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per event, which is more than $11,000 per minute. The study mentions that the most recent
downtime events of the 41 participating data centers totaled $20,735,602. That is such a
substantial loss for an event that lasts for only an hour.
Infrastructure Vulnerability Cost
Downtime events occur for a reason, and most of them can be prevented. Catastrophic
events are the least of a data center's worries. They are something that no one can really
prepare for, only mitigate. The largest cause of data center downtime would be related to
power. In fact, about 39 percent of the time the power infrastructure will be the cause of
a costly downtime event. That is why it is important to nail down the power infrastructure
during the planning process, which includes deciding on the location of data center itself
and determining whether there are adequately reliable power utility companies serving in
the area.
Of the data center failures related to power, UPS failures seem to be the costliest at
around $687,700, and generator failure is a close second at $463,890. This proves to be
the most costly reason for data center downtime. A power failure, especially in the UPS
and backup generators, would mean total and catastrophic data center outage. Lights out!
It would cause indirect costs (such as lost opportunities) to pile up on top of direct costs
related to maintenance and repairs. The opportunity loss is a big one because it affects all
stakeholders and not a just a portion of the customer base of the data center.
Most tier I and II data centers typically do not implement the technology to isolate a
power system failure. So making investments to minimize the impact of a power failure to
your data center is the most relevant course of action. There is no lean process improve-
ment or cuts that can be done here, only capital expenditure on solutions like power redun-
dancy, meaning backups, backups, and more backups. Implementing redundancy would
mean that operators have the capacity to eliminate single points of failure in the facility's
power infrastructure.
Equipment fails over time, but with a reasonable amount of redundancy, there should
always be a backup that would kick in in times of need. The data center can run on its
backups while the failed main module is being replaced, thus preventing a total cata-
strophic failure. Direct costs would still be incurred, of course, for repair and replacement
of failed power modules or systems. One form of redundancy is having multiple power
paths, but this would also mean multiple grid providers, which is a commodity not avail-
able in all areas.
Adding UPS systems for redundancy should be on top of the list of solutions. Long-term
reliability of the UPS system should be the key element in determining what sort of UPS
system to implement. By implementing input current tolerances, battery monitoring, and
adequate service maintenance, you can ensure that the mean time between failures (MTBF)
of a UPS unit can be maximized. Finally, integrating a comprehensive infrastructure moni-
toring tool can help operators isolate and rectify power infrastructure issues and prevent
total catastrophic failure of a data center due to a power outage.
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