Power

It goes without saying that power is the most critical aspect of a datacenter's architecture. Power failures do not only cause outages, but they can also cause systems to be damaged, for instance by fluctuations (spikes). Additionally, if a server is not shut down properly, it could suffer from complete data corruption.

Multiple Points of Entry
Our facility has two separated points where power cables enter the building. This setup makes sure that if a problem of any sort occurs on one side of the building, the other can remain functioning without problems.

Backup generators
Our facility has three diesel power generators, which each have sufficient capacity to provide the entire facility with power, in the event the netpower is unavailable. We have enough diesel on-site in underground tanks to power the facility for 48 hours, and additionally we have a contract with Shell to refuel these tanks while they are operational. This enables us to run on generators indefinitely, should this ever be needed. We test our generators periodically to ensure they are readily available should we ever need them.

Uninteruptable Power Supplies
Both the netpower and diesel backup generators are connected to three separated groups of Uninteruptable Power Supplies (UPS). A UPS is basically a battery which constantly provides the power to your server. While providing power to your server, it is also being charged at the same time by the netpower. Should the netpower ever fail, the UPS's will continue to provide power to your server, which allows sufficient time for the diesel backup generators to power up. Once the generators are running, they will continue to charge the UPS's until the netpower comes back available. The UPS systems each consist of hundreds of batteries, so if one battery fail the others will be able to continue funcioning without a problem. An additional advantage of the UPS systems is that they will filter out power fluctuations.

Power Distribution Units
For all power distribution within the facility, we utilize APC equipment, such as rackmountable switched PDU's. These receive the power from our UPS's, and distribute the power to each server. An added benefit is that you, as a customer, will receive direct access to your power port on the PDU, over the internet. This enables you to switch your server on and off remotely, if you ever need to perform a hard reboot.