ACE Performance Assessment Service levels for data centres

In an industry where the average TCO (total cost of ownership) overspend is around $27m per MW, where $/kW (cost per kilowatt of IT load) can spiral out of control within just a few short years of entering operation, and where the average cost of downtime is $627k per incident, owner-operators want solutions.

Future Facilities, experts in predictive modelling for data centres, can now provide answers thanks to their ACE Performance Assessment consultancy service. Launched in February 2014, the service offers exceptional return on investment, is tiered to accommodate the needs of different data centre owner-operators, and has already been responsible for turning around Tier IV data halls for a global banking giant. Today, as word of the service spreads, Future Facilities are being commissioned to deliver the service by global leaders in aerospace, global courier delivery and banking, and by government agencies.

So, what is the ACE Performance Assessment? It’s a service that scores a data centre on how compromised its availability, physical capacity and cooling efficiency (ACE) have become, and then presents engineering solutions to reclaim lost performance and minimize costs. The score obtained from the three interconnected variables can ultimately determine how costly a data centre is to build and operate. Importantly, the relationship and overall effect of the ACE variables cannot be not holistically measured by such simple metrics as PUE (power utilization efficiency).

Future Facilities’ assessment service presents a new way of assessing and visualizing the gap between the ACE performance a data centre should deliver (what the customer is paying for), and what it is actually capable of delivering in day-to-day operations and under what-if failure scenarios (what the customer is actually getting). The difference between the two is what Future Facilities call the ACE performance gap. Expressed in financial terms, the wider the performance gap, the greater the cost of owning and operating the data centre.

Delivered as a global consultancy service by Future Facilities’ team of experience data centre consultant engineers, the ACE Performance Assessment service empowers owners and operators to accurately track and improve the performance of their data centres. But what really elevates this offering is that it allows the owner-operator to decide which variable(s) to protect and which to sacrifice in order to meet their operational goals: it allows them much greater control over downtime, cost per kW of IT load, and total cost of ownership.

The ACE performance score works by mapping data (for example, inventory and “real-time” power) from DCIM toolsets into a powerful 3D Virtual Facility model (see below). With that automated process accomplished, it then predictively models the resulting distribution of airflow and temperature in the space. This confluence of predictive modelling and DCIM data is called Predictive Modelling for DCIM.

Hassan Moezzi, Future Facilities CEO, explained that the ACE Performance Assessment undoes the damage that results from the largely reactive way in which a data centre’s IT build out plans change: “Decisions are often made at a tactical level. For example, an engineer installs IT equipment for a new project deployment and the data centre manager is told the service needs to be fully resilient.

However, the new IT installation could unintentionally sacrifice future physical capacity, could compromise cooling performance, and could risk availability and uptime. Without tools to understand the impact of every change – of which airflow is the one that is so often overlooked, underestimated or radically oversimplified - the industry is overpaying hundreds of millions of dollars on data centres that are so compromised they don’t even come close to realizing their full design potential and operational life”.

And it’s not just heterogeneous, enterprise data centres that the ACE Performance Assessment can help. Homogenous facilities are similarly compromised when the time comes to refresh with new IT loadouts and hardware. As a refresh occurs, cooling costs, uptime and physical capacity can all suffer. “The ACE service quantifies these factors and provides a solid basis to move towards a fully utilized data centre – one that maximizes the full value of the investment to the organization”, Moezzi continued. The ACE Performance Score is calculated using Future Facilities’ 6SigmaDC software. The suite is used to create a highly accurate 3D model of the data centre – called the Virtual Facility (VF) – which is then used to predictively model engineering changes that close the ACE performance gap to a minimum. Moezzi explained: “The VF is a true representation of the physical data centre that can include the full inventory of IT equipment as well as incorporating power, temperature and other real-time inputs. Most importantly and uniquely, the VF utilizes real data combined with airflow and cooling simulation throughout the facility, including recirculation within individual cabinets”.

The assessment service has already been proven to work incredibly well, offering exceptional value for money and a sensational return on investment. In trials of the ACE Performance Assessment, Future Facilities saved $10 million by assessing and improving a single 22,000ft2 data centre for a major financial institution. This was a Tier IV, mission critical data centre. It was well-run and featured an extensive DCIM toolset.

The savings were made up of: $1.5 million saved on utility bills, and close to $8 million regained in physical capacity that had been lost in the three years since the facility entered operation. In more recent projects, savings of more than $100 million for a customer’s five data centres are looking likely.

Future Facilities’ ACE Performance Assessment is tiered as follows:

1. Basic:

A low-cost, entry-level modelling service that provides an indication of performance, but is qualitative.

Key Deliverable(s)

£ This service can highlight “quick wins”
along with a range of potential cost
savings, and can be accomplished
without an onsite visit

£ Is a starting point for owner-operators
who are over seeing either the conceptual
design phase of the or are about to begin
commissioning of your data centre

£ A performance score that will highlight the
aspirational ACE of the data centre

2. Intermediate:

Builds on the basic service by adding an onsite visit to perform measurements and refine detailed model.

Key Deliverable(s)

£ Identify reasons & provide
recommendations for fixing hot-spots in
your data centre, by focusing on a row or
group of cabinets

£ An indicative ACE performance score
that will highlight areas of performance
gap potential improvements can be made.

3) Full:

Provides the full quantitative ACE performance score based on a comprehensive onsite assessment

Key Deliverables

£ A high fidelity model that includes the all
IT assets & supporting critical
infrastructure such as CRACs, PDUs etc.

£ A calibrated model of the data centre
based on detailed temperature, pressures
and airflow measurements.

£ A quantitative ACE performance score
that helps us to create a roadmap to
recovering lost capacity, establishing high
availability and reducing operational
costs.