data-driven. These services offer richer data on specific devices and enable more effective comparisons between a particular unit and averages of an entire fleet.
These advancements mean technicians can also be armed with complete details before they arrive at the site. Rather than undertaking a lengthy trial-and-error process, they can start remediating with a detailed understanding of the issue and even arrive on site with the right parts and equipment—the first time.
Predictive Analytics for Power Management
As the Industrial IoT and Big Data continue to make their way into IT infrastructures, companies are beginning to understand how they can strategically harness the power of data sciences—namely, diagnostics, predictive, and prescriptive analytics—to establish a power management strategy that positively impacts their businesses.
With the introduction of predictive analytics platforms that utilize innovative algorithms and predictive modeling, power monitoring is shifting power from a reactive to a proactive model. This new platform bridges Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) and traditional operational tools to reduce the risk of downtime, allowing IT professionals and facility managers to focus on other initiatives that strategically impact the business.
Through these capabilities, administrators now have the ability to predict component failures in power equipment days or weeks before they actually occur. For example, an administrator can be alerted to a potential issue through battery health indicators, reducing the risk of outage due to battery failure. The advancements serve as a major milestone in our ongoing charge to reshape companies’ perceptions of the role power management plays in a holistic IT strategy.
Sample Scenario: The Value of Proactive Monitoring
Within 18 months of making a significant investment and deploying a new UPS and batteries, a data center manager noticed a load loss. After going through diagnostic data, they found that every weekend the UPS and batteries were subjected to excessively high temperatures. It was only then that he realized that climate control settings in the data center were being overridden on Saturdays and Sundays by the building’s temperature controls. Since he found out after the failure, the organization had to incur the cost of prematurely replacing more than $10,000 worth of batteries.
With proactive, next-generation power monitoring services, the data center manager would have received alerts the first weekend, indicating that temperatures were running high, so he could take appropriate action—long before any equipment was damaged.
Wrapping It Up
The Internet of Things presents IT with a challenge: businesses place significant demand on their power infrastructures, but data center and IT professionals lack the time to constantly monitor their electrical devices. Additionally, each member of an organization likely has different experience and skillsets when it comes to responding to power issues. This is where next-generation power monitoring solutions can be hugely beneficial, offering next-generation functionalities that coincide with the industry’s evolution toward greater connectivity and IoT enablement. With a robust platform that harnesses rich data and predictive analytics capabilities, users have peace of mind that power infrastructure is protected, ultimately delivering greater value to the business.