IT Infrastructure

Architecture
Infrastructure Building Blocks
and Concepts

Datacenters part 2
(chapter 7)
 recap

• History
• Today’s datacenters
• Datacenter categories
• Datacenter location
• Physical structure
• Floors
• Walls, windows, and doors
• Water and gas pipes
• Power supply
• Uninterruptable Power Supply (UPS)
• Power distribution
 Cooling
• > 90% of all power used by IT infrastructure components is
converted into heat
• All heat has to be dissipated by a cooling system
• Two types of cooling systems:
• Computer Room Air Conditioners (CRAC)
• Refrigerant-based units connected to outside condensing units
• Computer Room Air Handlers (CRAH)
• Chilled water based and connected to outside chillers
• A chiller produces chilled water via a refrigeration process
 Cooling

• The efficiency of a cooling system is specified in:

• EER - Energy Efficiency Ratio
• The measure of efficiency at maximum air conditioning load
• The ratio between output cooling in BTU per hour and the electric energy
input in Watts at a given operating point
• SEER - Seasonal Energy Efficiency Ratio
• Same as EER, but seasonal data is used for the measurement
• The time of year the cooling system is used most (typically in the summer)
• COP - Coefficient Of Performance
• The ratio between cooling load in kW and the electric energy input in kW
• Normal values are between 3 and 10
 Operating temperatures

• Infrastructure components have maximum operating

temperatures
• Servers shut themselves down at an air inlet temperature of 40
degrees Celsius

• The air temperature in the datacenter usually ranges from 18

degrees to 27 degrees Celsius
• Using higher temperatures saves cooling capacity and power
• Raising the temperature in a datacenter with one degree Celsius
lowers the cost for cooling by approximately 5%
Airflow
 Humidity and dust

• The humidity of the air in a datacenter is critical for the IT

infrastructure components
• Air humidity should between 40% and 60%

• The number of dust particles in a datacenter should be

minimized
• Don’t allow visitors in the datacenter
• People should wear dust-free clothing (like white coats) and
protective sleeves around their shoes
 Fire prevention, detection,
and suppression

• Fire is one of the main enemies of a datacenter

• A short circuit in a cable
• Defect equipment

• Fires can spread around very quickly

• Because of the air flow in the datacenter and the frequent use of raised
floors

• Smoke could damage equipment in the datacenter

• Even if a fire starts outside of the datacenter’s computer room
 Fire prevention, detection, and suppression

• Suppressing fire in a datacenter consists of four levels:

• Fire prevention – Avoid a fire
• Passive fire protection – Limit the exposure of the fire once it has started
• Fire detection systems – Detect smoke and fire
• Fire suppression systems – Extinguish the fire once it is detected
 Equipment racks

• A 19” rack is a standardized metal enclosure

to house IT infrastructure components
• The height of a rack is measured in rack unit
or 'U‘
• One U is 1.75” or 44.5 mm

• A typical rack is 42U high

Datacenter energy efficiency

• IT accounts for approximately 2% of all the world’s CO2 emissions

• During the lifetime of a server the amount of money spent on
electricity can be much higher than the cost of the server itself
• The datacenter itself uses power as well
• Cooling system
• Lighting
• Heating of the operator rooms
• Etc.
Datacenter energy efficiency

• The Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) metric measures

the power used by the datacenter
• The PUE is calculated by dividing the amount of power
used by the datacenter, by the power used to run the IT
equipment in it
• Typical PUE value of a datacenter is between 1.1 and 2.0
• Running a datacenter with a PUE of 1.5 means that for each watt
of power used by the IT equipment an extra half watt is used by
the rest of the datacenter
Datacenter availability
 Availability tiers
Tier Measures Expected downtime
Tier 1
Availability Single path for power and Downtime very likely for
99.671% cooling distribution planned and unplanned
Type No redundant components maintenance
Basic
Tier 2
Availability Fulfills all Tier 1 requirements
Downtime likely for
99.741% Single path for power and
planned and unplanned
Type cooling distribution
maintenance
Redundant Redundant components
components
 Availability tiers
Fulfills all Tier 1 and Tier 2
Tier 3 requirements
Availability Multiple active power and No downtime due to
99.982% cooling distribution paths planned maintenance
Type Only one path active Downtime unlikely for
Concurrently Redundant components unplanned maintenance
maintainable All I T equipment must be
dual-powered
Fulfills all Tier 1, Tier 2, and
Tier 3 requirements
Multiple active power and
Tier 4
cooling distribution paths
Availability No downtime due to
Redundant components
99.995% planned or unplanned
All cooling equipment is
Type maintenance
independently dual-powered,
Fault tolerant including chillers and Heating,
Ventilating and Air
Conditioning (HVAC) systems
 Availability tiers

• The tier classification only describes the availability of the

datacenter facilities
• Not the availability of the IT infrastructure components

• A tier 3 datacenter running an IT infrastructure with an

availability of 99.990% will have a total availability of
 Redundant datacenters

• Multiple redundant datacenters can be used to increase

availability
• Multiple datacenters are a must when higher availability
than 99.995% is needed
• If a datacenter with all its equipment has an availability lower than
tier 1, two datacenters can reach an availability of the same level as
one tier 4 datacenter

• Redundant datacenters should be at least 5 km apart

• Based on the effect of incidents like the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the
USA and reports of explosions in factory plants and fireworks
storage
Datacenter performance
 Datacenter performance

• The datacenter itself does not provide performance to IT

Infrastructures, except for the bandwidth of the internet
connectivity and the scalability of the location
Datacenter security
 Physical security

• Ensure that equipment is physically safe behind the datacenter

doors
• Physical access to the datacenter must be restricted to selected
and qualified staff
• An entry registration system should be used
• A log should be maintained containing all staff entering and
leaving the datacenter
• Doors must be secured using conventional locks (for instance for
dock loading doors) or electronic locks
• Electronic locks should open only after proper authentication
 Physical security

• Entry points can be implemented as:

• Regular doors
• Mantraps
• Staff is routed through a set of double doors that
may be monitored by a guard
• Revolving doors
• Only one person at a time can enter the datacenter’s
restricted area

• Entries can be equipped with weighing scales

to ensure only one person enters the restricted
area
 Covered topics
• Cooling
• Operating temperatures
• Airflow
• Humidity and dust
• Fire prevention, detection, and suppression
• Equipment racks
• Datacenter energy efficiency
• Datacenter availability
• Datacenter performance
• Datacenter security
The end