Data Centre Build: Power Distribution

In past posts I've described our data centre as being Tier 3+ 2N and the arrival of our transformer gives me the perfect opportunity to fully explain what 2N means.

2N relates to our chosen power management setup for the data centre. Simply put, N is the amount of power and distribution required to run our data centre to its full potential. Our data centre is 2N meaning we have 2x the amount of power and distribution required to fully operate, with this setup up to half (1N) of our equipment can fail without causing disruption to service.

The diagram below shows the power flow in the event of hardware failure at different stages of the power chain.

Main Power Supply

Our power management system is powered by electricity direct from the national grid. In the event of a power cut our generators will automatically boot up.

Generators

Should mains power fail our generators are capable of powering the data centre at full load for up to 48 hours.

PDU

A power distribution unit (PDU) is a device that feeds the power directly to our servers. As part of our 2N power management each server in our data centre is dual fed by two separate PDU’s.

Racks

This power management setup will power a total of 120 high density cabinets, each with 30 high-end servers.