No one noticed anything, so it was a resounding success. We’re talking about the migration of LCL's uninterruptible power supply (UPS) in LCL Brussels-West and LCL Brussels-North. “Because we are growing together with our customers, a substantial increase in capacity was needed. The complex operation ensures that redundancy remains guaranteed for our customers while enhancing our energy efficiency.”
“Our customer base is growing and our customers are growing. These positive developments made it necessary to substantially increase our capacity in both LCL Brussels-North and LCL Brussels-West at short notice," says Steven Roelants, who, as Facilities Project Manager, has been in charge of commissioning the new UPS systems over the past few months. “In LCL Brussels-West, we are doubling capacity to 2x250kW each for the A and B feed. In LCL Brussels-North, capacity has been boosted by a third to 1500kW per feed with the ability to expand to 2400kW per feed without difficulty.”
Even though the existing UPS systems could still serve requirements for some time, LCL chose to make an additional investment and install a completely new system. Floris Smits, Project Department Manager: “The easiest thing would have been to build an additional system alongside the existing UPS in LCL Brussels-North, but we wanted to improve in all areas. Customers can now benefit from a state-of-the-art redundant system, while we avoid future patching work and the new units are much more reliable with an efficiency rate of up to 96%. ”
This more economical energy management – a gain of around 4% in LCL Brussels-West and 8% in LCL Brussels-North – translates into a lower PUE (power usage effectiveness), thus contributing to LCL's ESG goals.
LCL Brussels-West's "retired" batteries have been recycled by a specialist company in accordance with the applicable rules and regulations. The same fate befell the older half of the batteries at LCL Brussels-North. “The newest batteries from the A feed now serve the B feed, while the upgraded A feed was provided with a completely new set of redundant batteries," explains Steven Roelants.
The new UPS at LCL Brussels-West was commissioned in early March without LCL’s customers even noticing. LCL Brussels-North's upgraded UPS has also been operational since late May. “This was preceded by a lot of planning in the area of logistics and security combined with three weeks of preparatory work, plus four intensive migration days. LCL was in the driving seat for this in order to continuously monitor the works and the operation of the data center. The actual execution was specialist work that was taken care of by our regular and trusted suppliers.”
The fact that the migrations at LCL Brussels-West and LCL Brussels-North were completed without affecting the customers' servers at all should not be surprising, although it's no mean feat. Floris Smits: “Electricity is the lifeblood of our data centers and always passes through a UPS system to provide continuous voltage to our customers' servers. We filter out every ripple that occurs in the grid. If the external power supply fails, the batteries buffer until emergency generators take over and ensure continuity. Replacing a UPS is quite a feat, although it also demonstrates how LCL wants to move forward in a responsible way. With the reliable devices we have just put into service, we are already well positioned for the next 15 to 20 years.”
In addition to the LCL team, trusted vendors and partners also cooperated on these successful migrations. Kudos to the great work and expertise required: Bryon, PK Solutions, Socomec and P&L.
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