ITS Data Center Powers Through 24/7/365

Long after most university offices close for the night, the IT Services Data Center is open, running technology critical to many of the university’s essential services. Even when ice, snow or a holiday keeps everyone else at home, the Data Center is staffed 24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year.

Technology in the Data Center cannot run without power, however, and disruptions of the campus utility power are expected 10 times a year on average. When there is a campus power outage, all equipment in the Data Center automatically moves to an uninterruptible battery power source. The natural gas generator takes over when an outage lasts longer than a minute, and it can be used to power the Data Center indefinitely.

Without these backup measures, a power outage could seriously disrupt university business.  Equipment for 24 departments and colleges, as well as eight state agencies, is hosted in the Data Center.  When the Data Center is up and running, grading, course schedules, student transcripts, payroll, accounts receivable, billing and many other essential services are available to students, faculty, and staff.  The university Web presence and almost all services that require a UARK username and password—as well as super computing resources that support the university’s research programs—also rely on continual support from the Data Center.

The Data Center has a consistent history of reliable performance, including 100 percent uptime during the record-breaking ice storm of January 2009 and during all the storms that have closed the university since. The last time the Data Center was without power was for 72 minutes on February 27, 2011, due to a mechanical failure related to the backup power generator.

Even when users can’t get to the university, they can expect to get to services hosted in the Data Center.

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