20 February 2012: Zen Internet has taken delivery of two state of the art Diesel Rotary Uninterruptible Power Supplies (DRUPS) to provide a greener standby power solution to support its new data centre at its North West headquarters.
Each DRUPS unit will provide 500kVA standby power generation and uninterruptible power to the new 1,350 sq metre Tier 2 data centre, ensuring its Hosting customers are provided with 100% power availability even in the event of a mains or national grid failure.
Zen chose to utilise Euro-Diesels’s NO-BREAK KS® DRUPS range due to their unique design and significant advantages over traditional battery based systems. The DRUPS meet the most arduous requirements in terms of power quality, robustness and reliability.
Generally new data centres employ battery based UPS technology to provide uninterruptible power, however Zen chose to invest in DRUPS technology due their higher efficiency levels. The NO-BREAK KS® will consume very little energy compared to the general UPS systems in the market, whilst providing clean and conditioned power to the critical load.
The DRUPS units also do not require separate environmental management in the same way as their static, battery based counterparts. As a result less energy needs to be consumed in order to provide uninterruptible power. This reduces the data centre’s PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness) and its impact on the environment. Also by not utilising batteries there is no requirement to dispose of the potentially harmful lead acid batteries after their working life has expired (typically every 7 years), again benefitting the environment.
We have historically relied on batteries to provide uninterruptable power and separate diesel generators to support our data centres in the event of a power cut. These DRUPS use kinetic energy stored in a flywheel, similar to the mechanical KERS at the cutting edge of motorsport, to provide an integrated backup power solution. They're more efficient, more cost effective, and greener than using batteries. Definitely the way to go.
Our mission is to provide the best ISP service in the UK and this investment represents a significant opportunity for our business and an investment in our future. We aim to make a world class data centre available to our customers, backing it up with an industry-leading level of support and service.
Andrew Saunders, Head of Product Management and Marketing, Zen Internet
The DRUPS units offer a small physical footprint relative to their power capabilities. Whilst the units are by no means small at 5 metres long, 2.1 metres tall, 1.7 metres wide and weighing 10 tonnes each, these state of the art units can save up to 50% on floor space over static UPS designs.
In preparation for the delivery of the DRUPS, a 35 cubic metre, concrete plinth has been laid which forms the base for the unit’s purpose built and highly secure steel containers. With more businesses taking advantage of hosting and cloud based services, it’s critical that the data centres used to house the services are designed with high availability in mind.
We have been providing hosting services to our customers for the last 16 years and are already an experienced data centre operator having opened our first facility in 2001. This new data centre further enhances our growing hosting portfolio.
Phase 1 of the build is due to open in Spring 2012 and will house a range of Managed Hosting, Managed Cloud Hosting and Co-location services. Even the most demanding connectivity and bandwidth requirements will be easily accommodated as the new data centre is directly connected to Zen’s fully diverse core network.
added Andrew
Zen is committed to its environmental strategy and improving efficiency whilst reducing its impact on the environment. It has been awarded ISO 14001:2004 certification, the internationally recognised standard for an organisation’s Environmental Management System. Zen’s Going Greener team have introduced a structured and documented environmental management system allowing it to meet the requirements of the ISO 14001:2004 certification.
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