Scientific research by the globally respected Uptime Institute - www.upsite.com - comprised of Fortune 500 companies totalling more than 5 million sq. ft. of technical floor space, has reported that 4% of faults that cause downtime can be attributed to environmental causes (cooling, humidity levels & power stability) within the technical space.

However, the impact of these 4% of environmental causes are responsible for a disproportionately high 25% of overall system downtime. This means that a hosting partner who implements best practice guidelines within the technical space and ensures that the datacentre manages environmental issues effectively, will result in significantly higher availability of IT systems.

ControlCircle are the Datacentre People

Through the implementation of best practice within datacentre environments, ControlCircle’s skills sets and experience have evolved to successfully bridge the void between traditional Facilities Management of the datacentre infrastructure and specialist IT companies who have typically focussed on the state of the art network and server architectures.

ControlCircle provides Enterprise level end-to-end network, server, application and security support to some of the largest businesses in the financial, legal and commercial sectors.

These solutions along with a well run datacentre will give you the availability, reliability, security and scalability needed to underpin the success of your online business, helping protect your organisation’s reputation, revenue generating capabilities and operational efficiencies.

By outsourcing your hosting services to ControlCircle you can benefit from:

Ø      Secure and reliable datacentres addressing all the environmental needs of our systems.

Ø      A NOC operated 24/7 by qualified engineers providing cost effective support across all major security, networking and server based technologies.

Ø      Industry leading Service Level Agreements that guarantee the availability of the entire solution, not just individual components.

Ø      Scalable solutions to enable growth as your business evolves.

Ø      Complete end-to-end system consultancy - we will design, implement and then go on to fully manage your infrastructure.

Ø       Pricing & leasing options to smooth capital expenditure.

Ø       A real-time reporting portal giving current status and historic reports of your entire system.

Ø       Over 6 years of expertise managing the hosting of some of the largest online businesses.

ENVIRONMENTALS

Central to optimising cooling efficiency of the HVAC/CRAC units is the hot and cold aisle configuration of the cabinet layout. Best practice is to use rows of equipment racks in an alternating arrangement of ‘cold aisles’ and ‘hot aisles’. This is best accomplished when the layout of the hosting area is first planned.

A cold aisle is defined as having ventilated floor tiles that allow cooling air to come up from the plenum under the raised floor into the hosting space, and a hot aisle has no ventilated tiles. In the cold aisle the equipment cabinets are arranged face to face so the cooling air discharged up through the perforated floor tiles is sucked into the face of the server hardware and exhausted out of the back of the equipment cabinet onto the adjacent hot aisle.

Hot aisles are literally hot because the objective of the alternating cold and hot aisle design is to separate the source of the cooling air from hot air discharge which returns to the to the HVAC/CRAC unit. Therefore no perforated tiles are placed in the hot aisles as this would mix hot and cold air and thereby lower the temperature of the air returning to the cooling units, ultimately reducing their effectiveness. Hot aisles should be hot, cold aisles should be cold.

While this approach is not perfect due to some equipment manufacturers bringing cool air in from the bottom of the equipment and exhaust out of the top, cooling grommets are provided under each cabinet to allow cooling to be effective for this particular type of equipment.

Fig 4 High-level Datacentre floor plan illustrating cabinet layout and security systems

After 7 years of successful growth, ControlCircle have undertaken a period of rationalisation of technology partners to consolidate knowledge, training, skill sets, and simplify management overheads to a select group of vendor’s hardware and software. This consolidation has allowed ControlCircle to position itself as a leading supplier with specific focus on leading edge technologies and services.

ControlCircle use high specification server cabinets from KNURR, to provide secure, robust enclosures for server and network devices.

Knurr are recognised around the globe as a strong reliable partner in the areas of telecommunications and data communications, server network and technology, medical technology and, of course, security, automation and traffic control technology.

Knurr provide solutions incorporating mechanical, electronic and thermal components making them the global market leaders for highly developed, modular rack and enclosure systems for indoor and outdoor applications.

Cabinets are provided with internal racking columns to ensure maximum stability, are 600 x 1000/1200m deep for compatibility with all servers in a heterogeneous environment, along with meshed front and rear doors to ensure optimum ventilation and heat dissipation. All doors are secured using combination locks to reduce the overhead of key management and enhance physical security. All cabinets are earthed to ensure electrical safety and bayed together for maximum stability.

The hosting area is designed to present diverse A+B 16amp supplies from 2 data floor Power Distribution Units (PDU’s) to each cabinet. Each cabinet is able to draw continuously up to 14amps, allowing some margin for power bursting such as during power cycling of servers or appliances.

ControlCircle have standardised on using high-end APC IP Switched power bars, with the following specification:

Local Current Display: The aggregate current draw per power distribution unit is displayed on the unit via a digital display. The local digital display helps installers avoid overloaded circuits by providing a visible warning when the current draw is close to the maximum amperage draw of the strip. (Available on designated SKUs only)

Alarm Thresholds:    Define alarm thresholds in order to avoid overloaded circuits. Network and visual alarms inform the user of possible problems.

Network Management: Full-featured network management interfaces that provide standards-based management via Web, SNMP, and Avocent KVM. Allows users to access, configure, and manage units from remote locations to save valuable time. Associated with this feature is the ability to quickly and easily upgrade the firmware via network download to installed units for future product enhancements.

Remote Outlet Control: Remotely manage outlets so users can turn outlets off that are not in use (prevent overloads) or recycle power to locked-up equipment (minimise costly downtime and avoid travel time to equipment).

Power Delays:         Allows users to configure the sequence in which power is turned on or off for each outlet. This helps avoid in-rushes at start-up, which can cause overloaded circuits and dropped loads. Sequencing also allows users to predetermine which piece of equipment is turned on first so other equipment dependant on that unit will function properly.

The table below illustrates the majority of deployments. Bespoke requirements can be catered for on request:

Table 1.2 A summary of Cabinet and Power Options

Notes:

¹ Where dual feed is provided this is for the purposes of redundancy, maximum draw is the total of half the presented power. For example, 16amp (dual feed) allows for a maximum draw of 16amps. Additional power configurations are available subject to survey.

² 32amp supplies are subject to survey.

IP KVM and Serial Console Servers

ControlCircle have standardised on Avocent for IP KVM and Serial Console Servers, their unique integration of hardware, software and embedded technologies provides a single interface so that we can quickly and efficiently manage your IT infrastructure and solve system problems anytime, anywhere, no matter the location or health of your servers or network devices.