Data centers have nowhere to hide in this digital age, so tools that help them avoid outages and understand exactly how they are performing are becoming critical.
For data center operators this makes it really important to clearly understand how their facilities are performing, and any potential threats to their uptime. Any interruption to their service becomes known almost immediately and not only costs revenue but results in dissatisfied customers, lost business and sometimes, irreversible damage to a hard-earned reputation.
Implementing a battery management system (BMS) gives data center managers more visibility, and typically delivers three key benefits.
PowerShield had a client that had been replacing their batteries every three years on a regular cycle, because they were concerned about the possibility of failure. That was because they didn’t have clarity about the health and performance of these small but highly significant cogs in their data center machine. Replacing the batteries so frequently still didn’t eliminate the possibility of battery failure, and was impacting their bottom line. However, through the use of a BMS they not only extended the average battery life to six years but were alerted to any potential failures before they materialised
Clarity about batteries helps with planning for data centers. Most data centers have operational planning set nine months or even a year out, and battery purchase has to be factored into that. The greater the clarity around the probable replacement cycle for a battery, the easier this process and the lower risk of an expensive exception.
In another example a data center in our home country of New Zealand, without sufficient clarity hadn’t planned for battery replacement but had to fly in replacement batteries from an overseas supplier at significant additional cost when unexpectedly faced with battery failure.
Being able to easily report on battery performance and health on a regular basis provides solid evidence for capital expenditure. It also provides tangible data in the event of something going wrong as the result of an investment case being turned down.
It gives you, the data center manager, an independent view on whether batteries need to be replaced - for instance your supplier might recommend it, but with the right clarity about your current resource you are able to make an independent, informed decision.
This significant topic of battery visibility for data centres is discussed further in our insights paper The importance of clarity. Download the insights paper to learn about: