Redefining data center service with technology

 

Technological advancements in the field of service can play a crucial role in upholding uptime and reliability in data centers.

It is undeniable how digitalization has transformed and reshaped people’s way of life. It has introduced alternative means for communication and collaboration, increased transparency and insight on operational procedures and processes, and facilitated agility and productivity across various industries.

This important transformation, however, has placed an increased demand on uptime and efficiency for data centers, which serves as one of the primary drivers in an encompassing shift towards the use of digital technologies. The cost of outages in data centers has increased exponentially, a clear indication of how reliant individuals and industries have become on digital platforms and services.

With both revenue and reputation on the line, how can data centers ensure that uptimes remain up and outages stay out? The answer lies in preventive maintenance.

Why regular data center service is a must

Just like how car owners need to have their vehicle regularly tuned-up to make sure they run smoothly, data center operators must also conduct regular monitoring of their facilities, particularly mission-critical equipment, to guarantee the reliable provision of data services. The basic rule of thumb is that the more intensive the operations, the more regular service activities are needed to avoid unplanned outages.

More than just a tick on the to do list, preventive maintenance decreases the possibility of critical errors from occurring, especially in an environment as complex as a data center. More importantly, it safeguards the health and efficiency of mission-critical equipment that keeps data centers up and running. Suffice to say, the cost of regular service activities is far more reasonable compared to the financial and reputational expense of having to go offline due to system or equipment malfunction.

In addition, by keeping a close eye on system and equipment health, regular service procedures also uphold the health and safety of data center employees by preventing the occurrence of electrical hazards such as electrical explosions. A study from the Workplace Safety Awareness Council estimates the cost of an electrical accident to be at a minimum of $750,000 on top of litigation fees and medical costs for affected workers.

A technological approach to service

Thankfully, technology has paved the way for basic service tasks to be done safely, collaboratively, and more efficiently.

First, ABB offers a diverse portfolio of intelligent solutions that provide real-time insights that can help data center managers monitor equipment health and performance. This deep component-level visibility not only allows operators to optimize their processes to realize more efficient operations, but also encourages a more proactive maintenance strategy that can save time and resources.

For instance, ABB Ability Energy and Asset Manager  allows data center operators to have full remote visibility of asset and electrical-system behavior. Through this intuitive dashboard, data center managers can swiftly identify inefficiencies that can lead to excessive energy use and optimize equipment performance to ensure reliability and product quality. Aside from cutting back on energy usage and corresponding costs, the ABB Ability Energy and Asset Manager can also yield savings on unplanned labor, maintenance, and operational expenses.

To support the implementation of preventive maintenance measures and maximize data center productivity, especially in settings as intricate as data centers, ABB offers two innovative digital applications – Collaborative Operations for electrical systems (CLOSER) and Remote Assistance for electrical systems (RAISE) – to easily get support when needed and make troubleshooting much easier.

With their augmented reality visualization capacity, CLOSER and RAISE simplify maintenance, reduce downtime, and increase equipment effectiveness by improving the quality of repairs and speed of resolution.

CLOSER provides first-level support for ABB electrification solutions and products by offering detailed troubleshooting guides that can help data center workers in addressing basic component or equipment issues. CLOSER is accessible 24/7 to provide in-depth guidance through the different steps of key troubleshooting procedures.

If further assistance is needed, RAISE provides the next level of support by having an ABB service professional facilitating remotely guided repairs. RAISE reduces time to repair and maintain electrical equipment by allowing ABB experts to use augmented reality to remotely guide field operators on their Android or iOS smartphone, tablet, or via smart glasses and other supported wearables. This speed of resolution is vital in minimizing potentially highly disruptive and costly downtime. With time being of the essence in data centers, every second saved can make a big difference in productivity, profitability, and even sustainability, due to the reduced need for travel to and from the facility.

The beauty of RAISE is how it also helps data centers meet their sustainability targets through significant reduction in their carbon footprint. Using RAISE will save approximately 332 tons of carbon emissions per year by reducing up to a third of customer site visits by ABB field service engineers.

Now more than ever, data centers must take steps to operate efficiently, safely, and sustainably, as they play an important role in the global digital transformation. While this continues to be a challenge, making the shift from calendar-based to condition-based monitoring can be the first step towards realizing data center reliability. ABB’s digital portfolio, together with CLOSER and RAISE, can be your ideal partner in making this important step.

(Courtesy of ABB)

The research project: Battery-free sensors for the smart factory of the future by ABB

Networked Embedded Systems (NES) are the backbone of many sensor and communication systems today. Thanks to the awardee of the second ABB Research Award in Honor of Hubertus von Grünberg they now could become even more important. Flexibly designed, low-cost and battery-free sensor devices will help collect enormous amounts of data to accelerate the digital transformation of industries.

The world is full of them: NES comprise a class of devices that combine sensing and communication capabilities. Over the past two decades, there has been an enormous growth of NES devices to enable various sensing and Internet of Things (IoT) applications.

And this is just the beginning. The past several years have seen a significant interest to develop various machine learning techniques and apply them to different domains. An essential aspect of these tools and techniques is the collection and processing of large amounts of data. “This, we believe, will significantly accelerate the growth of NES even more”, says Ambuj Varshney, the 33-year-old awardee of the renowned ABB Research Award in Honor of Hubertus von Grünberg. “Machine learning techniques often require collection and processing of large amounts of data. For many applications, this would require a massive deployment of sensing devices.”

(The ABB Ability Smart Sensor for low-voltage motors was introduced in 2016. It was the first data-gathering device for electric motors in an industrial environment and needs batteries to sense and transmit the data.)

Many predictions already state that billions of such devices will be deployed in the near future. Though, as promising as the applications are, there is one major problem: Today NES devices are usually energy-constrained and commonly comprise of battery-operated, bulky devices which require a significant effort to deploy and maintain. “This severely challenges the vision of large-scale deployment of sensor devices for data collection”, the young researcher realized early on. 

The reasons for this are diverse: firstly, battery-operated devices require a significant maintenance effort to replace exhausted batteries. Secondly, batteries can also negatively impact the physical environment, as they often employ toxic chemicals which require proper disposal. Moreover, the devices’ large form factor also restricts their deployment, particularly in small or hard to reach places. And finally, of course, the most critical constraint for reliance on batteries is their considerable energy consumption.

What gives hope in this context, are some developments in which the current winner of the ABB Research Award had a significant share. Over the past few years, individual sensors have become exceedingly energy efficient. Today microphones or accelerometers consume just tens of microwatts of power. However, a typical radio transceiver used to communicate sensor readings, such as ZigBee, BLE or WiFi, remains energy-hungry, consuming several orders of magnitude of more power for their operation. “To overcome this limitation, we have made several significant contributions to the emerging area of backscatter communication”, Varshney says.

Backscatter technique enables wireless transmissions at much lower power consumption compared to conventional radios. It achieves this by using the fact that reflecting or absorbing wireless signals such as TV broadcast or cellular signals is much less energy expensive compared to locally generating them.

Based on this principle, as part of his doctoral thesis at the Department of Information Technology at Uppsala University, Varshney developed a system called “LoRea”. LoRea generates narrow bandwidth backscatter transmissions, which help it exploit receiver sensitivity and achieve large communication range. Further, it delegates carrier generation and reception to separate devices such as smartphones or WiFi routers, which improves the scalability of the system. Finally, it keeps the backscattered signal and the carrier signal apart in frequency, which helps to reduce the self-interference without requiring complicated and expensive hardware.

The development of LoRea represents hard work built on many failures and difficulties. But finally, Varshney´s presentation of LoRea at the highly selective ACM Conference on Embedded Networked Sensor Systems (SenSys 2017) was a complete success. “We have demonstrated the ability to communicate to distances as large as kilometres while just consuming tens of microwatts of power”, the young scientist explains. “This represents several orders of magnitude improvement in energy efficiency over conventional radio transceivers. The low-power consumption required for transmissions enables us also to radically rethink the design of NES.”

The potential to flexiblyexible designed, low-cost and battery-free sensor devices finally opens up a wide range of valuable options for the future. “We imagine our sensors could be in the form factor of stickers operating on harvested energy from the ambient environment such as light, radio frequency signals or vibrations and could be placed on surfaces and other areas to enable extensive data collection”, the awardee describes his vision. 

Flexible, battery-free sensors could significantly drive the digital transformation of industries, as large scale deployment of such sensors will enable the collection of almost unlimited amounts of data to help with various machine learning tools as well as artificial intelligence methods. That is why Varshney is particularly pleased to receive the honored research award from a company that is a global leader in the ongoing transformation already. “Enabling smart factories is definitely one use case that we want to target”, he explains, when asked about which further research projects he will invest the US$ 300,000 grant over the next three years. “My expectation from this award is that it enables me to leverage more than a century of experience of ABB in developing innovative technologies”.

(Courtesy of ABB)

ABB’s high-precision CoriolisMaster flowmeter now certified for custody transfer

• Thanks to its high accuracy, ABB’s flowmeter has met international standards approval and can now be used for key custody transfer transactions
• The CoriolisMaster’s smaller footprint, heightened communication abilities, and remote verification capabilities ensure the precise measurements essential for custody transfer
• The new certification completes ABB’s fiscal metering offering providing unmatched precision to protect the interests of both buyer and seller across the custody transfer process

ABB’s CoriolisMaster flowmeter has received recognition for its high levels of accuracy, gaining custody transfer standards approval. The flowmeter now offers a new custody transfer application approved under OIML R 117-1 and Wellmec standards and certified for the European Measuring Instruments Directive  MID[1]

Accuracy and reliable measurement are paramount in the transfer of expensive commodities such as oil and gas. Custody transfer is a highly regulated area which falls under both international standards and regional regulations.

The CoriolisMaster certification complements ABB’s Flow-X series of flow computers, single hardware, and software solution that connects to flowmeters, and to temperature, pressure, and density transmitters as well as chromatographs to calculate the volume at standard conditions, mass, and energy following international standards. The Flow-X aims for the highest precision to protect the interest of buyer and seller. Its analog inputs have an unmatched accuracy of 0.008 percent over a wide ambient temperature range.

“This certification places ABB at the forefront of custody transfer measurement,” said Frank Frenzel, Global Product Line Manager, ABB Process Flowmeters. “We have seen significant growth in this area in recent years, with increased demand for our Flow-X computers, and customers asking for a complete fiscal metering offering. Our CoriolisMaster has never been faster or more precise in its measurements.

The certification confirms that it is ideally placed to meet customers’ need for precise measurement, joining the Flow-X computer for unrivalled accuracy in custody transfer applications around the globe.”

With its distinctive lean design, the ABB’s CoriolisMaster has a small footprint which reduces on-site handling, commissioning, and costs by being easy to install and using less pipeline than has been traditionally required. Extensive communication capabilities provide real-time data insights for instant action, and the inclusion of the ABB Ability™ Verification for measurement devices solution allows the performance of the meter to be verified at any stage either in-situ or remotely.

Even the smallest imprecision in custody transfer can lead to big financial losses, so the high accuracy of the CoriolisMaster makes it ideal for liquid mass flow measurement. With repeatability, an equally important element, the stability of ABB’s CoriolisMaster in maintaining calibration across its lifecycle is an essential element. The flowmeter also eliminates the need for an additional inline density meter, making it invaluable for product quality assurance purposes, by providing direct density measurement and improving the measurement of liquid and gas flow composition.

ABB’s Process Automation business is a leader in automation, electrification, and digitalization for the process and hybrid industries. We serve our customers with a broad portfolio of products, systems, and end-to-end solutions, including our # 1 distributed control system, software, and lifecycle services, industry-specific products as well as measurement and analytics, marine,  and turbocharging offerings. As the global #2 in the market, we build on our deep domain expertise, diverse team, and global footprint, and are dedicated to helping our customers increase competitiveness, improve their return on investment and run safe, smart, and sustainable operations. go.abb/processautomation

ABB (ABBN: SIX Swiss Ex) is a leading global technology company that energizes the transformation of society and industry to achieve a more productive, sustainable future. By connecting software to its electrification, robotics, automation, and motion portfolio, ABB pushes the boundaries of technology to drive performance to new levels. With a history of excellence stretching back more than 130 years, ABB’s success is driven by about 105,000 talented employees in over 100 countries. www.abb.com

[1] The International Organization of Legal Metrology (OIML) is a worldwide, intergovernmental organization whose primary aim is to harmonize the regulations and metrological controls applied by the national metrological services, or related organizations, of its Member States.

Check the original article here.

(Courtesy of ABB)