Standardization

and Modularity in
Network-Critical
Physical Infrastructure

By Suzanne Niles

White Paper #116

Executive Summary
Failure to adopt modular standardization as a design strategy for Network-Critical Physical

Infrastructure (NCPI) is costly on all fronts: unnecessary expense, avoidable downtime, and

lost business opportunity. Standardization and its close relative, modularity, create wide-

ranging benefits in NCPI that streamline and simplify every process from initial planning to

daily operation, with significant positive effects on all three major components of NCPI

business value – availability, agility, and total cost of ownership.

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Introduction
Standardization so pervades modern life that we hardly notice it. From driving a car to replacing a battery,
its influence is at work behind the scenes to make things more convenient, predictable, affordable, under-
standable, and safe. When we buy a light bulb, we know it will fit in the lamp socket. Our train travel is not
interrupted at the border, as it once was, while our railcar is raised up and refitted with different wheels to
match the track in the next state. Standardization is a powerful concept that has established itself as a
critical ally in managing progress.

Despite standardization’s long track record of success in streamlining business, Network-Critical Physical
Infrastructure (NCPI) has missed the turn. A steady trend toward chaos has been at work in this industry
but, unlike other industries, there has been no catalyst strong enough to initiate a reversal – nothing as
publicly absurd as the switching of train wheels, nor as shocking as the 1904 Baltimore fire in which the city
burned down because mutual aid from other cities couldn’t
connect to Baltimore’s hydrants.
NCPI
Systems analysts from any other mature industry would be Network-Critical Physical
Infrastructure
aghast at the level of complexity and inconsistency that exists
NCPI is the foundation upon which IT and
today in the NCPI of thousands of data centers worldwide. telecommunication networks reside.
Lacking impetus from public scrutiny or broad industry interest
NCPI includes:
in change, it is left for the industry’s users to self examine – to
• Power
call up their own experience and business sense to help • Cooling
instigate the turn toward the more stable and productive • Racks and physical structure
• Cabling
climate of standardization. The mission of this paper is to
• Physical security and fire protection
show that there is a catalyst: the NCPI user’s substantial • Management systems
entitlement to eliminate the significant business cost of • Services
unnecessary downtime, lost opportunity, and expense caused For more about NCPI see APC White Paper
by human error, lack of agility, and data center oversizing. #117, “Network-Critical Physical Infrastruc-
ture: Optimizing Business Value.”
Mistakes and waste are early and welcome casualties of
standardization.

In recent decades, the old idea of standardization has gained new stature in other industries as a creative
and compelling strategic enterprise philosophy. Similar success can be achieved by applying
standardization to the design, deployment, and operation of Network-Critical Physical Infrastructure (NCPI).1

1
Standardization vs. “standards” The focus of this paper is the use of standardization in the design and delivery of a
product or process, toward the goal of delivering new or increased benefits to users. “Standards” – meaning industry-wide
specifications and codes established by bodies such as ISO and IEEE – are another kind of standardization, profoundly
significant to industry and commerce but not the subject of this paper.

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Beyond classic upgrades such as mass production and compatible connections, opportunities for
standardization populate nearly every aspect of NCPI product and process. The starting point is the design
of NCPI equipment itself; this alone provides widespread and significant benefits, as described in this paper.
From that foundation, users can carry the idea forward to its broader potential by applying standardization to
the processes of their data center, and – for IT operations involving more than one data center – by using
the same NCPI configuration and processes throughout all data centers. The payoff for users is a broad
array of immediate and long-term benefits that reach from daily operation to the bottom line.

Roadmap for this paper

Standardization’s historical record of economic success speaks for itself and needs no further analysis here.
The use of standardization in NCPI, however, requires careful attention because its critical value to the IT
landscape is not yet widely understood. Here is how the major sections of this paper will present
standardization as a new business strategy for NCPI:

Standardization vs. Uniqueness

Both of these have their proper place in business and in life, but infrastructure of any kind is a clear
candidate for standardization, not uniqueness. The contrary trend in NCPI has been toward one-time
unique engineering, which has led to systems that are difficult to design, deploy, maintain, and
manage.

Fundamental Characteristics of Standardized NCPI

Standardizing NCPI introduces two simple but powerful fundamental NCPI
Standardization
characteristics, modular building-block architecture and
increased human learning. Their intrinsic value is intuitive –
Building-block
Increased
most adults can remember the limitless ways of configuring architecture HUMAN
LEARNING
children’s blocks, and no one questions the benefits of learning.
Their combined influence on NCPI is profound. From these two
fundamental characteristics come an array of benefits that spread
throughout the infrastructure and touch nearly every aspect of it.
Benefits
contribute
to
How Standardization Drives NCPI Business Value business
value
The clincher for modular standardization is its multi-faceted, point by point
contribution to NCPI “business value” – benefit received per dollar spent.
The benefits that flow from modular architecture and increased
human learning contribute in multiple ways to every one of the three Availability Agility
Value
major components of NCPI business value: availability, agility, and TCO
total cost of ownership (TCO). (For more about this NCPI business
NCPI business value
value equation and why it is an appropriate metric, see APC White
Paper #117, “Network-Critical Physical Infrastructure:
Optimizing Business Value.”)

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Standardization vs. Uniqueness
Standardization and uniqueness are familiar opposites. It is not difficult to recognize the crucial, but very
distinct, roles played by the two; everyday experience is filled with examples of how each has its proper
place in the effective delivery of a product or process.

Uniqueness is not for infrastructure

Uniqueness can be a wonderful thing. A striking building, Mom’s peach pie, a piano sonata, art of every kind
– no one would argue that standardization has any place in experiences valued for their sensory qualities or
other interesting characteristics. Certain things are intended to be unique, and they are the better for it.

Infrastructure is different. Infrastructure consists of system underpinnings that support and deliver the part of
the system we are actually interested in. In each of the above examples there are elements that can be
considered “infrastructure”: the building’s construction materials, Mom’s measuring spoons, the piano keys,
the canvas that holds the paint. The job of infrastructure is to be functional and reliable – it is just supposed
to work.

The time-tested characteristic that makes infrastructure effective, reliable, predictable, and worry-free is the
opposite of uniqueness; it is standardization. Because of standardization, the infrastructure of our day-to-
day pursuits has become part of the woodwork of modern life – so commonplace and commonsense that we
rarely think about it. One would expect data center infrastructure to follow the same paradigm, but until now
there has been little movement in that direction. Nearly 40 years after its birth, IT physical infrastructure is
still, in many ways, a craft industry: disparate components from different vendors are typically custom
engineered into one large infrastructure system that is unique to the facility.

Unique NCPI means unique problems

One-time engineering of an entire NCPI results in a unique system, with unique problems that require unique
diagnosis and repair – a process that is not only expensive and time-consuming, but also provides little
learning that can be applied to further unique problems in the future, or to problems at other data centers in
the organization. Standardization eliminates the need for one-time engineering and eliminates the overhead
of dealing with unique problems in the infrastructure, freeing up resources for developing the data
processing functionality of the IT layer supported by the infrastructure, which is the real mission of the data
center.

The goal of NCPI standardization is to drive out the inefficiencies and error-prone complexity of one-time
unique engineering – to transparently manage the routine business of IT physical infrastructure and create
that same signature quality expected of any infrastructure: it just works.

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Configurable solutions using standardized building blocks
Customization of connections and components simply to get things to work (the Rube Goldberg effect) adds
no real value; it merely introduces complexity and increases opportunities for human error. However, the
ability to configure – and reconfigure – NCPI size or functionality to fit rapidly changing business needs is
critical to the effectiveness and value of NCPI.

How can standardization be used to advantage when a critical IT requirement is flexibility? As this paper will
show, the key to harnessing the power of standardization in a changeable environment is modularity – pre-
engineered, standardized building blocks that can be configured as the user wishes (Figure 1). The ability
to quickly assemble standardized components into a logical and understandable configuration to respond to
changing functional and financial requirements is one of the primary benefits of NCPI standardization – it is
called agility.

Figure 1 – Unique engineering vs. standardized modular building blocks

Unique one-time engineering Standardized modular components

Good for art, bad for infrastructure Changeable, scalable, repeatable,
understandable, integrated

One step further: Standardized data centers

NCPI designed this way – configured from standardized modular elements – provides significant benefits in
the deployment and operation of a data center, as described throughout this paper. For broader IT
operations that span multiple data centers, the benefits of standardization can be extended even further by
deploying the same, or similar, NCPI at all installations – incorporating standardization not only within a data
center but also across data centers. Data centers that are the same in as many respects as possible – from
the same floor plan to the same labels on circuit breakers – take full advantage of standardization’s
enormous potential for efficiencies in design, installation, operation, maintenance, error avoidance, and cost.
Most of the benefits described in this paper are magnified significantly when standardized NCPI is deployed
in multiple data centers.

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Fundamental Characteristics of Standardized NCPI
The benefits of standardization in NCPI affect every dimension: the way it occupies physical space, its
functionality, and its evolution over time – from initial design and installation to reconfiguration at each
refresh cycle. These benefits take a variety of forms and occur in many places throughout NCPI structure
and process, but nearly all can be traced, in one way or another, to two powerful fundamental attributes of
standardized NCPI: modular building-block architecture and increased human learning (Figure 2).
These characteristics create benefits that propagate throughout the infrastructure, combining in a cumulative
positive effect on nearly every aspect of NCPI.

Figure 2 – Modular architecture and increased human learning

are two fundamental characteristics of standardized NCPI

Standardized
NCPI
Makes things …

Modular Understandable

Building-block
Increased
architecture HUMAN
LEARNING

Value added to EQUIPMENT Value added to PEOPLE

• Scalable • Avoid errors

• Changeable • Anticipate problems
• Portable • Share knowledge
• Swappable • Increase productivity

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Modularity: Divide and standardize
The cornerstone of standardization in NCPI is modularity. Modularity is achieved by dividing up a complete
product or process into smaller chunks – modules – of similar size or functionality that can be assembled as
needed to create variations of the original product/process. Flashlight batteries are a familiar example:
batteries (modules) are combined in different numbers to obtain varying amounts of power. Blade servers
and RAID arrays are examples of modularity in IT equipment – multiple units combined to create varying
amounts of server or storage capacity. Modules needn’t be identical: Lego™ bricks are modular, but they
are in some ways the same and in some ways different – color, size, and shape are different, but sizes and
connections are standardized so that the bricks (modules) can work together as an integrated system.
Different modular systems incorporate different
amounts of sameness and difference – that is,
varying levels of standardization – into their modules, Modularity and “Component Count”
depending upon the desired goal in dividing up Modularity is a powerful new concept in this industry.
functionality. Unless classic reliability analysis is updated to include it,
modularity’s substantial advantage to users risks
misunderstanding and potentially expensive delays in
acceptance.
Flashlight batteries, blade servers, and RAID arrays
are examples of very basic modularity, with little or Modularizing a system can, in some cases, increase the
number of internal components – for example, large UPS
no variation in the units that make up a complete
capacity modularized into a bank of smaller power
system. A more complex system with multiple modules will increase the number of certain electrical
components and connectors. To be valid, reliability
functions to be integrated – such as NCPI – requires analysis of modular systems must consider component
careful engineering by the manufacturer in order to design, function, and dependencies, and not just rely on
simple multiplication of parts. Further, reliability analysis
modularize in ways that optimize the balance based on component count alone is incomplete – even
between level of standardization and amount of potentially misleading – because it leaves out the new
and overriding reliability advantages of modular structure,
flexibility to users. NCPI provides opportunities for most importantly:
effective modular design at a variety of levels. Some
• Swappable modules can be removed for
examples: factory service, enabling continuous
quality improvement in which defects are
diagnosed at the factory and engineered
• Interchangeable UPS power and battery out as they are discovered (this process is
called “reliability growth” in systems
modules. Enables scalability of power, analysis).
redundancy, and runtime and can be hot-
• Modules are manufactured in much
swapped for repair without system shutdown. greater quantity than a larger non-modular
system, increasing even further the quality
improvements already inherent in mass
• Standardized modular wiring distribution. production.
Breaks down room wiring into row-level or • The generally smaller size of modules
rack-level modules. Eliminates confusing (compared to non-modular design) tends
to mean less manual work during manu-
and mistake-prone wiring tangles, and facture.
simplifies and speeds the process of unplug- • Modular design allows for the considerable
rearrange-reconnect. Modular power reliability advantage of fault tolerance –
redundant modules operating in parallel,
distribution can range from rack-sized units allowing for individual module failure without
affecting overall system performance.
that serve an entire row to power strips that .
serve a single rack.

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 • Rack-level air distribution. Breaks down room airflow into local control at the racks for precise
cooling of hot spots.

• High-density clusters. Integration of racks, power distribution, and cooling into a self-contained,
enclosed “room” to isolate and cool heat-intensive IT equipment. (In this case, a “module” is the
whole integrated cluster.)

Modular components with standardized structure and connections make everything easier, faster, and
cheaper – from manufacture and inventory at the vendor, through design and engineering at the planning
table, to installation and operation at the customer site. Modular design is the source of one critically
important component of NCPI business value (agility, the ability to respond to changing or unexpected
business opportunities) and a major contributor to the other two (availability and total cost of ownership).

• Modular systems are scalable. Modular NCPI can be deployed at a level that meets current IT
needs, with the ability to add more later. This ability to “rightsize” can provide a significant reduction
in total cost of ownership.

• Modular systems are changeable. Modular design provides great flexibility in reconfiguring NCPI to
meet changing IT requirements.

• Modular systems are portable. Self-contained components, standard interfaces, and

understandable structure save time and money when modular systems are installed, upgraded,
reconfigured, or moved.

• Modular components are swappable. Modules that fail can be easily swapped out for upgrades or
repair – often without system shutdown.

The portable and swappable nature of modular components allows work to be done at the factory, both
before delivery (such as pre-wiring of power distribution units) or after (such as the repair of power modules).
In-factory work has, statistically, a far lower rate of defects than work done on site – for example, factory-
repaired UPS power modules are 500-2000 times less likely to cause outages, introduce new defects, or
inhibit return to fully operational status compared to field-repaired modules. The ability to perform factory
2
repair is a significant reliability advantage.

For larger IT operations that occupy multiple facilities, modular architecture facilitates keeping as much as
possible the same between installations (see earlier paragraph, One step further: Standardized data centers.)
Selected elements of a master NCPI design can be modified, added, or eliminated to accommodate
differences in size or function between data centers without affecting other parts of the design, thereby
maximizing the extent of infrastructure the data centers have in common.

2
Based on reliability studies by MTechnology, Inc.

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Human learning: The power of understanding
Modularity enhances the effectiveness of equipment. Understandability enhances the effectiveness of
people. Standardization is, by its nature, a simplifying process; a standardized system facilitates learning at
every level. Increased knowledge and understanding enables people to work more efficiently and with fewer
mistakes, helps them to teach others, and empowers them to participate in problem-solving. In a
standardized environment, things are not only more understandable but also more predictable and
repeatable, making problems less likely to occur and easier to recognize when they do.

When things are easier to understand and more predictable, they are easier to explain, to document, to
operate, to troubleshoot, and to fix. As these effects build upon each other, they enable staff to:

• Avoid errors. The most significant human-learning effect of standardization is reduced human
error in the data center. Studies have shown that human error is the cause of 50-60% of data center
3
downtime, and the potential to reduce it represents the single largest user entitlement to increased
availability. Reducing human error is a classic benefit of standardization – from fewer errors in a
standardized assembly process to fewer errors in diagnosing trouble in a standardized system.
Standardized systems make documentation and training easier and more effective, resulting in more
skilled staff who are less likely to make mistakes. Standardized controls, interfaces, and
connections provide additional protection by making correct operation more self-evident. If
documentation itself is standardized, error-avoidance is further enhanced by having information
easily accessible in expected places and formats.

• Anticipate problems. Understanding how things work, combined with standardized procedures for
such things as equipment monitoring and predictive maintenance, is a powerful defense against
what might otherwise be considered “unexpected.”

• Share knowledge. Having structure and function “make sense” fosters ongoing learning by
encouraging sharing of information – when people understand things, they are more likely to engage
in conversation, collaborate on analysis and problem-solving, and learn from each other. This
enhanced climate of knowledge and insight permeates everything that needs to be done with, or
understood about, NCPI.

• Increase productivity. As these learning effects interact and proliferate, there is an overall
increase in productivity. A more knowledgeable staff means that time spent on NCPI-related
matters is used more efficiently. With equipment and procedures easier to understand, less time is
spent training and being trained. With reduced human error, less time is spent recovering from
human-caused problems and less help desk time is spent responding to calls related to such
problems. All these economies of time free up human resources for the functional business of the
data center – the work of the IT equipment that is powered, cooled, and protected by NCPI – rather
than for management of the NCPI layer itself.

3
Based on studies by The Uptime Institute, 7x24 Exchange, and confidential analysis by major financial firms using large-
scale data centers.

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 Mass Production and Interchangeable Parts: Looking Back

The standardization of components enables dramatic economies in the production, delivery, and servicing of goods. The
most well-known of these is the ability to mass produce a product. Although the idea has been around since the 1100’s,
when the Venice Arsenal in Italy produced nearly a ship a day using assembly lines and mass produced parts, it was
reintroduced in the Industrial Age by Henry Ford’s famous moving assembly lines and task-oriented workers.

While Henry Ford’s assembly lines demonstrated the dazzling improvements in Benefits of
production capacity, cost reduction, quality, and delivery speed that can be Mass Production
obtained by mass producing a complex product, the previous century had
already seen the use of mass production for another important purpose: • Lower cost
not just benefits in the assembly of a product, but also in the production of • Higher quality
interchangeable parts – in particular, firearms parts. Eli Whitney amazed • Easier servicing
Washington officials in 1801 by demonstrating that he could make ten gun- • More product capabilities
locks by selecting randomly from ten piles of gunlock parts he had brought
• Faster delivery
from his new musket factory. Standardized, interchangeable parts enabled
battlefield repair of rifles and introduced a critical new capacity: field service.* Standardization of parts and processes
Craftsman in workshops making custom-fit parts for the creation and repair of one is what enables mass production
item at a time were rapidly overtaken by mass production in factories and on-site parts
replacement. Quality went up, cost went down, delivery time was slashed, and service was
streamlined.

*The NCPI equivalent of field service using interchangeable parts is swappable modules.

One type of human error that is reduced before the user even sees the product is human-caused
manufacturing defects. Standardized modular design maximizes the opportunity to mass produce, which
drives out human error in the manufacturing process by the repeatable nature of standardized assembly and
by the increased ability to recognize and eliminate defects in such a process.

How Standardization Drives NCPI Business Value

As shown in the previous section, modular structure and increased human learning – two fundamental and
empowering characteristics of standardized NCPI – provide a wide range of direct and commonsense
benefits. This section will look at standardization more closely, and from a different viewpoint – a bottom-line
viewpoint – to demonstrate, point by point, the value of standardization to the enterprise. Modularity and
increased human learning spawn benefits in three critical areas of performance which, taken together,
constitute the business value of NCPI.

The NCPI business value “equation”

What gives Network-Critical Physical Infrastructure high business value? Since its primary function is to
keep the IT operation up and running, availability is the first component of NCPI business value. The ability
to respond quickly to changing IT needs is also critical to success, making agility another important
component. The total cost of buying and operating NCPI over its lifetime – total cost of ownership, or TCO –
is the third major component of business value (Figure 3). (For more about NCPI business value, see APC
White Paper #117, “Network-Critical Physical Infrastructure: Optimizing Business Value.”

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 Figure 3 – The NCPI business value equation

Availability Agility
Value
TCO

Things that increase availability or agility and things that decrease total cost of ownership are drivers of
NCPI business value. In a remarkable network of causes and effects, standardization creates benefits that
simultaneously drive all three of these “performance vectors.”

How standardization increases AVAILABILITY

Availability Agility
The major factors affecting availability (Figure 4) are
Value
TCO
• Reliability of equipment – Increased equipment
reliability means reduced risk of downtime.

• Mean time to recover (MTTR) – Faster recovery after failure means less downtime.

• Human error – Less human error means less downtime.

Figure 4 – Standardization improves all major AVAILABILITY factors

AVAILABILITY

Reduce
Increase Reduce
HUMAN
RELIABILITY MTTR ERROR

MODULAR
STANDARDIZATION

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Reliability of equipment. Standardized modular components can be mass produced in greater volume
than non-modularized systems, which reduces production defects. Modular components can be returned to
the manufacturer for factory service, which greatly improves the quality of repairs. (For more about these
two advantages, see earlier section, Fundamental Characteristics of Standardized NCPI.) In addition,
modular systems with standardized hookups can be
configured at the factory the same way they will be
A New/Old Idea
configured on site, allowing for factory pre-testing to
discover defects. Standardized modular components In recent years the centuries-old idea of
facilitate internal redundancy (no downtime at the time standardization has become the focus of innovative
business strategies to streamline the design,
of component failure) and hot-swap replacement (no
manufacture, and delivery of products and services.
downtime during swap-out of a failed component). Southwest Airlines has become, quite literally, a
Standardized equipment monitoring systems enable textbook example of corporate-wide standardization.
By standardizing their product (open seating, equal
easy-to-understand management tools that encourage
prices), operations (one IT platform for everything) and
predictive maintenance to identify problems before equipment (only one kind of plane) they have become
they escalate from trouble to major expense, and to one of the best on-time performing, lowest cost,
reduce reliance on scheduled preventative highest quality – not to mention friendliest – airlines in
the industry. Toyota Motor Company, also the frequent
maintenance, which creates additional exposure to
subject of business analysis, stays consistently in the
human error. top ranks of automobile quality by an aggressive
commitment to “lean manufacturing,” which reduces
defects as well as costs by simplifying, then
Mean time to recover (MTTR). A failed modular
standardizing, every step of the manufacturing
component can be quickly swapped-out for process.
replacement, so recovery isn’t delayed while waiting
Techniques may differ by industry, but the underlying
for repair. Standardization makes things easier to
principle is the same: standardization, strategically
understand and operate, making diagnosis of applied, creates efficiencies in a multitude of ways that
problems faster and increasing the potential for contribute to business value.

diagnosis and correction by the user.

Human error. Of all the ways to increase availability, reducing human error offers by far the greatest
opportunity. With standardized equipment and procedures, functionality is more transparent, routines are
simplified and easier to learn, and things operate as expected – all reducing the likelihood of everything from
typing the wrong command to pulling the wrong plug.

How standardization increases AGILITY

Agility is the ability to respond quickly and effectively to business Availability Agility
opportunity, necessity, or change (referred to as “on demand” in IT Value
TCO
marketing). An agile NCPI targets three critical goals:

• Speed of deployment. Speed in the design and installation of a new facility, the move to a new
location, or the implementation of a reconfiguration.

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 • Ability to scale. The ability to deploy at a level that supports present IT requirements, and increase
capacity later by adding on as IT needs grow.

• Ability to reconfigure. The ability to reconfigure and reuse existing equipment without upheaval or
waste.

Standardization in the form of standardized modular building blocks – modularity – has a major impact on
agility, with significant benefits to all three major contributing factors (Figure 5).

Figure 5 – Standardization improves all major AGILITY factors

AGILITY

Deployment Ability to Ability to

SPEED SCALE RECONFIGURE

MODULAR
STANDARDIZATION

Speed of deployment. With modular components, planning and design is faster because the system’s
structure can be configured in a logical way that aligns with design objectives, both in the physical
arrangement of units and by using only the number and type of units needed to meet the current IT
requirements. Deployment does not have to wait while management tries to justify the expense of an
oversized data center design that attempts to predict the future ten years out. Special NCPI requirements
don’t adversely affect planning time because flexibility of design is built into modular architecture. Delivery is
faster because standardized, mass-produced units can be inventoried and ordered “off the shelf.” On-site
configuration and hookup is faster not only because connections are standardized and simplified, but also
because there is less equipment to install when using only the number of building blocks needed.
Commissioning is faster because standardized modules can be connected up at the factory just as they will
be on site, allowing for factory pre-test. Compared to traditional “legacy” all-in-one-piece infrastructure with

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static custom design and one-time engineering, these efficiencies combine to cut concept-to-commissioning
time from months to weeks, and reconfiguration time from weeks to days.

In addition, the time taken at all stages of Is There a Tradeoff?

deployment is further shortened by the next
Q: Modular architecture improves agility, but does it
attribute – the ability to scale the design to meet
compromise availability or TCO ?
only current IT requirements, thereby deploying a
smaller infrastructure with less equipment than in
Availability Agility
typical legacy systems.
Value
TCO
Ability to scale. With modular building-block
architecture, functionality is available in bite-sized
A: No, availability and TCO are not compromised by
pieces that can be optimally configured for IT modular architecture – in fact, they are improved by it.
spaces of any size, from wiring closets to large data The remarkable thing about modular standardization is
centers. Of even greater significance is the ability to that it simultaneously benefits all three components of
NCPI business value.
design the infrastructure to support only the IT
requirements needed at startup. Then, as IT
Availability Agility
requirements increase, more building blocks can be
Value
added without re-engineering the whole system and TCO
without the need for shutdown of critical equipment.
This strategy of “rightsizing” can result in significant Availability is improved – Swappable modules reduce
MTTR, understandable structure increases manageability
cost savings over the life of the data center. (See
and reduces human error. Hot-swappable modules can
APC White Paper #37, “Avoiding Costs From be replaced without downtime. Modules can be config-
Oversizing Data Center and Network Room ured to run in parallel to take advantage of fault tolerant
Infrastructure.”) reliability strategies. Modules can be returned to the
manufacturer for factory service, which (1) is much more
reliable than on-site service, and (2) enables factory
Ability to reconfigure. With typical IT refresh engineers to identify defects and design them out
cycles of two years, the ability to reconfigure, (“reliability growth”). Modules can be mass produced in
greater quantities, which reduces defects.
upgrade, or move is a significant component of
NCPI agility. Modular elements can be unplugged, TCO is improved – Actual equipment cost of standardized
rearranged, and reconnected. Beyond reconfig- modular equipment is comparable to traditional
equipment, and other costs are significantly lower: Non-
uration driven by business need, there is also the
equipment capital costs (planning, design, installation) are
steady increase in power density of IT equipment reduced by modular structure, total equipment cost is
resulting from shrinking physical size – blade reduced because initial overbuilding is avoided, and
operating cost over data center lifetime is reduced by
servers – which will periodically require recon-
rightsizing that matches IT needs.
figuration of racks, power, and cooling. Modular
hot-swappable components also provide the ability
to reconfigure for different levels of redundancy, different voltages, or different plug types. Not only does
modular structure simplify the physical process of disconnecting, moving, and reconnecting, but the
manufacturer’s careful design of the equipment’s modularity can minimize the need for redesign and
maximize the ability to reuse equipment in a new configuration.

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How standardization reduces total cost of ownership (TCO)
The third component of NCPI business value is total cost of ownership Availability Agility
Value
(TCO) over the lifetime of the data center. The major components of
TCO
TCO (Figure 6) are

• Capital cost. The cost of everything from planning and design up until the moment the system is
turned on and begins doing its job. (Surprisingly, capital cost has historically often been the only
cost considered when considering NCPI business value.)

• Non-energy operating cost. Operating cost, other than the cost of energy – operating staff,
training, maintenance, and repair.

• Energy cost. The electric utility bill.

Figure 6 – Standardization improves all major TCO factors

MODULAR
STANDARDIZATION

Reduce Reduce
Reduce Non-Energy
CAPITAL ENERGY
OPERATING Cost
Cost Cost

TCO

Capital cost. Standardized modular architecture reduces capital cost in two major ways: (1) It enables the
infrastructure size to be scaled to align more closely with present IT requirements, rather than building out
initial capacity to support the maximum projected requirements – you only buy what you need – and (2) its
straightforward and understandable structure simplifies every step of the deployment process, from planning
to installation. That simplification means less time spent in each stage, and often means a reduced need to
bring in outside help. For example, standardized modular power distribution at the rack level provides cost
savings from both scalability and simplicity: power and cabling can be deployed for only the racks installed,
reducing the need for electrical contract work to wire the room. Similarly, standardized modular rack units

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stored in any retrieval system of any nature, without the written permission of the copyright owner. www.apc.com Rev 2005-0
with integrated cabling and airflow provide infrastructure scalability and simplified design and installation that
minimizes the need for design consulting and custom installation services. (For more about the substantial
cost savings that can be obtained from properly scaling infrastructure size – “rightsizing” – see APC White
Paper #37, “Avoiding Costs From Oversizing Data Center and Network Room Infrastructure.”)

Non-energy Operating cost. Simplified, easy- How Did Things Get This Way?
to-learn design means training is faster and
more effective, and operation/maintenance
procedures are more efficient and less prone to
mistakes. Standardized, understandable
equipment and procedures mean more
maintenance can be done by IT staff, reducing
the need for vendor-supplied maintenance.
Standardized equipment monitoring systems
enable easy-to-understand management tools
that encourage predictive maintenance to
identify problems before they escalate from The NCPI industry is behind in its evolution toward standard-
ization in large part because its component elements (UPS,
trouble to major expense. Standardized power distribution, controls, cooling) are technologically
modular components enable swapping out of dissimilar and traditionally manufactured by different vendors.

modules for factory service, which is more In such an environment:

reliable and less expensive than on-site repair.
• Procurement bidding focuses on the low bid for each
Fewer help-desk resources are needed to component, not on suitability for integrated use.
support downtime-related issues, because of • The focus is on specifications and reliability of individual
the overall improvement in availability (see components, diverting attention from integrated system
performance.
earlier section How Standardization Increases
• Infrastructure components are one-time engineered into a
AVAILABILITY). unique monolithic platform by consulting engineers
designing the IT space. Unique is the opposite of
standardized.
Energy cost. Electricity cost over the lifetime
• The fragmented nature of the equipment supply is
of the data center is the single largest reflected in inconsistent design philosophies among
component of TCO. Scaling the infrastructure manufacturers, consulting engineers, owners, and IT
managers.
to meet present IT needs, with the ability to add
on incrementally as IT needs grow, means you
only power and cool what you need. The resulting savings in electricity are substantial over the life of the
data center. Modular internal UPS design enables UPS sizing more closely matched to load requirement,
resulting in better UPS operating efficiency and reducing the size of the UPS modules needed to achieve
redundancy. Modular cooling design, such as rack-level air distribution units, enables more accurate airflow
for increased cooling efficiency, so less energy is consumed by cooling equipment.

For more about TCO, see APC White Paper #6, “Determining Total Cost of Ownership for Data Center and
Network Room Infrastructure.”

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 The bottom line: Standardization drives NCPI business value
Standardization, as shown in the preceding sections, acts directly and indirectly to enhance every major
factor influencing availability, agility, and total cost of ownership. This wellspring of interrelated effects
makes modular standardization a central driving force in increasing NCPI business value (Figure 7).

Figure 7 – Standardization drives every component

YY of NCPI business value
LLIITT

AG
R t
HU educe ym
en
BII

lo
ER MAN ep ED

ILI
E
AB

D
RO SP
R
LLA

Re to

TY
du y
MT ce ilit E
Ab
TR AL
SC
AII

RE Incre
A

to
LIA ase ilit
y-
BI MODULAR Ab ON
AVV

LIT C E
Y RE UR
STANDARDIZATION FIG
A

of
product and process
OPERATING
CAPITAL

ENERGY
Non-Energy
Reduce

Reduce

Reduce
cost

cost

cost

TCO Value
Availability Agility

TCO

Conclusion
Network-Critical Physical Infrastructure (NCPI) has become unmanageable to its users. Although
characteristics of the industry have tended to support a culture of one-time engineering and custom
installations, the time has come for the next step in its evolution toward becoming a streamlined support
layer running in the background of IT operations, rather than a parallel operation competing for resources.

Standardization is a business strategy that has been used successfully for over 200 years to optimize
products and processes in nearly every industry. The same principles can be put to work in data centers to
provide the benefits of understandable, predictable, and efficient NCPI structure and function.
Standardization can be analytically shown to improve, in some cases dramatically, every area of
performance that drives NCPI business value – availability, agility, and total cost of ownership. Because of

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these wide-ranging effects and nearly universal influence on deployment and operation over data center life
span, standardization – in particular, modular standardization – is emerging as a key player in the
optimization of the NCPI investment.

Next steps
Standardized modularity of NCPI equipment and interfaces provides widespread and substantial benefits to
the users who deploy it, as described in this paper, and marks the beginning of a move toward data center
standardization in this industry. NCPI users themselves can take the power of standardization even further:

• First, by applying the principles of standardization to their own methods and procedures in the data
center. Maintenance, management, documentation, training, record-keeping, labeling – every
process is a candidate for the techniques of standardization and its inherent benefits in efficiency
and error-avoidance.

• Second – and even more powerful – by deploying of the same NPCI configuration and procedures in
more than one data center. Leveraging experience with one data center into the identical operation
of others is a new idea. Every advantage described in this paper becomes greater with the added
dimension of multiple sites: predictability and understandability thrive on replication. This broad
level of standardization has, in 2005, only been accomplished by a handful of enterprises
worldwide.4

Once the extraordinary effects of standardization are understood and experienced first hand, opportunities
for its effective use will continue to present themselves to the forward-thinking IT manager.

About the Author:

Suzanne Niles is a white paper author at APC’s Engineering Design Center in Billerica, Massachusetts.
She studied mathematics at Wellesley College and received a Bachelor’s degree in computer science from
MIT, with a thesis on handwritten character recognition. She has been educating diverse audiences for over
25 years using a variety of media from software manuals to photography and children’s songs.

4
Deloitte’s Amsterdam Cybercentre consists of identical twin data centers, a consolidation of the firm’s 109 distributed IT
facilities that embodies an enterprise-wide philosophy of standardization. Using standardized modular NCPI architecture,
construction was completed in four months.

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