Executive Summary
- The shift towards edge computing is redefining resilience and the role of UPS systems.
- Our industry’s challenge is to ensure the power infrastructure supporting it is designed for the realities of being there.
- Here, Chris Cutler, Data Centre Business Development Manager for Riello UPS explores how…
For much of the past few decades, large-scale enterprise and hyperscale computing have been concentrated in purpose-built data centres. If an organisation needed to protect its IT infrastructure, it either built its own facility or rented space in one specially designed around that non-negotiable requirement, with controlled environments, resilient electrical systems and infrastructure, and specialist engineering and operational teams.
However, edge computing is changing this model. As processing moves closer to where the data is actually generated and consumed, IT infrastructure is increasingly being deployed in a wider variety of locations, many of which were never originally designed with a data centre in mind.
These edge installations could be in a manufacturing plant, a retail complexes, sports stadia, hospitals, office buildings and more.
This trend creates an interesting challenge – while the physical footprint of such projects may get smaller, the challenge of maintaining availability and protecting the equipment doesn’t become any easier. In certain circumstances, the opposite might be true!
It can be tempting to consider an edge installation as simply a more compact version of a conventional data centre. And if your IT load falls from several megawatts to hundreds or even tens of kilowatts, surely the associated need for resilience will drop too?
But, of course, power requirements and business criticality aren’t the same thing. Even a relatively small edge installation can be hugely critical despite its size. The consequences of a power interruption to an automated manufacturing process, comms network, or other real-time application can be immediate and potentially significant, not just financially but in terms of productivity, service availability, and reputation too.
That’s why regardless of the size of your load, where continuity of power is crucial, a UPS system remains an essential part of edge architecture. The number of kilowatts being protected tells you little about the consequences those kilowatts are supporting. For example, a 10 kW edge deployment supporting a production line may require a very different level of protection to a 10 kW office application.
The Environment Equals a Different Equation
A traditional, well-designed data centre provides significant advantages to the critical power equipment it houses, because the building itself is designed around that infrastructure. You can tightly control the temperature, humidity, airflow, even aspects such as physical security and access.
You don’t necessarily have such luxuries with deployments at the edge. A UPS installed in a manufacturing plant or other industrial edge setting, for example, may have to contend with higher ambient temperatures and exposure to dust or vibrations.
On other edge sites, you’ll be working in a heavily restricted footprint with little room for installation or ongoing maintenance. Electrical supply conditions can also vary considerably.
That’s why UPS selection for an edge application cannot simply be based on the capacity required. As well as your power needs, factors such as physical footprint, battery technology, thermal performance, environmental resilience, and accessibility all need to be considered.
Battery performance and service life, in particular, can be affected by temperature and operating conditions. A solution that works well in a controlled server room may not be the best choice for a demanding industrial environment.
You need to design your power protection systems around the constraints of the real-life conditions they will operate in.
More Than Just A Backup
Ask the question ‘what does a UPS do?’ and you’ll probably get an answer along the lines of ‘they provide backup whenever there’s a power cut or blackout’. While that’s a valid response – and one of its primary purposes – many modern UPS systems offer much more. And at the edge, that can prove vital.
Poor power quality, for example, fluctuations in voltage, electrical noise, transients, or other mains supply disturbances can impact – and in certain cases damage – sensitive electrical equipment.
Online double-conversion UPS topology provides an additional layer of protection by decoupling the critical load from many disturbances on the incoming mains supply. This power conditioning is particularly valuable for an edge site operating with electrical infrastructure that wasn’t designed with the needs of sensitive IT equipment in mind.
Monitoring & Maintenance
Perhaps one of the biggest differences between an edge deployment and a traditional data centre is what happens when something goes wrong – and no matter how well-designed or robust your infrastructure is, failures will inevitably occur.
Larger data centres may have engineers onsite around the clock to respond to problems, or at least have 3rd party support only a phone call away. But an edge estate could comprise dozens or even hundreds of locations without any permanent physical presence.
Remote UPS monitoring therefore becomes an increasingly important part of the power protection strategy for edge installations. Monitoring battery condition, input and output voltage, load levels, temperatures, alarms etc. offers operators invaluable insight into their critical infrastructure before issues can develop into more serious outages.
It also changes the maintenance mindset too. Rather than simply treating each UPS as an individual asset, operators can oversee their entire estate, identifying sites in need of attention and prioritising maintenance according to the actual condition of the equipment.
The objective isn’t simply to know when a UPS has failed, but to identify the changes in condition that could indicate an emerging problem, especially when the alternative is sending an engineer to investigate potentially hundreds of sites on a purely routine basis.
Over time, this shift from reactive maintenance to proactive, data-led monitoring and management can help optimise resources, reduce unnecessary site visits, and improve the overall lifecycle management of the UPS estate.
Rethinking The Edge
The biggest mistake our industry can make is to think of edge computing simply as the process of making data centres smaller. It is actually about making them different.
As critical computing and processing continue to move beyond traditional, purpose-built facilities, the power protection strategy needs to adapt too. Edge-ready UPS systems need to be compact and flexible enough for space-restricted settings, robust enough to handle harsher, less predictable environments, and connected and intelligent enough to be managed remotely.
Crucially, overall resilience needs to be designed in the context of the workload, the operational requirements, and the consequences of downtime, rather than the size of the building or power demand.
While edge computing may reduce the footprint of individual IT deployments, it expands the range of environments in which critical power protection must operate reliably. Our industry’s challenge isn’t simply putting more computing at the edge, it’s to ensure the power infrastructure supporting it is designed for the realities of being there.
