The deal, signed last year, is part of a network improvement project for all ACT government departments, institutions and health care centers spanning an estimated 1625 square kilometers. Some 11,000 devices will be protected by the Liebert UPStation GXT-2 UPSes which will be assigned to a single switch that connects about 48 IP handsets, granting at least 30 minutes uptime in the event of power failure.
InTact data center manager Michael Hutterer said the project, which will replace existing seven-year-old units, is run by himself and another employee in overtime hours, despite the installation of an additional 200 UPSes.
"It's a massive project [and] the tendering went a bit askew, so it ended up being just two of us running the data center and doing the project in our overtime hours, but we've done it well and saved a hell of a lot of money," Hutterer said.
"We started off implementing 135 UPSes, and now we've done 300 with about another 40 to come, and we're talking installation over an area as big as Brisbane City Council. Our implementation techniques are very innovation but a bit bizarre; for instance we have used wall brackets to wall-mount the UPSes because the old racks were too short, so we've got these units 10 feet up in the air."
He said the project, which ties into a concurrent VOIP implementation project, began in October last year and will be completed in about four to five weeks, depending on how much "spare time" they have.
While maintenance will be contracted out for the larger UPSes, Hutterer said damaged smaller units would be replaced which is more cost effective.
"We have a maintenance agreement for any UPS above 10 kVA (kilovolt-ampere) because we can't move them, but we don't have an agreement for units below 10 kVA, because its cheaper to replace them than to include them in a maintenance contract. Its not a big issue anyway because the UPSes rarely fail, and we'll run something like a 3 percent spare pool with a battery-swap designed for about the three to four year mark."
The UPSes, which range from small 1.5kVAs to 20kVAs for the network-core, will have plenty of power as a 1.5kVA unit is capable of protecting two switches. All units are hot-swappable and feature simple network management protocol (SNMP) consoles to allow remote management from a central site.
The system will protect a range of departments and institutions including the ACT Legislative Assembly, ACT Emergency Services, and Canberra Hospital.