Maintaining the performance and profit-generating capacity of your data center starts with a strong maintenance plan and trusted load bank supplier. In addition to eliminating the risk of down time, a maintenance plan utilizing load testing will allow your data center to run more efficiently by creating a historical timeline of how equipment is performing.This guide will help you create a customized maintenance plan to fulfill your data center testing needs.
Building a Maintenance Plan
A data center maintenance plan and testing schedule should be comprised of predictive and preventative maintenance strategies.
Predictive Maintenance
Predictive maintenance analyzes trends, changes, and irregularities that could predict a potential failure. By monitoring each system and evaluating real-time data, issues can be anticipated and corrected before they lead to an outage. Since predictive maintenance is measuring the state and performance of equipment, the testing must be completed while equipment is in use. It is important to incorporate safety procedures to ensure the protection of every staff member. Use the checklist below to develop a predictive maintenance plan:
- UPS
- Search for any operating irregularities or warnings registered on the UPS panel.
- Check area around equipment for vibrations.
- Monitor cooling process to ensure proper cooling.
- PDU
- Check alarm notification schedules for irregularities and verify proper load balancing between phases.
- Verify proper circuit loading and function of all power meters.
- Generator
- Check for abnormal sounds or vibrations in the generator engine
- Evaluate voltage and frequency to look for stable outputs
- Search for any excess fluid indicating leaks in the engine and coolant system
- Monitor the temperature of the engine to ensure it is in the normal range
- Check the oil pressure and look for excessive exhaust smoke
- Bus Tracks & Rack
- Dust and clean the interior of bus tracks and racks.
- Monitor the temperature and airflow of bus tracks and racks to ensure it is in the normal range.
- Inspect racks for loose bolts, cracking, rust, or other damage.
Preventative Maintenance
The goal of preventative maintenance is to extend the lifecycle of equipment by ensuring it continues to operate at its optimum level. Successful preventative maintenance is achieved by proactively inspecting each critical component of a data center. This way, potential defects will be noticed before they lead to equipment failure.A preventative maintenance plan will aid in extending the life of data center equipment by regularly testing the components that commonly cause failures in data center operation. When developing a testing schedule, consider the layout of your data center as well as the equipment used to create an efficient plan.Create a plan that includes regularly scheduled inspections of the following components:
- UPS
- Inspect any operating irregularities discovered
- Visually inspect equipment for obstructions
- Monitor batteries for signs of corrosion.
- PDU
- Clean the exterior and interior of PDU switchboards, including switchgears.
- Perform a visual inspection, then clean and calibrate all monitoring components.
- Verify proper operation and condition of system.
- Check and torque test bolted electrical connections.
- Inspect switchgear for signs of environmental damage (corrosion, dust, humidity).
- Generator
- Battery conditions
- Fuel quality
- Fuel and oil pumps
- Fuel and water separators
- Air filters
- Coolant
- Hoses
- Belts
- Servers
- Review logs for any irregularities and run hard-disk scan.
- Perform a visual inspection and check airflow.
- If necessary, update firmware and operating system
- Verify configuration management database (CMDB) and backup system are working properly.
If you are not sure where to begin, an expert load bank supplier can create a maintenance plan to ensure your data center testing schedule includes every critical component of your facility.
Comrent offers turnkey service for load testing data centers and the development of maintenance plans. With the largest inventory of load banks available nationwide, a team of load bank experts available 24/7, and a technical specialist onsite at every maintenance project, Comrent saves you time and money while alleviating the risk of costly downtime.
