Why Network Energy Problems Go Unsolved - And How To Fix Them

The Problem Is Your Network!

There are good reasons networks were built the way they are, but those reasons don’t make it any easier when your job involves network:

• Efficiency — Reducing energy usage when all you have are utility bills for data.
• Reliability — Keeping your network running during hurricanes, fires, or floods with only a handful of major/minor alarms to rely on.

Why Can't You Do Network-Wide Energy Management?

You can't manage what you can't measure.  Networks are complicated.  They've been built over many years and often have been created out of different networks being consolidated. Power management within these networks is particularly challenging due to limited visibility into telemetry data about key components such as grid power/AC meters, DC plant, batteries, PDU’s and backup generators.

The key reasons for this lack of visibility include:

• Networks Weren't Designed for Energy Management
  • Building networks using multiple power equipment vendors ensured competitive pricing and supply chain security, but complicates network management.  Each vendor’s equipment reports on itself differently, with no standardized data format.     Goals of your Purchasing department are somewhat at odds with the goals of your Operations department.  Purchasing would like to buy the most competitive equipment anywhere they can find it, BUT it would be best for network management if you had one vendor supply 100% of your needs.  
• Vendor Goals Conflict with Customer Needs
  • While vendors provide ever-improving network management solutions for their own equipment, their product improvements primarily focus on differentiating their equipment and network management from competitors rather than creating standardized data reporting for their customers.
• Legacy Software and Processes
  • Network operations rely on long-standing software tools (EMS, NMS and OSS). These systems handle fault detection from power equipment but were not designed to integrate advanced power monitoring.   In most cases, even if they DO implement energy management, they only do it for a single vendor's equipment.

What Does the Network Look Like Today?

Modern Networks:

• Are Complex
  • They include both active service equipment (e.g., RRUs, servers, routers) and passive power/cooling equipment (e.g., DC plant, HVAC, backup generators). Each class of equipment has varying models, firmware, and reporting capabilities.
• Have Significant Embedded Computing Power
  • Smart controllers are common on many pieces of equipment, which can produce valuable data and are widespread throughout the network, but this intelligence is underutilized and resulting data is siloed by manufacturer.
• Use Established Software and Processes
  • There are already numerous software tools available in the network. These tools are difficult and undesirable to replace due to both direct cost, but also indirect costs of disrupting processes that are tied to these systems.

Traditional Solutions

Traditional solutions for network power management attempt to address these issues but come with their own challenges:

• Hardware Only
  • Smart Controllers - Often there are smart controllers on many power producing or consuming devices like DC plant, HVAC, PDU's, and generators, but despite containing valuable data, most are used only for basic alarming.
  • RTU’s - Intelligent remote terminal units (RTUs) collect data from site controllers and can do some “normalization” of data, but are overkill if they are only being used to query other smart devices.  Each make of RTU is its own new data silo.
  • Smart Meters/Smart PDU’s - Can provide valuable data, but the data is more valuable if combined with data from other equipment from the site.
• Hardware + Software