DATA CENTER INDUSTRY

Data Center Site Infrastructure

The Uptime Institute has developed a Tier classification based upon four standards; Tier I to Tier IV.

The purpose of this standard is to equip the industry professionals with an objective way to evaluate the performance of a data centre or the quality of its design.

E1 DYNAMICS designs its systems according to the Tier classification criteria for data centre applications and has since implemented Tier I to a Tier IV (2N) configuration.

Tier I

A Tier I is a basic design and can be a single system or multiple NO-BREAK E1 systems operating in a non-redundant capacity.

Tier II

A Tier II NO-BREAK E1 design means that the power supply is guaranteed at N+1. For example, at LV or MV parallel configuration, all units supply to the load by means of one common output bus.

Tier III

Concurrently Maintainable Infrastructure

A concurrently maintainable NO-BREAK E1 system means a redundant capacity (N+1) in combination with multiple independent power distribution paths, serving the computer equipments. Only one path needs to be active at any time. This means that each and every component in the NO-BREAK E1 system can be maintained at a regular basis without impacting the load.

During maintenance, the risk of a disruption may increase. An unplanned outage during these activities may  gravely impact the load.

The utility power supply is considered the alternative power supply for Tier III applications and the NO-BREAK E1 is considered the main power source. As such, diesel engines cannot have any runtime limitations at N demand to meet Tier III, which means that the engine needs to be rated at "continuous power" and not at "standby power" or "prime power" rating. To meet Tier III, the NO-BREAK E1 units are configurated as a distributed redundant configuration or  as an LV/ MV parallel configuration with a dual path downstream distribution system.

Tier IV

Fault Tolerant Site Infrastructure

A fault tolerant power supply has multiple physically isolated NO-BREAK E1 systems that provide both redundant (N+1) by separating active independent distribution paths which simultaneously power to the data centre load.

All single point failures are eliminated. A single failure of any component or at any point of the distribution will not impact the data centre load. Each and every component can be removed and maintained on a planned basis without impacting the data centre load.

In line with Tier III the diesel engine needs to be designed at its continuous power rating so that it has NO operating limitations while running at N for weeks or months.

The NO-BREAK E1 configuration consists of an independent A side (N+1) and an independent B side (N+1) powering the load by a dual distribution system. The A and B sides normally consist of multiple medium voltage NO-BREAK E1 systems.