10 Ways to Increase Power System Availability in Data Centers

Once, IT was just another important business resource. Today, IT is the business for many companies. Without it, most organizations would be incapable of serving customers, collaborating with partners,developing new products or performing other basic business functions. As a result, data center availability has become an essential precondition to competitiveness and profitability. Yet despite their best efforts to achieve "five nines" availability, businesses remain vulnerable to a variety of threats. Chief among them are issues affecting electrical power systems. Data centers rely on a continuous supply of clean electricity. However, anything from a subtle power system design flaw to a failure in the electrical grid can easily bring down even the most modern and sophisticated data center. Fortunately, organizations can significantly mitigate their exposure to power-related downtime by adopting proven changes to their business processes and electrical power system management practices. This white paper discusses 10 such underutilized best practices for building and maintaining a highly available data center power infrastructure.