OREANDA-NEWS. September 18, 2012. I.T. Co. completed reconstruction project for Computer Center (CC) in the biggest Russian coal energy company – Irkutskenergo. The new CC has high failure resistance, ability to scaling and enables to apply resource-intensive business proposals.

Irkutskenergo is the biggest in Russia vertically integrated coal energy company supplying power to the citizens and industrial enterprises in the region. The company needed to expand the capacity of the existing computer center and ensure its efficiency in the long-term period to support stable operation, IT infrastructure extension and scheduled introduction of modern business applications.

Based on the results of the open tender, Irkutskenergo management assigned I.T. to reconstruct the computer center. The contractor for the project had two main tasks: develop modern engineering architecture for the computer centre able to adapt to changing requirements of IT environment, as well as increase the availability of the systems which affect the business of the customer.

I.T. Co. proposed to construct cost-efficient controlled CC engineering system on the basis of APC InfraStruXure architecture. After designing process platform to locate the equipment, uninterruptible power supply and precision air-conditioning, the design team installed and commissioned the reconstructed computer center.

I.T. specialists located 10 high-load server racks and switchboard system in the area allocated for the center. Air-conditioning system with air cooling (InRow Direct Expansion) and “hot” and “cold” air corridors system were used to improve cooling efficiency inside the computer center. Ambient parameters are monitored in racks using APC Netbotz system which activates temperature and humidity gauges.

Uninterruptible operation of process and engineering equipment was ensured by applying uninterruptible guaranteed power supply system. And with this, uninterruptible power supply system and internal cooling units are backed up based on scheme N + 1. Operational control and engineering complex management is performed with centralized automatic operator locations monitoring and control system InfraStruXure Central 5.0. In addition to parallel control over the devices, this platform supports trends analysis and event logging features for all computer center components.

The area of the computer center is equipped with gas fire extinguishing system as well as CCTV and access control systems.

"During reconstruction project for the computer center, I.T. solved complex engineering task: all works were performed with the running equipment without stopping computer resources. This is due to specific use of some applications which operate 24/7/12,” said Andrey Nikolayevich Prudnikov, Head, Information Technologies, Irkutskenergo OJSC. “I am sure that retrofitting CC infrastructure will allow for centralized and efficient extension of the computer capacity, as well as increase in controllability of information environment at the company’s scale.”