An award-winning data centre training project in South America

The telecommunications company, Entel Chile, undertook a data centre risk and energy reduction programme to identify improvements to reduce energy consumption, improve reliability and reduce total cost of ownership. Through a series of workshops, facilitated by Operational Intelligence (now part of MiCiM), Entel Chile was able to make improvements at various operational data centre facilities, enabling optimisation of energy use and targeting of savings. This collaborative way of working with the operations teams gave them a greater understanding of how to improve reliability, resilience and confidence.

A similar approach was used for new data centre builds, with project stakeholders participating in workshops to define the design brief.

Many of the improvements, such as modifying air management to remove server inlet temperature hot spots, had a positive impact on reliability and reduced energy consumption. The risk of business disruption was taken into account when identifying potential improvements, prior to implementation. Client buy-in was also necessary, given that the data centres host external client equipment. An important factor was the involvement of staff from different areas of the company; this helped ensure that teams worked together towards a common goal.

One of the programme highlights was the assimilation of concepts of efficiency and risk, not only by the operations personnel and project team but also IT, contract administrators and vendors. As a result, participants were equipped with knowledge and tools that could be used beyond the programme. The risk and energy reduction programme identified how to reduce facility load in two sites by 17%, saving $0.5m per year in energy costs with a two-year payback period.