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Traditionally, an organisation’s hardware and software, along with the power and cooling equipment needed to keep it running, would be located in one central location, like an office building or data centre. Today, though, a growing need for these resources to be located closer to end users means they are increasingly dispersed across multiple locations, such as branch offices, colocation data centres, and private and public cloud environments.
The benefits of decentralising computing capabilities in this way are manifold, and include reducing latency, enhancing scalability, and guaranteeing optimal performance. Indeed, the ability to process data at the edge allows organisations to enjoy real-time insights and take responsive action to any situations that may arise.
In moving computing resources closer to the end user, distributed IT infrastructure can empower businesses with greater agility, efficiency, and competitive advantage in an ever more complex, interconnected world.
Whether it’s legacy or the latest development, the efficient running of an organisation’s technology depends on a consistent and reliable supply of power. But businesses operating distributed IT environments face the constant threat of outages, and without staff on hand to manage and mitigate unplanned power events, these outages can cause lasting and costly downtime for critical equipment. Any outages or downtime can impact an organisation’s ability to operate and interact with stakeholders, proving costly both to its bottom line and its reputation. It is vital, therefore, that the power supply to distributed IT infrastructure remains protected at all times, regardless of where it’s located.
This is something that cloud computing vendors and colocation data centre operators, concerned with maximising the scalability, efficiency, and agility of their data centres, have long understood. For example, the growing adoption of distributed IT infrastructure has seen many begin replacing older, transformer-based centralised power protection systems with distributed architectures in which uninterruptible power supplies (UPSs) reside in close proximity to servers, storage, and networking equipment.
In the past, UPSs tended to be scaled to meet the demands of enterprise data centres. But, as they were hot, large, and inflexible, they were unsuitable for use in distributed environments where limited floor space, and mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and cooling components would be constraining.
UPS design has evolved in recent years, however, to become more efficient, compact and adaptable. Attributes such as modularity, ultra-high efficiency, and inherent redundancy – in large and more compact UPSs alike - mean distributed power protection is now a viable option for organisations of all sizes.
Taking advantage of these developments, cloud computing vendors and colocation data centre operators are already enjoying a number of benefits.
Cloud service providers, for instance, will typically optimise their data centres for quick expansion to accommodate for any unexpected spikes in usage. To expand capacity and protect the power supply of their – necessarily - distributed IT architecture, these organisations can quickly install smaller, lighter UPSs rather than replacing their current, larger model with something even bigger.
Importantly, each of these UPSs protects just a few of an organisation’s servers. This means that, unlike in centralised architectures, where a power chain failure can affect every server, only a small amount of capacity will be lost should any problems occur. Distributed power architecture is more cost- and energy-efficient, too, allowing organisations to match capacity more closely to demand, adding more UPSs incrementally as they’re required.
And disaster avoidance software is key to giving IT managers greater control over their distributed power infrastructure, enabling them to remotely monitor and manage equipment and mitigate power events before they cause damaging outages.
The world of information technology continues to evolve. From education and healthcare to retail and hospitality, digital transformation is driving more critical infrastructure than ever to distributed IT environments as organisations seek to being data closer to their end users.
With computing resources and IT assets widely dispersed, often across multiple geographies and remote locations, it is vital that the supply of power is managed and protected – especially when you consider that many edge facilities lack on-site IT support staff. If not, organisations risk facing potentially harmful power shortages and outages.
Distributed power architecture, comprising the latest small, lightweight – often modular - UPSs, offers that management and protection. In some use cases, such as cloud computing and colocation data centres, the benefits extend further, offering greater scalability, flexibility, and efficiency.
A combination of new technological developments and new post-pandemic working practices requires a new approach to IT architecture, with new and greater demands for power. In short, distributed IT infrastructure requires a distributed power architecture.
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