Making Your Datacenter Agile

Modularity – Making Your Data Center Agile

The Brands You Trust.

^ Business-wise, Future-drivenTM

Business-wise, Future-drivenTM

Data Centers

Schneider Electric Table of Contents

Modularity – Making Your Data Center Agile

Table of Contents

Introduction .................................................................3

The Case for Agile Data Centers ..................................4

Standardization + Configurability = Modularity .............7

The Human Apect .......................................................8

Conclusion ..................................................................9

Business-wise, Future-drivenTMModularity – Making Your Data Center Agile

Schneider Electric 3

Data CentersIntroduction

As your business grows and transforms, one of the most important things you can do for your data center is to make it agile. Agile data centers deploy quickly, scale as needed and can be reconfigured without much hassle. Most importantly, agile data centers are right-sized and ultimately tie up fewer resources – both upfront and on-going costs, space and manpower. When resources are strained, agility offers simplicity and a lower total cost of ownership. But, to envision what an agile data center might look like, we must expand our minds beyond the limitations of traditional design. Here is a list of questions to consider.

How do we make all of the answers to these questions “yes”?

Modular, standardized design on open platforms. The purpose of this ebook is show you how modularity can make it happen.

Agility: the ability of a system to adapt to change.



Data CentersThe Case for Agile Data Centers

Lower TCOBefore we talk about what traits make a data center agile, let’s backtrack for a moment and take a closer look at why agility is just as important as availability and lower total cost of ownership. Remember the colocation companies of the dot.com bust? This is a classic example of bankruptcy that could have been prevented with more agile data centers. These companies invested huge amounts of capital to develop solid, high security infrastructure they thought their potential customers would need to host their critical IT equipment. Because their systems couldn’t adapt to changing business requirements, they planned for “worse case” in terms of capacity. The amount of guesswork was immense. The result was a huge waste of unused infrastructure, and depleted pocket books.

True, this is a worst case example, but consider the opportunity cost of tying up so many resources building out data center physical infrastructure (DCPI) that may not be fully used for another 10-15 years. In fact, agility is closely tied to cost of ownership. Think of all the resources that get locked up in traditional data center design:

• Capital used to build out more infrastructure than is actually needed today

• Cost to operate and maintain all the extra infrastructure• Man power to manage and oversee it

Over the life of the facility, this costs a pretty penny. And the room for error if you misjudge your long term needs is significant.

STANDARDIZATIONMODULAR

ReduceCAPITAL

Cost

ReduceNon-Energy

OPERATINGCost

ReduceENERGY

Cost

TCOTCOTCO



ReduceCAPITAL

Cost

ReduceNon-Energy

OPERATINGCost

ReduceENERGY

Cost

TCOTCOTCO



Data Centers

ReduceMTTR

IncreaseRELIABILITY

ReduceHUMANERROR

MODULAR

AVAILABILITYAVAILABILITY

ReduceMTTR

IncreaseRELIABILITY

ReduceHUMANERROR

MODULAR

AVAILABILITYAVAILABILITY

Increased AvailabilityLet’s look at this from one more angle: availability. How does non-agile, traditional data center design affect uptime? Consider that IT equipment is swapped out 4 or more times during the life of the data center – this often changes the power, cooling and security requirements. As more and more adaptations are made, the more complex and unstable the data center environment becomes. This invites human error, the leading cause of unplanned downtime (50-60%)1, reduces the reliability of equip-ment and can increase mean time to recover (MTTR) when an outage occurs.

Modular, standardized design and open platforms can help with both as-pects – total cost of ownership and availability – making your data center agile and able to grow and adapt with your business.

Standardization vs. UniquenessStandardization and its close relative, modularity, create wide-ranging benefits in data center physical infrastructure (DCPI) that streamline and simplify every process from initial planning to daily operation, with significant positive effects on all three major components of DCPI busi-ness value – availability, agility, and total cost of ownership.

Uniqueness can be a wonderful thing. A striking building, Mom’s peach pie, a piano sonata, art of every kind – no one would argue that standardization has any place in experiences valued for their sensory qualities or other interesting characteristics. Certain things are intended to be unique, and they are the better for it.

The Case for Agile Data Centers

1Based on studies by The Uptime Institute, 7x24 Exchange, and confidential analysis by major financial firms using large-scale data centers.



Data Centers

Infrastructure is different. The time-tested characteristic that makes infrastructure effective, reliable, predictable, and worry-free is the opposite of uniqueness; it is standardization. One-time engineering of an entire DCPI results in a unique system, with unique problems that require unique diagnosis and repair – a process that is not only expensive and time-consuming, but also provides little learning that can be applied to further unique problems in the future, or to problems at other data centers in the organization.

The goal of DCPI standardization is to drive out the inefficiencies and error-prone complexity of one-time unique engineering – to transparent-ly manage the routine business of IT physical infrastructure and create that same signature quality expected of any infrastructure: it just works.

Unique engineering vs. standardized modular building blocks.

Unique one-time engineeringGood for art, bad for infrastructure

Standardized modular componentsChangeable, scalable, repeatable, understandable,integrated

The Case for Agile Data Centers



Data CentersStandardization + Configurability = Modularity

DeploymentSPEED

Ability to

SCALE

Abilityto

RECONFIGURE

AGILITYAGILITY


DeploymentSPEED

Ability to

SCALE

Abilityto

RECONFIGURE

AGILITYAGILITY



So, if standardization brings consistency and uniformity to a data center, how can it be flexible enough for a constantly changing IT environment? The key is modularity – pre-engineered, standardized building blocks that can be configured as you wish. This is the essence of agility in a modular data center – the ability to “plug and play” components as needed, when needed.

The benefits of modularity affect every dimension of the data center’s physical infrastructure: the way it occupies physical space, its functionality, and its evolution over time – from initial design and installation to reconfiguration at each refresh cycle. Bottom line? It makes everything in data center design, installation and operation easier, faster and cheaper.

So, what characteristics do modular designs have?

• Modular systems are scalable. Modular DCPI can be deployed at a level that meets current IT needs, with the ability to add more later. This ability to “right-size” can provide a significant reduction in total cost of ownership.

• Modular systems are changeable. Modular design provides great flexibility in reconfiguring DCPI to meet changing IT requirements.

• Modular systems are portable. Self-contained components, standard • interfaces, and understandable structure save time and money when • modular systems are installed, upgraded, reconfigured, or moved.

• Modular components are swappable. Modules that fail can be easily swapped out for upgrades or repair – often without system shutdown.



Data Centers

Reduced ErrorOne of the most understated business benefits of standardized modularity is that it makes operating the data center – on the people side – so much easier. Standardization, by nature, simplifies and facilitates learning at every level. Equally important, it makes things predictable and repeatable, and ultimately easier to explain, document, operate, troubleshoot and fix. Add this all up and you’ve got fewer human errors, problems that can be anticipated, an environment where knowledge is easily shared and increased productivity.

We cannot emphasize enough the value of these benefits – to you, your data center and your business. By far, the biggest and riskiest variable in the data center is the human element. This concept is easy to understand in theory, but really resonates most for those of you who get the calls in the middle of the night when something goes wrong.

We won’t go into great detail here, but the benefits of standardization and modularity don’t just apply to the physical infrastructure. They can be applied to your operational program as well – the people and the process. We see this at work in typical data center documentation, process and procedures. But, also consider what standardized training, automation and quality systems (QA, QC and QI) could do to make your data center more available, agile and cost-effective.

The Human Aspect



Data CentersConclusion

In conclusion, modular data center design is the key to increasing availability and agility while lowering total cost of ownership. Ultimate-ly, that combination drives better business value in your data center(s). To help your data center grow and adapt with your business today and tomorrow, think standardized. Think modular. Think higher ROI.

For more information on standardized, modular design and business value, check out our white paper, “Standardization and Modularity in Data Center Physical Infrastructure”

ValueAvailability Agility

TCOValue

Availability Agility

TCOValue

Availability Agility

TCO

http://www.apc.com/whitepaper/?wp=116





Data Centers

132 Fai rgrounds Rd. - West K ingston, R I 02892 - 800-800-4272 - www.schneider-e lectr ic .com

The global specialist inenergy management ™

Data & Analytics

Making Your Datacenter Agile