DATA CENTERS
PDSVISION supports operational efficiency, compliance, reliability and sustainability
Minimizing energy, maximizing availability & maintaining security
A data center is a facility designed to house and manage computer systems, servers, and networking equipment that store, process, and distribute large volumes of data and applications. These centers operate 24/7, providing the infrastructure for various online services, cloud computing, and digital operations of businesses and organizations. As computing and power requirements increase, data centers also face the challenge of maintaining environmental temperature stability while minimizing energy usage.
Many stakeholders are involved in the development of a new data center, including consultants, architects, owners, operators, and maintainers. Consequently, the design is driven by thousands of requirements as summarised by ISO/IEC 22237, covering service availability, energy consumption, power distribution, environmental controls, telecommunications, and physical and cyber security, among many other objectives.
With over 500 staff in 15 countries, PDSVISION has a proven record within data center design and operation around the world, supporting your technical assurance, project compliance, security, and sustainability requirements through leading software and consultancy solutions.
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The focus of data center design and operation is minimizing energy usage and maximizing availability while maintaining security
Satisfying Availability and other SLA Demands
We have extensive experience in providing businesses with Availability, Reliability, and Maintainability (ARM) consultancy analysis for complex redundant data centers, following IEE 493 “Gold Book” principles. We can calculate availability, identify critical components, and calculate spare parts provisions.
We are highly experienced in reliability techniques such as Failure Mode and Effects Analysis (FMEA), Weibull, Reliability Block Diagram (RBD), and Common Cause Failure (CCF) Analysis.
For clients who would like to undertake their ARM studies, we supply the leading reliability and risk management tools from ReliaSoft and PTC.
Improving Reliability and Energy Usage Through Cooling & Thermal Management Analysis
As computing and power requirements increase, data centers face the challenge of maintaining environmental temperature stability while minimizing energy usage. We are experienced in helping centers investigate and propose new cooling and ventilation strategies when expanding or refitting their equipment within fixed spatial constraints.
As an Ansys partner, our expertise in 1D and 3D computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulation to model both air and liquid cooling enables us to consider data center environments at both compartmental and systems levels to help you improve your Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE). We are familiar with ASHRAE’s thermal guidelines for data processing and endeavor to support the best layout and ventilation design practices. This includes assessing the feasibility of re-engineering air flows, including balancing cold air supply and warm air extraction, room layouts, underfloor flows, and ducting modification.
Assessing External Ventilation and Wind Behaviour within the Built Environment
In addition to generating insight into internal airflows within data centers, our extensive experience in wind engineering over 15 years enables us to assess the risk of ventilation short-circuiting, where hot exhaust air is inadvertently recirculated due to external wind effects around the building. We can also provide advice on mitigating the effects of challenging climatical conditions on the exterior design of the buildings in terms of visitor/employee comfort and safety.
Managing Requirements with Traceability and Security
Minimizing the risk of not satisfying stakeholder requirements and SLAs while demonstrating compliance efficiently can be achieved by adopting a systems engineering approach with Application Lifecycle Management (ALM). We can help you overcome the complexity of managing all the requirements of your new data center and avoid dependence on traditional, cumbersome spreadsheets that inhibit collaboration and transparency.
Codebeamer from PTC is our complete lifecycle solution for requirements, risk, and test management, with full traceability tracking throughout a data center project to link needs to solutions and tests. It supports reuse and modular design with a systems-of-systems approach while optionally integrating with Windchill PLM for BOM and change management.
Risks and requirements can be further managed for data center security analysis by connecting Codebeamer to our Ansys medini analyze for Cybersecurity model-based security analysis tool. In addition to supporting your implementation of this digital thread, we provide consulting applying the systematic TARA method, including threat identification, assessment, and vulnerability analysis.
Enabling Connectivity with Digital Twins
Creating a Digital Twin, or virtual representation, of a data center enables the operator to model the behavior of the overall system under various scenarios, simulating the effect of proposed or actual changes in environmental or process conditions on availability and efficiency. This twin can then be used to predict failures and develop maintenance and asset management strategies while identifying opportunities for process improvement, such as energy usage.
A Digital Twin uses sensors to measure the physical conditions within the data center, which then informs the digital model, often using 1D or 3D CFD to simulate thermal behavior. We support the development of digital twins through the combination of PTC and Ansys technology, together with our expertise in IoT and numerical modeling services. For example, our Kepware solutions first enable the secure, reliable, and seamless connection of sensors and devices to software. ThingWorx can then analyze and make sense of the data before connecting to Ansys Twin Builder for real-time simulations, leveraging 1D Reduced Order Models (ROMs), Modelica libraries, and AI-powered hybrid analytics.
Case Study – ABB
Leading Data Center Infrastructure Management Platform Integrates KEPServerEX® to Expand Connectivity
ABB Process Automation is home to Decathlon® for Data Centers, which provides users the visibility, decision support, and centralized controls needed to effectively automate and manage data center infrastructure.
Read the full story
PDSVISION Data Center Solutions
PDSVISION builds and enables the following key capabilities so that you can collaborate across the value chain to smoothly manage product complexities, variability, and the cycle time:
- Availability
Creating system reliability models to support target Availability requirements (typical 99.999%). - Thermal Management
Simulating air and/or liquid cooling systems using 1D and 3D CFD.
- Wind Engineering
Ensure suitable placement of external venting and cooling and power generation equipment to avoid re-circulation due to climatic conditions. - Traceability & Security
Enabling SLA and Cybersecurity compliance with powerful yet intuitive modern Requirements Management and Threat Analysis / Risk Assessment tools
- Digital Twin
Enabling connectivity between Data Center Infrastructure Management and sensors for critical Data Center Assets - Digital Transformation
Partnerships with PTC, Ansys, and ReliaSoft to implement a digital thread within your organization.
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