DC Professional Development

This course will help the student understand the most important design considerations of a mission critical data center, including: risk tolerance, reliability, maintainability, and proactive preventative maintenance.

This course will give students an understanding of downtime and the associated risks involved, as well as common causes. Practical tools will also be introduced to assist students in developing testing/commissioning policies, operations documentation and training procedures to reduce human error.

This course examines the maintenance of electrical systems and distribution equipment which are integral to ensuring continuous power to a critical infrastructure. Students will also explore the importance of how standards and regulations affect electrical maintenance safety, as well as how to choose the right maintenance approach.

All power is not created equal and poor power quality can put undue wear and tear on computers, data, and mission critical infrastructure. In this course, students will gain an insight into power quality and its impact on a facility, how to troubleshoot possible power problems, power monitoring, and the tolerances of computer equipment.

There is no doubt that Uninterruptible Power Systems are integral to the continuous supply of clean power for mission critical infrastructure. In order to understand the UPS systems and their influence on reliability, students will get an overview of UPS terminology, concepts of integrating various types of UPS systems, redundancy configuration, batteries, and energy storage systems.

A Static Transfer Switch (STS) is critical to any redundant power system supplying data center loads. In the event of a power loss, switching to an alternate source of power without dropping the load is vital. In order to understand the importance of STS’, an in-depth look at the major components, parameters, common locations, maintenance, and testing is required.

This course will introduce the student to all of the main disciplines associated with a data center (see list below). The material focuses on the important design considerations and the key skills required in order to understand the design concepts applicable to each discipline and their interdependencies.

During a power interruption, the ability to transfer the power load to an emergency source via an Automatic Transfer Switch (ATS) is of utmost importance to any facilities manager, especially when concerned with life safety and the availability of critical systems. A detailed view of ATS’ and their features, requirements, control devices, uses, and safety regulations are presented to foster better understanding of ATS’ and their relation to safety and reliability.

The US DOE “Save Energy Now” program has partnered with the industry in the development of a process leading to practitioners becoming qualified to evaluate the energy status and efficiency opportunities in data centers. The key objective of the Data Center Energy Practitioner (DCEP) Program is to accelerate energy savings in the dynamic and energy-intensive marketplace of data centers.

In an age where emergency preparedness is increasingly subject to public scrutiny, standby power has become a necessity. In addition, planning, emergency procedures and nonlinear load problems are important to the overall implementation and maintenance of an effective standby power system. This course covers all of the above, as well as the roles of management and users in an effective implementation.

The US DOE “Save Energy Now” program has partnered with the industry in the development of a process leading to practitioners becoming qualified to evaluate the energy status and efficiency opportunities in data centers. The key objective of the Data Center Energy Practitioner (DCEP) Program is to accelerate energy savings in the dynamic and energy-intensive marketplace of data centers.

Fuel quality is crucial to generator performance. Proper maintenance of fuel oil systems will assure good fuel quality and integrity thereby optimizing the reliability, service life, and performance of the engine generator. In addition to learning about proper fuel oil maintenance, design of fuel systems, proper testing and storage of fuel will also be discussed with the appropriate application of codes and standards.

This course explores an organisation’s ‘Green’ strategy as it relates to the effective use of energy through the IT power chain: from software, to ICT systems and its support infrastructure (mechanical and electrical systems) within the data center. It will assist data center professionals in identifying and implementing measures to improve the energy efficiency of their existing infrastructure as well as the selection of future technologies and services.

An introduction to fire detection, alarm and suppression within critical environments...

Within the built environment, data centers, often referred to as mission critical facilities, have particular power requirements that significantly impact how they are designed and operated. Balancing energy costs and infrastructure availability has become a key practice for data center professionals across the globe. This course has been developed to give individuals a more granular understanding of the key challenges that data center operators face when making infrastructure investments as well as the complexities of managing change.

A raised access floor creates a space between the floor slab and the underside of the access floor and provides space for building services such as air conditioning, fire detection and suppression, security and cabling for electric power, data, telecom/voice, and environmental control, to name a few. Design considerations with respect to loads, air flow requirements, safety concerns and others will be discussed as well as panel cutting and floor maintenance.

The fundamental physical nature of any data center is the conversion of electrical energy into heat and its subsequent dissipation. The so called ‘high density’ era has made thermal management of a data center facility a complex issue, one where availability and efficiency can often conflict. This course has been developed to give individuals a more granular understanding of the key challenges that data center operators face when making IT and network hardware investments and their effect on cooling infrastructure as well as the complexities of managing change.

A main requirement to consider in mission critical designs, servers and other electronic components exhaust massive amounts of heat during normal operation which must be cooled or risk overheating, which can seriously threaten the integrity of data and extensive damage to equipment. This module will address best practices in the design and operations of cooling systems in the data center.

This course looks at the procedures and systems commonly used to operate mission critical IT and telecommunications environments in a manner that maximises uptime and minimises human error.

This course module covers the advanced topics within the discipline of data center cooling; solutions that are designed for state or the art high density data center deployments, high performance computing, as well efficiency driven solutions such as fresh air cooling.

This course explicitly deals with an organisation’s strategy as it relates to the effective use of energy by software, ICT systems and support infrastructure (mechanical and electrical systems) within the data centre. It will impart an understanding of the use and cost of energy in data centres with an appreciation of the contributing factors, awareness of best practices at a high-level and strategies to control and manage energy efficiency in data centres. Those completing the course will also gain an understanding of what metering is required to comply with the CRC.

This course module looks at business continuity and how current regulations and policies impact the way organizations must operate with regard to data integrity, availability, and disaster recovery. The course also discusses the growing drive for energy efficiency and carbon regulation.

This course is currently in development and is will be available in 2012.

This course reviews the various airflow management strategies in use today so that students can understand the challenges caused by increasing thermal densities and the need for thermal control in a data center environment. Also discussed are the effects of sensible and latent cooling on efficiency and capacity.

This course focuses on Energy Security by discussing the potential of distributed generation, smart security and the Smart Grid, with particular relevance to the mission critical sector.