Successful power upgrade for Clayton data centre

In mid-March a major upgrade to the power infrastructure of a Monash data centre was successfully completed. 

Every piece of data centre equipment was affected as the external data centre supplier installed a new switchboard, two new uninterrupted power supplies and a new overhead power feed into the data centre. The availability of essential University services such as Callista, Web Enrolment System, SAN, Blackboard, Library and SAP was maintained and required extensive communications and planning.

ITS consulted with application owners and service managers prior to the upgrade to confirm the most suitable time for the changes. Regular progress updates were available via SMS during the event.

In total the project was estimated at 700 staff hours with 32 staff working 300 hours over the weekend to complete the work - in total approximately $100,000 of staff time.

The combined efforts of teams across all ITS departments and key Monash service staff resulted in the smooth delivery of this critical project. More details about the contribution Kathy Ching, Shared Systems, made to planning and implementation can be found below.