You may have read or heard about a number of natural disasters around the world this year. Japan, Taiwan, and even New York were shaken by earthquakes. Southeast Asia experienced an extreme heat wave in April and May, causing widespread disruptions and some deaths. 

There is no doubt that DCs in affected areas will suffer some damage or disruption during times like these. In the face of these unexpected crises, what steps can operators take? 

Intelligent infrastructure comes in here with environmental sensors, monitoring and management features that allow teams to anticipate incidents and streamline recovery processes. 

Strategic sensor deployment for crisis readiness and resilience 
Using environmental sensors to gather data about the DC is invaluable for DC management, giving teams a 'sixth sense' – better intelligence and awareness of the ins and outs of their facilities. By strategically deploying sensors for DCs located in disaster-prone areas, operators can increase their crisis preparations, readiness, and resilience, reducing customer disruptions and infrastructure damage.  

While vibration sensors are typically used for monitoring critical equipment like power distribution units and cooling systems, they could also serve as early warning systems for impending earthquakes in earthquake-prone areas, giving operators advance notice to act. A shutdown, backup power system activation, or alerting personnel on site to take protective measures can all be considered. 

After the disaster, the sensors will report on the DC's hardware vibrations, allowing teams to identify any damage and direct resources more effectively, as well as reroute processes and operations to functional equipment. 

It is equally important to have temperature sensors to detect or predict rising temperatures on racks or rooms caused by inadequate cooling, hot spots caused by malfunctioning hardware, and fires – all of which are likely to occur in countries with unpredictable weather. 

The data, gathered over time, can be invaluable for crisis preparations, tracking weather impacts on the facility, and proactively preventing DC outages. 

It's just as important to have intelligent locks like Smartlock, cameras and motion sensors during preparations and during recovery. Is there any staff present before or after the event, where they are/were and which parts of the facility they accessed, and are they authorized to execute readiness and response protocols? How do the technicians know what racks need to be repaired and who is working on them? 

A facility's ability to track personnel actions will be very useful during postmortem briefings, as teams will be able to understand what worked well and what could be improved as well as investigate any security breaches or shortfalls in crisis management. 

Intelligent PDUs to speed up power supply recovery 
In addition to sensor installation, intelligent power distribution units (iPDUs) as part of DC infrastructure will simplify assessment and recovery processes. All Raritan intelligent PDUs, for example, have the ability to monitor input power and branch circuits, as well as alert teams when circuit breakers trip. 

Power quality metrics and monitoring are valuable capabilities, as teams will be able to easily verify if any change was made to equipment load or power supply before and after the earthquake for damage assessment or to investigate any failures or outages if they did occur. 

The sensor port (PX4) or the feature port (PX3) are compatible with sensors and asset management tags, allowing the installation of up to 32 sensor packages on each PDU and the tracking of IT assets in real time. The system makes it easy for teams to install sensors, verify present and/or missing equipment at the rack level, and access all the data discussed earlier. 

Teams can automate PDU functions using scripting functionality on the PX3 or PX4 iPDUs, which is a key feature for everyday and emergency scenarios. By enabling rapid switching of critical workloads to secondary racks or equipment and automating backup and disaster recovery orchestration, downtime, operational impact and response times can be drastically reduced. 

Response timeliness is an important consideration for teams, but is remote access capability as important? Can teams access the power distribution units, check data, or switch outlets without being on site? DCs located in less central locations could use these to assess crisis impact and restore functionality quickly, even via mobile devices. 

The use of intelligent infrastructure solutions can enhance the resilience, agility, and responsiveness of data centers during and after disasters, minimize downtime, and expedite recovery processes, ensuring continuous operation of critical IT systems and services. Data center environments designed with intelligent hardware such as power distribution units and environmental sensors can withstand and recover from a wide variety of disaster scenarios with minimal impact on business operations.