Data Center Power Outage Causes and How to Prevent Them

Today's sophisticated data centers handle mission-critical operations and processes, and it is not feasible to shut them down – even for a short duration. IT and disaster recovery teams must be prepared to mitigate data center outages. Power disruptions or failures might not result in a complete blackout, but can still negatively affect operations in the data center.

Disruptions can cause a partial or complete shutdown of the data center or below-standard operation. Even a partial lag with critical systems might result in unacceptable performance of data center equipment, violating service-level agreements or losing customer trust. Despite all the precautions organizations can take to provide uninterrupted power to data centers, situations can occur that threaten their continued operations.

The Importance of Emergency Power Strategies

Data centers are seriously at risk without emergency power systems and strategies to protect their power supplies. While no power system is 100% infallible, organizations can deploy safeguards to reduce the likelihood of an unplanned disruption. The goal is to minimize the potential for component failure and get operations back to normal levels as soon as possible.

Common Causes of Data Center Power Outages

There are several common causes of data center power outages, each with their own destructive effects. IT and DR personnel should be familiar with these disruptions and understand how they might affect existing infrastructure.

  • Severe storms, earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, tornadoes, flooding, mudslides or lightning strikes can damage power lines and critical utility infrastructure, which can affect the delivery of power to a broad geographic area.
  • Extreme temperatures can overload cooling systems, potentially leading to shutdowns.
  • The national power grid in the U.S. comprises many interconnected power systems. Data centers can lose power during regional power grid failures or brownouts, which can be caused by high demand or equipment failure.
  • The national critical infrastructure continues to age, which can lead to outages.
  • Failure of primary or backup systems can lead to prolonged outages for utility companies and end users alike.
  • Faulty hardware or software in power management systems can also cause outages.
  • Employees in utility companies have a huge responsibility to keep power flowing, and inadequate employee training can cause mistakes during maintenance or system upgrades.
  • Cybersecurity attacks are a growing threat to the nation's critical power infrastructure. Targeted ransomware attacks or hacking of power monitoring software can be exploited to threaten power generation and delivery.

The Role of AI in Preventing Outages

Many of the strategies in this article can be performed with artificial intelligence. Today's power management systems have AI elements that handle the following functions:

  1. The real cost of data center power outages.
  2. Loss of data center power can damage businesses of all sizes, in any industry.
  3. The consequences of a disruption can include failure to deliver products and services on time, loss of customers, loss of revenue and reputational damage.

The Cost of Data Center Power Outages

According to Uptime Institute, which provides guidance on protecting data centers from outages and increasing uptime and availability, 70% of outages cost more than $100,000, while some can end up costing millions from lost customer revenue and reputational damage.

Report Highlights

The 2024 report noted that approximately 55% of organizations reported at least one data center outage in the past three years. The report also said failures in power and cooling systems accounted for 71% of these outages, with human error being a significant contributing factor.

Key Strategies for Establishing a Robust Power Environment

The following is a list of key strategies for establishing a robust, secure and survivable power environment:

  • Maintenance, testing, documentation, monitoring and analysis of power performance data.
  • Implementing emergency power systems, such as automatic transfer switches.
  • Diversifying energy sources, including renewable energy options.
  • Regularly training employees on power management and backup systems.

Protecting Data Centers from Unplanned Power Outages

The following strategies can be employed to protect data centers from unplanned power outages:

  • Automatic transfer switches (ATS) for emergency power supply.
  • Solar backup options, such as solar-powered generators or solar panels with battery storage.
  • Uninterruptible Power Supplies (UPS) for short-term power disruptions.