Synovus is a financial services company that includes 30 southeastern banking divisions, trust brokerages and mortgage companies, plus a credit/debit card processing company. The divisions of Synovus provide banking, investment, and mortgage services to customers in Georgia, Alabama, South Carolina, Florida, and Tennessee. The company recently constructed a new mission-critical data center in Columbus, Ga., to handle its e-banking, telecom, and ATM transactions. Synovus relies on emergency standby generator sets to prevent any loss of services or data in the event of a utility outage.
“While Synovus has other off-site facilities for data storage and disaster recovery, the Columbus facility is the main data center for all our banking activities,” says Charley Whipkey, facility maintenance coordinator for Synovus. “Whenever a Synovus customer makes a purchase with one of our bank cards, uses one of our ATMs, or conducts business at any of our several hundred branches, that data is handled by this 50,000-square-foot facility. The Network Operation Center is manned 24 hours a day, and there is constant data communication with our network to transact business.”
Redundancy a Key Design Factor
As in most mission-critical facilities, the Synovus data center uses layers of redundancies to prevent loss of services or data. Starting at the server cabinets, Whipkey explains, every cabinet has two power supplies. These, in turn, are backed up by dual utility feeds and uninterruptible power supply (UPS) systems. The last line of defense is the emergency standby power system, consisting of two 2,250-kW MTU Onsite Energy diesel generator sets that operate independently (Figure 4).
 |
| 4. Eight-second ride. Two MTU Onsite Energy 2,250-kW generator sets back up the main data center for Synovus Financial. The generator sets can start and assume full load in less than 8 seconds in the event of a major power disruption. Courtesy: MTU Onsite Energy |
“We have a fairly unique backup system at Synovus. The critical power system is a redundant configuration using static UPS systems with flywheels instead of chemical batteries. We wanted to get away from a battery-backed UPS system because of ecological concerns regarding acid containment. There also are maintenance issues with wet cells that we wanted to avoid,” said Whipkey. “The flywheels give us about 25 seconds of full load facility power after a utility outage, so we needed emergency standby generators that could start and accept load in 8 seconds or less. One of the reasons we chose MTU Onsite Energy was because these generators can start and assume full load in just 7.5 seconds.”
The system was designed by the project’s electrical consultant, Barnett Consulting Engineers (BCE), and allows for redundancy in all critical components. “The design is a modular, expandable, tri-redundant system providing N+2 reliability to all critical loads,” says John Barnett, PE of BCE.
To make this system a reality, Synovus looked to its electrical contractor, Alexander Electric Co., to ensure that its new generator sets were properly coordinated, installed, and tested with all other critical equipment.
Currently, the facility’s total electrical load is only a small portion of the combined capacity of the two standby generator sets. This means that even if the electrical load grows over time, the facility would still have one fully redundant generator set that could supply sufficient power if the other unit didn’t start. If the facility’s load grows beyond that level, Whipkey says there is already a third electrical room and space for a third generator set and transfer switch, thanks to the center’s long-range planning.
Email
Comments
Print
Reuse
