power loadings new IT infrastructure

[Uraken]

Hi all i have been invited to a meeting on monday to discuss how we can provide the electrical contractor with heat/power loadings relating to the proposed new infrastructure of our soon to be built Academy.

My worrys is that we will have to give some fairly important guestimations based on what we believe we will require. As we have had very little technical discussion on what the new IT infrastructure will comprise where should i start?

 

I can roughly assume the following:

1200+ kids, 75 teaching staff, 75 support gurus,(i'm biased..

A hybrid of thin and fat clients (fat in four dedicated suites at least)

A microsoft server environment.

 

Clearly there will be others in the room with their own thoughts and expertise but its always nice to be pre-armed with relevant knowledge.I have seen the other posts on power consumption and they help a little but i would value any input, how much power a cisco switch users etc etc

 

As always thanks in advance

[SYNACK]

So long as you go with big brand kit most of this information is provided in the indepth specs for the devices. They will give you an average of heat dissipation and power usage for stuff like cisco switches and hp servers. Just need to check out the web sites. The servers are a little harder as the power requirements are dependent on the hardware that you put in it. Often the manufacturers of the components will give a spec on power requirements for stuff like hard drives.

 

You need a pretty good idea of what hardware you will be running and what you will be wanting to run in future. Find out what is required to run what you currently plan to implement and state in your requirements that future upgrades will probably require more power. Also in the morning starting everything at around the same time will increase the load above the standard running power requirements. You will want to at least double the capacity of the supply that you require to provide for the future and cope with startup.

 

Cisco example - table3 page13

 

Here is an hp tool (excel sheet) that helps calculate the power usage of each of its servers. Oh and don't forget the AC power requirements.

Edited October 10, 2008 by SYNACK
Combined two posts

[Sirbendy]

I was going to say, don't forget AC..or lighting, or heating loads.

 

When we had our 2 newer suites built in here, we had to have a new power feed brought in from the substation, and that had to be upgraded as well...we were overloading frequently and popping the thing yearly.

 

Get companies to quote for AC loading based on your estimates there..it's what they did for us. Calculation software to figure out likely need unitwise, and from that they could give a ballpark figure.

[torledo]

Hi all i have been invited to a meeting on monday to discuss how we can provide the electrical contractor with heat/power loadings relating to the proposed new infrastructure of our soon to be built Academy.

My worrys is that we will have to give some fairly important guestimations based on what we believe we will require. As we have had very little technical discussion on what the new IT infrastructure will comprise where should i start?

 

I can roughly assume the following:

1200+ kids, 75 teaching staff, 75 support gurus,(i'm biased..

A hybrid of thin and fat clients (fat in four dedicated suites at least)

A microsoft server environment.

 

Clearly there will be others in the room with their own thoughts and expertise but its always nice to be pre-armed with relevant knowledge.I have seen the other posts on power consumption and they help a little but i would value any input, how much power a cisco switch users etc etc

 

As always thanks in advance

 

Go in there with an idea of how power should be supplied to you're computers and servers.

 

In an ideal scenario you're server and communications equipment power should be segregated from PC and equipment power. What i mean is that each switch or server rack should be supplied by dedidcated branch circuits which feed into a distribution board with sufficient current rating for the equipment on the ends of these circuits...upstream from the server/comms distribution board should be you're UPS and upstream from the ups a deidicated 3-ph circuit supplying the ups from a 415V supply voltage...or if there is a possibility of dual power feeds on sepeate phases being provided to the academy an auto transfer switch between ups and two 3-phase supplies.

 

Working out you're power draw and heat dissapation is one thing, but designing the correct power infrastructure based on those figure is just as important.

 

Server and comms room power seperation is vital.

[m25man]

Go and buy one of these,

http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=38343&doy=21m2

 

A really useful tool,

 

Measure all of your equipment loads, add these to a spreadsheet allow a 30% margin for overloading.

 

I find that a modern lab of 30 PC's needs 3 circuits to avoid tripping out.

[Sirbendy]

Seconded. I got one cheaper...

 

http://www.energyoptimizersdirect.co.uk/acatalog/Energy_Devices.html

 

£23 delivered.

 

Damned useful at home as well.

[Uraken]

thanks all for your comments i have the electrical tool on order so thats a start.

torledo mate what do you clarify as comms in this instance (telephones etc)

Edited February 22, 2008 by Uraken

[torledo]

thanks all for your comments i have the electrical tool on order so thats a start.

torledo mate what do you clarify as comms in this instance (telephones etc)

 

yes, comms would include the telephone facility i.e demarc and pbx plus the switching infrastructure.

 

I also tend to include routers and gateways as part of the 'comms' facilities.

 

Also, don't forget the telecommunications ground which should consist of a main ground busbar.

 

There's a lot of information to take in and consider, beyond the basic 'what power does the equipment draw' aspect. Unfortunately i've seen too many new builds with piss poor design, the fact you've got a blank canvas means you'll need to explore best practice so as not to regret later on decisions that were made.

 

It's important to work with the electrical design contractors to achieve the aim, but you won't go far wrong by researching into data center design.

[Oops_my_bad]

I'm guessing the telecoms earthing element of all this only applies if you're running a seperate PBX with analogue extensions?