April 16, 2009

Uninterrupted Power Supplies UPS / APC | A Green IT Strategy

Reduce the Cost and Environmental Impact of Uninteruptible Power

Reconsidering how uninterrupted power supplies are used in your IT environment is one effort that can produce significant cost savings and reduction in environmental impact. While every business has different needs, below are 7 ideas related to the usage of UPS equipment that can save you money and reduce environmental impact.

In a nutshell, the strategy is to eliminate UPS devices that are not needed and optimize the cases where they are needed. By doing this you eliminate the need to continually replace these devices or their replace battery packs. Additionally, a UPS device will consume more (sometimes as much as 5-10X) power as the devices that are connected to them. This means removal of UPS equipment will equate to immediate and permanent power savings, as well as long term reduction in replacement and maintenance costs.

(1) Notebook computers have their own battery backup. Users with notebooks do not require a UPS for any reason. If the power goes out the notebook will act exactly the same as if they unplugged it and walked to the conference room. Assuming the user has an external screen, upon power failure of the monitor, most notebooks will revert to the built in screen and the user can continue working or save their documents, etc. Nothing is lost by removing UPS devices from your notebook users.

(2) If your environment uses thin clients consider where the programs are running. For most thin client environments, the applications are running on a central Citrix or Terminal Services server and not on the actual thin device. If that's the case, then consider whether the server settings can be adjusted to keep the session alive in the event of disconnection. If so, the user could simply re-connect after the power comes back. If so, you might be able to eliminate all UPS devices from users on thin clients. Some would argue that the user needs to be able to work through the outage for example in a busy call center. If that's the case then consider generator, as most UPS devices will only run the station for 15 minutes.

(3) Consider the applications used and the risk/reward of installing UPS devices on workstations accounting for likelyhood of actually loosing something important. In many offices there are users that run nothing but office applications (Word Excel PowerPoint). These programs have auto save. If your office only encounters 1-2 power outages per year the likelyhood is low that this type of user would actually loose anything important if the power failed and they had unsaved work. Contrast that to a user running a local database or accounting package. A power failure might create days of work for IT to recover corrupted tables. The bottom line is to put UPS devices where they are truly needed, not everyone needs them.

(4) Limit the UPS supported devices to the PC and possibly the monitor. I consistiently see people using their UPS as a power strip, plugging in the pencil sharpener, desk light, calculator and the digital picture of their kids. Limit what is on UPS to critical devices.

(5) If you have established what devices are truly critical, now determine the minimum size UPS to support those devices. Over the years, UPS devices at the desktop have grown...200W, then 350W, 600W, 800W. Take a look at what you are actually running. A typical tower workstation shipped from the factory will use 100W-150W, with 300W max power supplies for many. A typical flat screen monitor will consume 150W. Most thin clients will be well under 100W. If you are saddled with existing UPS devices of 800W and consumption significantly lower then unplug and store half of them and share between multiple workstations.

(6) UPS devices use power even when the station is off. Train your users to turn off UPS. In many offices the users shut off the computer and leave the UPS on. This means energy is being consumed 168 hours when the user is probably only working 40 hours - that's over 4x the power consumption.

(7) For most organizations UPS equipment is truly critical in the data center. Power failure to servers can create major problems with data corruption, communications, and restart delays in events where power is lost. Some network admins have gone to the extreme in addressing this risk by placing a 1500W powersupply on each 300W server. While I can't argue with the need for uninterupted power to your servers, I will propose an alternative. If you have a significant number of servers you need to keep running then consider a generator. Depending upon the size, the capital cost may range from $5000-$50000. Most generators will turn on automatically with as little as 7-10 second after outage. This means you would be able to reduce the number of UPS devices in the data center since a single device would only need to support its load for less than a minute while the generator starts up. While the upfront cost can be high, this investment will return in the form of reduction of replacement battery packs, replacement UPS devices, reduced power consumption, and reduced cooling. Additionaly, if your generator is connected to natural gas then you have a business continuity benefit in that you can run your data center through extended blackout periods.

iTechnology Design offers Green IT consulting services throughout the country. We can assist you in developing a comprehensive long term IT plan that will save money, and reduce the environmental impact of your information technology systems.