Caterpillar provides backup protection for data centers in the era of big data

Do you remember the "red envelope rain" of CCTV Spring Festival Gala in 2019? This year's Spring Festival Gala on CCTV first integrated the artificial intelligence experience into the red envelope interactive link. The festive "red envelope rain" left a deep impression on the people of the whole country.

Behind the bustling scene, the data center is charged with the important task of sending red envelopes to millions of households, and the Caterpillar generating units distributed in five data centers in Beijing and Shanxi have also become an important part of ensuring the timely presentation of "red envelope rain".

In addition to escorting the "Red Pack Rain" in the Spring Festival Gala, Caterpillar Generator Unit is also the "behind-the-scenes hero" in our lives to provide security for data transmission.

The downtime of data center is troublesome.

In addition to the traditional industries such as Internet, medical, financial, retail and logistics, more and more emerging industries such as Internet of Things, 5G communications, artificial intelligence and so on are also very dependent on the support of data centers. With the deep integration of real economy with Internet, big data and artificial intelligence, the data center industry, an important foundation of industrial upgrading, has entered an explosive growth stage.

According to the White Paper on Data Centers (2018) issued by the China Institute of Information and Communications and the Open Data Center, the total number of data centers in use in China reached 1844 by the end of 2017, and 463 data centers were planned for construction. With the increasing application scale of data centers in different vertical industries, ensuring power consumption has become a key issue to maintain the normal operation of data centers. At the same time, meeting increasingly stringent environmental requirements has become an important issue for the sustainable operation of data centers.

Data center downtime accidents caused by power outages have occurred from time to time in recent years. According to the estimates of Bonermont Institute, data center blackouts can cost enterprises more than $5,000 per minute on average.

The average downtime cost of data centers in 2016 was about $740,000, an increase of 37% over 2010. In May 2017, a power outage broke out in the British Airways data center and 672 flights were cancelled in three days, causing 75,000 passengers to be unable to travel normally, resulting in a loss of more than 100 million pounds.

In the same year, a power outage accident occurred in the external computer room of well-known social platforms in China, which resulted in a large area of paralysis of the application's web and mobile terminals, and users could not access them properly. The blackouts have damaged the business reputation and normal operation of enterprises relying on data centers.

In order to prevent the risk of conventional power interruption, many data centers regard standby power supply as an indispensable emergency guarantee.

Caterpillar is an excellent company in the field of diesel and natural gas engines. With its reliable, rapid and flexible features, Caterpillar Generator Set Products and ancillary service solutions have provided backup power for data centers around the world to help customers avoid interruptions caused by power outages.

In 2018, Caterpillar and its agent Yi Chumingtong provided Caterpillar generators to a bank's data processing department in Yunnan Province to meet its growing power demand.

At that time, after many comparisons, only Caterpillar's C32 generating unit can meet the special power needs of customers in relatively limited space, and can complete installation in a very short time. In addition, the bank is located in the urban area of Kunming, attaching great importance to environmental protection performance. Caterpillar C32 fully meets the stringent environmental protection requirements of the city center, which is also an important reason for its favor.

Service response speed is very important for the smooth operation of data center. Because of the stable and reliable power supply in our city, many users neglect the daily maintenance of standby generators. Once a sudden outage occurs, the start-up speed of the generating unit directly affects the power supply when the data center encounters a power outage.

Recently, a data center in Beijing suddenly appeared power supply interruption. Caterpillar generator set started rapidly in a very short time, and the data center switched to standby power supply smoothly. Due to the late maintenance of the equipment is not in place, high temperature alarm occurs on the fifth day of operation. Caterpillar agent Huaili Xingxing Machinery responded to the alarm information quickly, and solved the problem of "high temperature" flexibly and efficiently under the premise of maintenance without shutdown. During the days of power interruption, Caterpillar generators maintained a stable power supply, and the operation of the data center was unaffected.

Caterpillar provides flexible solutions for data center customers to meet a variety of different needs. In September 2017, with the support of Caterpillar Agent Lixing, nearly 50 Caterpillar C175-20 and Caterpillar 3516C generators were installed in a project in Shanghai, with the main power of 2800 kW and 2000 kW respectively, to meet the power demand of two buildings in the park.

Caterpillar is also developing toward higher power output. On the basis of the current stand-by power of 2000 kW, 2200 kW and 2400 kW, it will soon launch stand-by power of 2800 kW and 3200 kW.

Caterpillar 3500 series generators are widely used in data centers in China. The products are mainly manufactured in Caterpillar Tianjin factories. To ensure that the products meet Caterpillar's globally unified quality standards, Tianjin Factory adopts a globally unified R&D system, management system and supply system for production.