In a cloud-dominated world, performance and reliability at the edge are mission-critical. But as organizations look to migrate low-latency applications like IoT based health monitoring systems or asset tracking closer to the local edge, they fail to outage-proof their physical IT infrastructure, which keeps businesses running efficiently.
Many organizations with edge deployments have legacy network architectures and older generation hardware — such as power management solutions that are already reaching end-of-life. On top of that, pandemic-related disruption coupled with expanding edge networks and remote, lights-off sites with distributed IT systems have brought into view several stress points for IT managers. Among them are reliable enterprise power management solutions — a critical enabler for IT reliability and uptime in a hybrid infrastructure environment.
Is Power an Afterthought in Your Edge Strategy?
Though power management in an edge-centric, cloud-enabled world may not register top-of-mind awareness among IT decision makers (ITDMs), the need to prioritize is now becoming apparent. Because Uninterruptible Power Supply systems (UPSs) are crucial components and link mission-critical hardware such as servers, routers, switches, and network-attached storage (NAS) gear.
In mission-critical services, losing power for even a second can bring core business operations to a standstill. Even short outages due to over-voltage conditions, such as power surges or spikes, can put IT equipment at risk. Networked devices like servers and routers can fail under fluctuating power conditions. While enterprise-grade UPSs can keep workloads powered, a faulty or aging device may not withstand power anomalies. Power outages— even temporary, can disrupt data flow and affect the availability of IT equipment, leading to data loss.
Large data centers often have redundancy built across IT architecture with generators or dual power grids backing up UPS systems. But, that’s rarely the case in edge sites, which lack well-planned redundancy designs and on-site staff for routine preventive maintenance.
Hence, UPS availability and reliability is a crucial consideration for minimizing extended outage. A 2021 Ponemon Institute report, Data Center Downtime at the Core and the Edge: A Survey of Frequency, Duration and Attitudes, provides further proof of how power outages are hitting edge locations harder than ever.[1] The report found IT equipment failures, UPS breakdowns and UPS battery failures were the leading causes of outages across the 1,667 edge locations surveyed. Another discouraging finding reveals out of the 1,600+ edge locations, an average of 2.7 experienced unplanned shutdowns in a year.
Making a Business Case for Intelligent Power Management at the Edge
Modern businesses hinge upon 24×7 connectivity and network access for efficient operations. Poor power quality and frequent irregularities can lead to slow-loading edge applications, hamstringing customer experience (CX) and increasing operating costs. Plus, with the COVID-19 pandemic forcing businesses to stay remote or hybrid, stressed-out IT professionals need intelligent, trusted power management solutions to stay one step ahead of disruptions. As ITDMs build a roadmap to reduce complexity at remote, unmanned edge sites, next-generation power protection solutions can prove to be invaluable tools to monitor power continuity, load consumption, increase network efficiency and drive uptime and high-availability for long-term business success.
Though organizations have long made use of UPS hardware for efficient network power protection, as networks spread to the edges, UPSs with lithium-ion batteriesOpens a new window offer better protection against power surges, outages or disturbances that are unavoidable in remote locations and at the edge.
To reduce costly downtimes, enterprises relying on remote locations should bake more power redundancy and scalability to optimize UPS availability. They should lean on enhanced remote monitoring and management to reduce UPS repair time across the entire distributed IT infrastructure and remote edge sites. Remote monitoring and management solution also serves another goal, enabling IT managers to move the needle from reactive to predictive maintenance and optimize the physical IT footprint. This also results in real cost savings as battery and fan replacements are done when they are actually required.
Right-Sizing Power Architecture for Optimal Performance At the Edge
With more high-performance computing workloads moving to the edge, IT managers need to plan power architecture that is compatible with varying load consumptions. For instance, more high-density computing systems and blade servers are being deployed at the edge. In addition, IT loads deployed on virtualized servers significantly increase the processor and memory resources, which affects rack-level power and cooling performance.
As a result, IT and facility managers should tap enterprise-grade trusted UPS systems to:
- Support varying, data-intensive compute requirements at the edge.
- Optimize the power protection infrastructure against scale-out requirements.
- Balance power, cooling and network capacities which are key to minimizing interruptions.
- Plan power redundancy into the architecture to match the overall edge site design and ensure availability.
This can be achieved by leveraging UPS systems from companies a t the forefront of the latest developments in energy management and automation. Schneider Electric, which has considerable leadership in data center infrastructure management (DCIM) technologies, has been helping customers worldwide to attain reliable sources of uninterruptible power in some of the demanding environments. Known for its proven designs and engineering standards, APC by Schneider Electric pioneered the first Lithium-ion UPS systemOpens a new window in 2013 for delivering consistent and reliable connectivity at all times.
While we often associate UPS units with preserving power for servers, the Smart-UPS unitsOpens a new window by Schneider Electric are used by millions of customers worldwide to ensure power consistency for not only servers but routers, switches, hubs, point-of-sale devices and a host of IoT devices. When it comes to servers, Schneider Electric’s Smart-UPS line has an available solution to serve everything from the most resource-hungry data application server to the most basic entry-level one. The Smart-UPS line has multiple form factors to accommodate various needs — from a rack mount unit to safeguard an organized data center environment or a tower unit to reside in the corner of your server closet in your edge location.
Lithium-ion UPS Are Core to the Evolving Edge Computing Roadmap
As organizations adopt strategies to support 24×7 connectivity and low latency needs at the edge, they can take advantage of lithium-ion batteries that offer greater value over lead-acid batteries, require less maintenance and cut down on UPS footprint. While interest in battery technology may be new for vendors, it has been a key focus of Schneider Electric for years which was the first to introduce Lithium-ion UPS systems in the market. Their smart design provides early-warning fault analysis on batteries that enables timely preventive maintenance and proactive component replacement, guaranteeing optimal performance. While the basic UPS units are more suited for short durations of power losses, the Smart-UPS On-LineOpens a new window can be configured with matching external battery packs and provide the extended runtime capabilities IT needs to sustain server operations in demanding power environments.
Some of the key benefits include:
- A 50-75% reduction in the size of the UPS footprint
- A 30-50% reduction of the total cost of ownership (TCO) of your UPS footprint, including cooling costs, capital costs and operating expenses
- A life expectancy that is 3x longer and units that are 60-70% lighter
- Charging times that are 5x fasterOpens a new window , often less than 2 hours
- An ability to better operate in an environment of fluctuating temperatures
Remote Manageability to Ensure Continuous Uptime
By using a high-efficiency lithium-ion UPS, IT managers can elevate digital edge operations, reduce energy consumption and lower TCO without compromising uptime. But, optimizing power management architecture for the highest efficiencies is only one part of the puzzle. As ITDMs take steps to cut through the complexity of edge infrastructure, remote monitoring and management platforms like EcoStruxure IT ExpertOpens a new window provides IT teams with the right metrics and data collected in real-time across geographically dispersed edge facilities via a single web interface on any device. In the distributed IT era, gaining end-to-end visibility across software and hardware ecosystems is imperative. A vendor-agnostic solution with usage-based billing helps companies avoid vendor lock-in, seamlessly integrates with other business processes, ramps up fault-tolerance in edge sites and reduces the need for building power redundancy.
Despite the best practices, IT managers know they can’t have it all. With edge computing facilities becoming more remote and geographically dispersed, it’s time to prioritize predictive maintenance over break-fix models to cut down OpEx, guarantee 100% uptime and reduce resolution time. Instead of using a routine maintenance model that doesn’t consider equipment data, forward-looking organizations can minimize asset degradation by combining monitoring with analytics and using trained technicians for on-site troubleshooting.
Schneider Electric’s Monitoring and DispatchOpens a new window solution is tailor-made for unmanned edge deployments and remote branches that require end-to-end IT resiliency to support critical edge applications. With physical infrastructure playing a foundational role in powering edge sites, high-efficient power architecture coupled with automated end-to-end monitoring and dispatch solutions can enable ITDMs to build future-ready infrastructure that can weather any disruption.
Sources:
1 Data Center Downtime at the Core and the EdgeOpens a new window by Ponemon Institute, 2021