APC data center solutions: power, cooling and control
The APC by Schneider Electric demo room is a unique place. Here, customers and partners of Schneider Electric , a division of which is APC by Schneider Electric, demonstrate the most modern developments of the company for switching nodes, server rooms and data centers. It is also a place of pilgrimage for the company's engineers, who periodically deprive the installed units of important parts, withdrawing them for research. Powerful UPS, capable of supporting hundreds of servers without power supply for the necessary time, are connected to a test load to test their operation in different modes.
On the other hand, where else can you touch the real iron from the world of “big” computers (with carrying handles and sometimes on wheels)? We took the opportunity and heartily tugged at the handles of representatives of the three main areas of APC activity: Symmetra uninterruptible power supply unit, InRow RP in-row cooling system and NetBotz monitoring system. In accordance with the spirit of the demo room, this material turned out to be a review, but we will definitely tell you about the individual decisions in more detail.
Nutrition
In addition to UPS for home and office, APC by Schneider Electric produces a wide range of uninterruptible power supplies for server rooms and data centers. Among them are both entry-level Smart-UPS models, suitable for ensuring uninterrupted operation of one or several servers, as well as powerful Symmetra UPS, capable of “keeping the load” of the whole building, filled to the full with iron and silicon. The higher the requirements for the device, the less often you will find ready-made models: there are only the main lines, differing in power, characteristics, and just sizes. And then the UPS configuration is selected for the customer, depending on the conditions. There may be many, and power consumption - the first, but not the last factor. How easy is it to increase the power of the UPS while increasing the load? What is the battery life provide? Will a diesel generator be used to back up power in case of long-lasting power outages?
')
Answers to these questions are provided by both the customer and the APC partner - integrator. The APC InfraStruxure Designer configurator helps to solve such problems: it can be used to design the “right” uninterruptible power supply system, and not only. The configurator is aware of the parameters of most APC developments, and helps to develop the most suitable system for solving a specific problem.
This thing is indirectly related to the power supply systems, but it looks very colorful, and this is the first thing that meets the visitor of the demo hall. The big red button, when pressed, instantly turns off the power supply of all systems in the event of some kind of abnormal situation.
And here is our main character: a three-phase UPS APC Symmetra PX with a capacity of 250 kilowatts, expandable to 500 if necessary. Like many other APC designs for data centers, this is a fully modular system, which provides for the reservation of absolutely all components: control units, power modules, batteries, and so on. Extreme racks on the photo are completely filled with batteries, like this:
But in general, such cabinets can be up to eight, and even for such a powerful system, in this case, about 45 minutes is provided for a load of 250 kW. True, the cost of batteries, which need to be changed every 4–5 years, usually makes such a decision impractical. More profitable is a smaller UPS operation time, sufficient to power the servers for a few minutes, after which power is supplied from the diesel generator.
In the demo room a slightly more compact system is installed - with one battery cabinet. Racks from left to right: power distribution system, control system, power modules and batteries.
One of the most interesting elements of the system: a touch screen that allows you to control the parameters of the UPS. It contains information about all the components. At the time of our visit, he reported an error, as the engineers stole an important element of the system for the experiments :-) The display displays data in English, but can be configured to display information in Russian.
How the management console works can be seen in this video:
With the help of a small module (in the center of the frame) the UPS connects to the local network for remote control and monitoring. The second cable leads just to the console.
Power modules. A “hot” replacement is also supported here, although for implementation of this it is desirable to attract a couple of strong engineers ;-) - the module weighs just over 40 kilograms. Although, I confess, the process of replacing a module or adding a new one to increase the power of the UPS is very simple.
A lot of batteries. Each of them can be replaced at any time, as is the case with power modules.
Large switches in the power control unit. Here you can switch the UPS to bypass mode: when it simply passes the input voltage to the output without doing anything with it. In this mode, you can conduct a serious maintenance of the UPS.
The equipment is mounted in APC company racks with locks like this.
It looks like a lock from the inside.
Read more about the Symmetra PX series on the APC website . And we turn to the next part of the exhibition, where the cooling systems are installed.
Cooling
APC InRow cooling systems are installed directly between the IT equipment racks. Hot air is actually taken from the servers "at the exit", and cooled air is released into the room. The effectiveness of such a system can be improved by isolating the hot air from the cold. In APC (and only in APC, the technology is patented) they do it like this:
The “hot” corridor between racks is isolated from the external environment. In-row air conditioners take air from this corridor, cool it and throw cooled air into the room. If necessary, a similar system can be made for one rack, and it will look like this:
And the isolated corridor looks like in the demo room:
Control console air conditioner InRow RC.
And so the air conditioner looks from the inside.
The same air-conditioning system is installed in the APC by Schneider Electric own server office: it cools the rack with network equipment.
Information about air conditioners InRow RC - on the company website .
Control
To control the environmental parameters in the data center, such as temperature, humidity, vibration, smoke, water, and to monitor the staff, APC offers a wide range of monitoring solutions, united under the NetBotz brand.
Temperature and humidity sensor mounted on the server rack door.
Separate video camera to control the entrance to the room. Not the latest model, now such cameras are used in the NetBotz series:
All monitoring devices connect to the local network using ordinary Ethernet cables. The NetBotz Room Monitor can also receive power over Ethernet (PoE), but this feature must be supported by monitoring hardware. If not, a standard power supply is used, but PoE allows you to reduce the number of wires (there are already quite a few in the data center).
Monitoring units come with built-in sensors and even cameras and the ability to connect additional external sensors and cameras, which allows using one unit per small server room (for example, this model allows you to connect up to 16 sensors).
If it is necessary to monitor a large data center or a large number of parameters, one cannot do without a rack-mount model with the ability to connect up to 78 sensors.
The difference between the NetBotz system and conventional IP video cameras is that all these devices (as well as UPS, air conditioning, socket outlets in cabinets, and in general, everything from APC that has a network interface) can be combined into one system. With its help, a single “mission control center” is created, into which absolutely all information about the work of the data center is drained.
Other
In addition to major solutions for data centers, APC by Schneider Electric produces a lot of small devices and components, without which no data center can do either. The product range allows the company to design data centers "turnkey", almost completely - from their own solutions. Here I will give a couple of examples of such solutions, and simply unusual devices in the demo room.
Rack power distributor, server version of the "tee". It connects to an Ethernet network and supports the ability to remotely control the power of each of the sockets.
A similar distributor that does not take up space in the rack: it is mounted vertically.
A miracle machine or “laptop” of 1U size (almost a laptop consists of a keyboard, a touch-pad and a monitor). When folded, it is completely retracted in the rack, in the open - it can be used as a control console.
As you can see, APC by Schneider Electric has a huge amount of professional solutions, and one of the company's specialists can tell in detail about each of them. If you are interested in something specific, write in the comments, and we will take into account your wishes!
On the other hand, where else can you touch the real iron from the world of “big” computers (with carrying handles and sometimes on wheels)? We took the opportunity and heartily tugged at the handles of representatives of the three main areas of APC activity: Symmetra uninterruptible power supply unit, InRow RP in-row cooling system and NetBotz monitoring system. In accordance with the spirit of the demo room, this material turned out to be a review, but we will definitely tell you about the individual decisions in more detail.
Nutrition
In addition to UPS for home and office, APC by Schneider Electric produces a wide range of uninterruptible power supplies for server rooms and data centers. Among them are both entry-level Smart-UPS models, suitable for ensuring uninterrupted operation of one or several servers, as well as powerful Symmetra UPS, capable of “keeping the load” of the whole building, filled to the full with iron and silicon. The higher the requirements for the device, the less often you will find ready-made models: there are only the main lines, differing in power, characteristics, and just sizes. And then the UPS configuration is selected for the customer, depending on the conditions. There may be many, and power consumption - the first, but not the last factor. How easy is it to increase the power of the UPS while increasing the load? What is the battery life provide? Will a diesel generator be used to back up power in case of long-lasting power outages?
')
Answers to these questions are provided by both the customer and the APC partner - integrator. The APC InfraStruxure Designer configurator helps to solve such problems: it can be used to design the “right” uninterruptible power supply system, and not only. The configurator is aware of the parameters of most APC developments, and helps to develop the most suitable system for solving a specific problem.
This thing is indirectly related to the power supply systems, but it looks very colorful, and this is the first thing that meets the visitor of the demo hall. The big red button, when pressed, instantly turns off the power supply of all systems in the event of some kind of abnormal situation.
And here is our main character: a three-phase UPS APC Symmetra PX with a capacity of 250 kilowatts, expandable to 500 if necessary. Like many other APC designs for data centers, this is a fully modular system, which provides for the reservation of absolutely all components: control units, power modules, batteries, and so on. Extreme racks on the photo are completely filled with batteries, like this:
But in general, such cabinets can be up to eight, and even for such a powerful system, in this case, about 45 minutes is provided for a load of 250 kW. True, the cost of batteries, which need to be changed every 4–5 years, usually makes such a decision impractical. More profitable is a smaller UPS operation time, sufficient to power the servers for a few minutes, after which power is supplied from the diesel generator.
In the demo room a slightly more compact system is installed - with one battery cabinet. Racks from left to right: power distribution system, control system, power modules and batteries.
One of the most interesting elements of the system: a touch screen that allows you to control the parameters of the UPS. It contains information about all the components. At the time of our visit, he reported an error, as the engineers stole an important element of the system for the experiments :-) The display displays data in English, but can be configured to display information in Russian.
How the management console works can be seen in this video:
With the help of a small module (in the center of the frame) the UPS connects to the local network for remote control and monitoring. The second cable leads just to the console.
Power modules. A “hot” replacement is also supported here, although for implementation of this it is desirable to attract a couple of strong engineers ;-) - the module weighs just over 40 kilograms. Although, I confess, the process of replacing a module or adding a new one to increase the power of the UPS is very simple.
A lot of batteries. Each of them can be replaced at any time, as is the case with power modules.
Large switches in the power control unit. Here you can switch the UPS to bypass mode: when it simply passes the input voltage to the output without doing anything with it. In this mode, you can conduct a serious maintenance of the UPS.
The equipment is mounted in APC company racks with locks like this.
It looks like a lock from the inside.
Read more about the Symmetra PX series on the APC website . And we turn to the next part of the exhibition, where the cooling systems are installed.
Cooling
APC InRow cooling systems are installed directly between the IT equipment racks. Hot air is actually taken from the servers "at the exit", and cooled air is released into the room. The effectiveness of such a system can be improved by isolating the hot air from the cold. In APC (and only in APC, the technology is patented) they do it like this:
The “hot” corridor between racks is isolated from the external environment. In-row air conditioners take air from this corridor, cool it and throw cooled air into the room. If necessary, a similar system can be made for one rack, and it will look like this:
And the isolated corridor looks like in the demo room:
Control console air conditioner InRow RC.
And so the air conditioner looks from the inside.
The same air-conditioning system is installed in the APC by Schneider Electric own server office: it cools the rack with network equipment.
Information about air conditioners InRow RC - on the company website .
Control
To control the environmental parameters in the data center, such as temperature, humidity, vibration, smoke, water, and to monitor the staff, APC offers a wide range of monitoring solutions, united under the NetBotz brand.
Temperature and humidity sensor mounted on the server rack door.
Separate video camera to control the entrance to the room. Not the latest model, now such cameras are used in the NetBotz series:
All monitoring devices connect to the local network using ordinary Ethernet cables. The NetBotz Room Monitor can also receive power over Ethernet (PoE), but this feature must be supported by monitoring hardware. If not, a standard power supply is used, but PoE allows you to reduce the number of wires (there are already quite a few in the data center).
Monitoring units come with built-in sensors and even cameras and the ability to connect additional external sensors and cameras, which allows using one unit per small server room (for example, this model allows you to connect up to 16 sensors).
If it is necessary to monitor a large data center or a large number of parameters, one cannot do without a rack-mount model with the ability to connect up to 78 sensors.
The difference between the NetBotz system and conventional IP video cameras is that all these devices (as well as UPS, air conditioning, socket outlets in cabinets, and in general, everything from APC that has a network interface) can be combined into one system. With its help, a single “mission control center” is created, into which absolutely all information about the work of the data center is drained.
Other
In addition to major solutions for data centers, APC by Schneider Electric produces a lot of small devices and components, without which no data center can do either. The product range allows the company to design data centers "turnkey", almost completely - from their own solutions. Here I will give a couple of examples of such solutions, and simply unusual devices in the demo room.
Rack power distributor, server version of the "tee". It connects to an Ethernet network and supports the ability to remotely control the power of each of the sockets.
A similar distributor that does not take up space in the rack: it is mounted vertically.
A miracle machine or “laptop” of 1U size (almost a laptop consists of a keyboard, a touch-pad and a monitor). When folded, it is completely retracted in the rack, in the open - it can be used as a control console.
As you can see, APC by Schneider Electric has a huge amount of professional solutions, and one of the company's specialists can tell in detail about each of them. If you are interested in something specific, write in the comments, and we will take into account your wishes!
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/127342/
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