Redundant UPS installation keeps centre up

The new Wolseley UK Technology Centre is equipped with two PowerWave 9000 triple cabinets, each fitted with two 30kVA modules, to provide 90kVA with n+1 redundancy plus two spare ways.

Wolseley UK is one of the largest distributors of building products in the UK, operating through a network of 1600 branches in UK and Ireland.

Many of Wolseley's brands are market leaders, with names such as Plumb Center, Build Center, Pipe Center, Drain Center, Climate Center, Parts Center and Hire Center widely recognised throughout the construction industry.

One of the UK's biggest commercial fleets delivers daily to many of Wolseley's branches from massive warehouses at Ripon, Worcester and Milton Keynes.

Wolseley UK has invested heavily in information technology, with all branches networked to mainframe central computers and eight fully transactional websites.

A new European Technology Centre is currently under construction at Ripon and is due to be fully operational in March 2006.

This is set to be the hub of UK and Ireland operations, as well as handling web transaction traffic and consolidating European and US data sites.

As the Technology Centre is Wolseley's primary computer facility, and the availability of the server racks here is vital to business continuity, the installation includes new UPS protection.

Wolseley looked at two alternative power system suppliers, and chose Uninterruptible Power Supplies on the basis of previous experience of the company's product technology and service support.

"I selected Uninterruptible Power Supplies' PowerWave 9000 Series UPS from the available suppliers and products, and gained approval for the purchase from senior Wolseley IT management", comments Wolseley's Network Technician, Geoff Binns.

"We chose the PowerWave 9000 for its reliability, having installed one in a secondary computer room two years ago as a trial".

"This machine met all our expectations for efficiency and reliability".

"We also selected the PowerWave 9000 to give us flexibility on a small footprint, and to provide for future expansion".

The Technology Centre is equipped with two PowerWave 9000 triple cabinets, each fitted with two 30kVA modules, to provide 90kVA with n+1 redundancy plus two spare ways for future upgrade to 150kVA n+1 or 180kVA capacity.

Two matching battery cabinets support the UPS cabinets for 11 minutes at full load, each with a spare way for addition of a further set of batteries.

A Parallel Plus switchgear panel facilitates the paralleling and bypass arrangement of these UPS.

A further PowerWave 9000 UPS triple cabinet provides a redundant power supply to servers that require this facility.

This is fitted with one 30kVA module, giving two spare ways for future upgrade.

Installation and commissioning of the power protection system has gone smoothly, and Wolseley has negotiated a comprehensive maintenance contract for the UPS installation.

"In addition to confirming the quality of the PowerWave 9000 Series UPS, our trial proved to us that Uninterruptible Power Supplies provides a professional end-to-end service".

"At this business-critical level we must have a supplier which is able to provide high levels of service and support, and in which we have complete confidence".

"We are currently making a decision whether to monitor the UPS systems via our LAN or to opt for a remote monitoring service under our maintenance contract with Uninterruptible Power Supplies, which would give us the assurance that our power protection system will give us round-the-clock availability without our intervention".

Commenting on Wolseley's future expansion plans, Geoff Binns concludes: "I can't imagine that we won't have further requirements for Uninterruptible Power Supplies' products".

The first three-phase UPS system based on the 19in rack-mount format, PowerWave 9000 is built on double-conversion online UPS modules, each with three-phase output power from 10 to 100kVA.

A unique paralleling architecture provides the capability to stack up to three UPS modules per cabinet for vertical scaleability on a small footprint, and to parallel an unlimited number of cabinets for horizontal scaleability or increased battery autonomy.

UPS modules can be added for capacity upgrade or n+1 redundancy, delivering up to 300kVA in a single small-footprint cabinet, or up to 200kVA with n+1 parallel redundancy.

PowerWave 9000 offers not only outstanding flexibility and reliability, but also the lowest lifetime costs in the industry, and is backed by comprehensive service support.

Back to top