Hanley Energy’s integrated approach to power supply solutions protects data centres across the globe from loss of service
“If a data centre loses connectivity for just three minutes, it can have a devastating effect on a company’s business,” says Dennis Nordon, co-founder of Irish power management specialist Hanley Energy. “Reliability is crucial – not just for Google, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft, the giants of the data centre world, but for companies that sell data processing and storage capacity to other enterprises.”
Hanley Energy plays a key role in protecting data centres from problems caused by power supply issues. Vast amounts of data – including the photos, videos and business documents we upload every day to ‘the cloud’ – are stored in these centres on reams of servers, running day and night. Any brief power outages, slumps or spikes could do lasting damage to equipment, and to a company’s reputation.
Ireland has become a popular location for data centres, and Hanley Energy first began working with a large data provider in 2012. The company now provides, on average, four megawatts of backup power to data centres every six weeks, having installed 120 and 150 megawatts of UPS (uninterruptible power supply) so far.
“Anyone can supply hardware,” Nordon comments, “but we bring integration expertise. Along with hardware and peripheral equipment, we provide the control layer which tells the system when to switch over to UPS.” As a result, the company has racked up customers across Europe, opening its European headquarters in Frankfurt in 2014, United States headquarters near Washington DC in 2016 and setting up a sales and service office in Stockholm in 2017. A South Africa office will open shortly.
Hanley’s system monitors power usage and power anomalies, recording and time-stamping outages or equipment failures so that maintenance teams can get to work and ensure the problem doesn’t recur. “While our competitors tend to provide standardised, off-the-shelf products, without customisation or tweaking, we can take anyone’s product and integrate it for the customer to give them what they want,” Nordon explains. “A bespoke service.”
The company is also proud of its speed and flexibility regarding customer service. “We’re constantly coming up with new products, such as an EPMS (event and power management system), designed from the ground up, for one of our larger data centre clients,” says Nordon. This system hooks into all the hardware, monitoring the power situation and giving live updates on a user-friendly interface. If there’s an issue, Hanley Energy has a two-hour call-out promise for many of its customers.
With its strong reputation and good network in the data centre world, Hanley has a growing number of global customers, including Continent 8 Technologies – a company with data centres across Europe, Asia and the Americas. “Hanley Energy’s service as a supplier is invaluable to the data centre environment we operate in,” says Wesley Smith, Head of Global Facilities at Continent 8. “It’s essential that Continent 8 has a knowledgeable, fluid supplier that can react quickly to the critical nature of our business.
“I have consistently found that Hanley Energy are always informed regarding the latest developments in technology and Hanley staff are always on hand to offer the correct solution for our business,” adds Smith.
Dublin, along with London, Frankfurt and Stockholm, is now a key European data centre hub, ensuring the flow of information across the continent – a flow that is set to continue with the further digitisation of home consumer items and cloud storage. Hanley Energy will be there to help keep it running smoothly.
