On average, every human creates at least 1.7 megabytes of data per second. Data is our workplace, bank, hospital, tax return, newspaper, music, and much more. The idea of data seems so simple and familiar; however, it is also quite complicated and distant. How is this all connected, and what can Gapit Nordics do to help?

Importance of data centers

Whether we are reading, writing or streaming, data is generated through a vast fiber network. This accumulates in several large power-intensive buildings called data centers. These buildings come with the highest degree of security to support our needs. They all have ONE crucial task: Never stop supplying power and cooling to the millions of uploads/downloads happening every day. Furthermore, it has become a requirement that the data center services are delivered in an environmentally friendly and sustainable way.

Gapit Nordics’ role

The authorities and customers requirements for reporting are becoming increasingly comprehensive. They require higher quality reporting than what is currently used. In addition, there are new requirements through the UN sustainability goals. Therefore, these reports can be challenging if you do not have dependable systems for collecting data and creating adequate reports.

This blog will explore the definition of a data center and how Gapit Nordics can help simplify this type of reporting.

Types of data centers

We have three types of data centers: Hyperscale, Colocation, and Edge. In addition, there are various computer rooms that private or public users often own.

Hyperscale: Hyperscale are large computer installations often used by large companies like Google, AWS, Apple, and IBM.

Colocation: Colocations are large data installations used by different individuals. These are owned and operated by data center companies such as Bulk, DigiPlex, Green Mountain, and Lefdal Mines. The operator rents out space with an uninterruptible power supply, cooling, security, and access to fiber, etc. Part of the agreement is a high degree of security where guaranteed uptime is often offered above 99.8%. Furthermore, a PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness) is provided. This is a calculated value that describes how efficiently a data center operates. It is a factor that shows the amount of energy going to cooling and other facility operations, versus how much is going to power the servers.

Edge: Edge data centers are smaller installations often delivered ready as containers or built as smaller data rooms near where data is generated.

Computer room: The customer builds and owns his computer room with the necessary security such as redundancy power, cooling, and other security.

Automation

Gapit Nordics provides solutions that make it possible to automate the reporting processes. We've had great success automating routines and running reports automatically to end customers who previously used days to retrieve data manually. These customers usually enter data manually in Excel, slice the information in Word, and send out PDFs to the customer. This process can now be automated and can be run just as often as you want. Gapit Nordics’ solutions extract data from all types of sensors and APIs independent of equipment suppliers. As a customer, you own the data and choose how it will be stored and for how long. Gapit Nordics retrieves sensor data (data capture) and converts this to graphical visual information or stores data with the correct time indication in a central warehouse (data lake). Here you can select all the relevant data to the task and present it in a visual interface that provides fast and tidy information about status and events.

Traditional data centers often have their systems for reading electricity and cooling to see electricity consumption, cooling, humidity, and generator driving. Still, these are usually delivered from different suppliers and therefore do not have a common platform for gathering this data in one spot. With Gapit Nordics’ solutions, you can modernize the platform by keeping existing equipment and letting Gapit Nordics receive sensor data to create a standard interface. Today, PUE Power's unspoken effectiveness is calculated through Gapit Nordics’ platform, making it easy to read the results in real-time. Gapit Nordics can create data for calculating costs for electricity to customers. This no longer has to be a manual process and automatically transfers the data to accounts as often as desired.

Benefits

A management tool: By using Gapit Nordics, the upper management can look at the efficiency of how the data center is run and which measures you should focus on in the future. This applies to planning expansions, streamlining operations, marketing by documenting how efficiently the data center is operated, etc.

A service tool: Gapit Nordics’ solutions are meant to ease the work of data hall technicians. Technical data, power, cooling, leakage sensors, and other info is readily available from mobile, tablet, or PC. Gapit Nordics can install graphical interfaces across buildings. It is easy for a technician to navigate to where an error is about to occur.

A cost-benefit tool: Gapit Nordics is an excellent tool for input in cost control, power expenses, invoicing, or capacity planning for future expansion or reduction.

We will substantiate the various possibilities of data management in this blog in the future. I hope this gives you a small idea of the vision here in Gapit Nordics.