N+N data center redundancy: how two of everything means less data center downtime

When data center people discuss N+N data center redundancy, they are discussing how two a data center maintains “two of everything.” The reason? Two of everything means less data center downtime.

Rated-4 data centers are expected to deliver 99.995% uptime. That’s 28 minutes of downtime per year or less. But power feeds fail. Generators fail. UPS systems fail. Air conditioning fails. The only way to assure high levels of uptime is to maintain backup or redundant systems to take over in the event of a failure. With these backup systems, known as N+N data center redundancy, an enterprise data center or a wholesale data center can lose two generators and one power feed, or two power feeds and one generator without an interruption in client power.

Data center power redundancy is the keystone of N+N redundancy. But cooling redundancy is just as important. Computer equipment will heat up in a matter of minutes when cooling fails. Along with power and cooling, multiple telecommunications paths protect against line cuts and failures. And multiple security systems protect against data loss.

This “two of everything approach” is not only important for protecting against failures. Power and cooling systems must be maintained. With two of everything, systems can undergo preventative maintenance with no downtime.

The problem is that maintaining two of everything is not only expensive, it’s complex. Companies rarely have the hardened data center, power and cooling engineering experience in-house. And even if the company hires the expertise in for an internal data center build out.

Is downtime too expensive to tolerate? Does it make sense to simplify your data center? Affordable colocation like Lifeline Data Centers can help companies improve uptime and deliver simple reliability. Contact Lifeline today for more information.

Alex Carroll

Managing Member at Lifeline Data Centers

Alex, co-owner, is responsible for all real estate, construction and mission critical facilities: hardened buildings, power systems, cooling systems, fire suppression, and environmentals. Alex also manages relationships with the telecommunications providers and has an extensive background in IT infrastructure support, database administration and software design and development. Alex architected Lifeline’s proprietary GRCA system and is hands-on every day in the data center.