Almost five years ago, a scientific research organisation initiated a project to put a data centre in place that met global standards. It acquired a 400KVA modular UPS from Jasco Power.
Today the organisation’s data centre is Control Objectives for Information and Related Technology (COBIT)-compliant; meets the risk-based internal audit requirements of one of its clients, an armament organisation; as well complies with its own regular internal audits. The UPS, which still meets the research house’s capacity requirements, helps ensure it achieves clean audits.
Based on an infrastructure risk assessment, the client selected a modular solution – four 100KVA UPS’ connected in parallel – to provide them with suitable backup capacity and failover redundancy. The solution, which links to a generator, gives them the ability to keep critical servers with valuable research protected and functional if there is a power outage or other grid incident.
The research organisation’s data centre has grown from 60TB of data in 2009 to currently host 500TB of data. It comprises a cluster environment for high performance, and a segregated hosted area for collaboration with research partners. Modern data centre practices and approaches, such as virtualisation, mean the UPS solution continues to deliver appropriate capacity for failover, with additional resilience built in – i.e., Vertical N+1 redundancy.
The data centre hosts the intellectual property of the research organisation and is thus considered a vital asset. They selected a modular UPS solution to ensure scalability. Since installation, they have had no unplanned downtime. International standards certification and annual internal audits ensure IT risk is well managed. This gives their partners and co-researchers confidence to collaborate with us, and integrate with their systems.
Says Marco da Silva, MD of Jasco Power Solutions: “Data is a company’s life blood. Protecting data is even more critical for a research organisation. Putting a UPS and generator in place that meets the identified needs of the research organisation, and ensuring scheduled maintenance and testing of the solution is vital to manage risk. As South Africa continues to be plagued by grid incidents, the challenges associated with data protection are likely to increase – be prepared.”