In the world of business, the flow of data is crucial to every aspect of corporate activity. When your company is a premier provider of data services, clients are entrusting you with their business lifeline. Maintaining the highest level of service is always the foremost priority. Regardless of the circumstances, customers rely upon you to keep them operational. Having reliable backup power is essential.

Quilogy is a multi-service information technology (IT) provider located in the downtown area of historic Saint Charles, Missouri, just 20 miles west of Saint Louis. The company, founded in 1992, is a National Systems Integrator that helps clients to enhance their business by delivering innovative technology solutions. With a special focus on serving the public sector, as well as healthcare, manufacturing, financial and professional service enterprises, Quilogy has 14 offices nationwide.

With the original Missouri state capitol building just a half block away, Quilogy is in the midst of historic surroundings. This was the last provisioning stop for the Lewis & Clark Expedition and Meriweather Lewis joined the group here before it headed up the Missouri River in May of 1804.

Many of the downtown structures date from the 1800’s and some are pre-Civil War. Quilogy’s three-story headquarters building, built in 1878 as a bank, is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. This facility – one of six fully-restored buildings that comprise the Quilogy campus – houses a variety of offices and the company’s all-important data center. To protect its business operations in the event of a utility outage, Quilogy uses an APC battery system and Generac QT Series generator to provide seamless short and long term backup power to keep the computers operating and the room properly cooled.

“Our data center is the nexus of all of our internal systems,” says Alan Groh, chief technology officer. “We also use it to host systems that have been developed for clients, as well as to provide server resources to our project teams working across the country. The adjacent operations center – a separate room -- monitors all systems in the data center and keeps tabs on internet connectivity at all of our offices. The headquarters building is connected to an underground AT&T fiber optic ring and all of our nearby buildings are interconnected through Quilogy’s own fiber network that runs beneath the streets and sidewalks.”

Quilogy's data center is a 950-square-foot climate-controlled solid floor room containing nine server racks, one fiber cabinet and one SAN (Storage Area Network). “The server racks are standard 42U racks, which are about 7 feet tall and 2 feet wide,” says Mike Howells, data center engineer. “Each rack holds anywhere from 10 to 16 servers and contains two 3000 kVA redundant battery backup units beneath the computers. Currently, there are about 80 servers in the room. It’s outfitted with three-phase four-wire electrical service so that we may take advantage of the newer blade servers being offered today. Newer blade servers require 208 volt service, which was not available in our old computer room. Each server is connected to a single rack via Category 5e ethernet cable running at 1.0 Gigabits per second for optimum performance. The modular nature of the rack design allows us to add capacity as our needs grow or change.”

The rack layout is designed in a hot aisle / cool aisle format to maximize the cooling effectiveness of the air flow. The aisle in the middle of the room is designated as the cool aisle. The space between the walls and the racks is designated as the hot aisle. “This design allows for the natural flow of cool air from above to filter into the front of each server,” Alan Grohs explains. “The hot air is then exhausted out the back of each rack and allowed to rise to the ceiling where it is returned to the air handler for cooling. The effectiveness of the cooling system is further enhanced by the high ceilings in the room, which is one of the benefits of being in an old building. Thus we have both a hot / cold horizontal aisle arrangement, as well as hot / cold vertical planes.”

In late 2005, Quilogy moved its data center from a smaller room of the building to a new and significantly larger area. At the same time, the capacity of the data center was expanded to three times that of the previous one in terms of power capacity, redundant cooling capacity and the floor space to add more racks in the future.

Quilogy’s previous backup generator was a 25-kilowatt Generac Guardian® natural gas model that had been in service since 2000. Although it was well-suited for the prior task and had performed well during outages, a larger unit was required for the new data center. Both the facility design firm and a general contractor recommended diesel generators from other manufacturers, but Alan Groh wanted to consider other options. After learning about the new Generac QT Series, he was convinced that it was a superior solution, combining the numerous advantages of natural gas (no refueling, storage, spillage, spoilage or odor) with a lower capital cost. “Our experience with the gaseous-fueled Guardian unit was favorable, so there was no reason to make a change,” Groh says. “By selecting the QT model, we easily saved more than $10,000 when compared to the diesel alternatives. It was an easy decision.”

The Generac QT 130 kilowatt model was selected as the best choice because of its capacity to satisfy Quilogy’s evolving power requirements. The QT 130 can handle the upgraded 400 amp, 208 volt three phase electrical requirements. With Quilogy located in an historical area with shops and offices nearby, sound was another important factor in the decision to purchase the QT model. Because of its sound attenuated enclosure and advanced air flow design, the generator is among the quietest in its class when operating under load. During weekly exercise, the Quiet-Test™ feature operates the genset at a slower speed, making it even quieter. “Our generator is so quiet during the self-test that a person cannot tell that it’s running without standing directly next to the unit,” says Mike Howells.

Generac offers its QT products through several distribution channels. Quilogy’s purchase was made through Chicago-area distributor A.P. Electric. A new concrete pad was poured in December of 2005 and the unit was installed that month. In January, the electrical and gas contractors completed their hookups and the initial startup was performed by Luby Equipment Services, the Saint Louis area Generac industrial dealer. As part of the process, the main gas service was upgraded to facilitate greater flow of gas to the generator, which included installation of a larger regulator on the incoming gas line.

For a time, the old and new data centers operated in parallel, with both generators on standby. In March, Quilogy completed its switchover to the new data center, with the uninterruptible power supply (UPS) batteries and QT generator providing seamless backup power. A 15 second switch to the backup generator minimizes the amount of time that the data center equipment is running on battery power.

With this integrated system, Quilogy’s mission critical operations remain operational in the event of a utility power failure. The size of the QT unit is also sufficient to accommodate future growth. Currently, the genset is supporting 20 tons of air conditioning load and 80 computer servers. Outside the data center, the generator provides emergency power to computer stations in the operations center, as well as internal fiber communication systems, routing and switching equipment.

The wisdom of Quilogy’s decision to purchase this system was soon proven as a series of severe weather events caused widespread outages throughout the greater Saint Louis area during the spring and summer of 2006. Just one week after finalizing the installation of the genset, the temperature soared to a record-setting 94 degrees on April 14. The resulting failure of a 38 kilovolt transmission line caused a four-hour outage that affected a wide area, including Saint Charles. Just four days later, severe storms rolled through the area, causing another 30 minute blackout.

Mother Nature walloped the region with another one-two punch in July. On July 19, severe weather caused a 25-minute outage, but the worst blow came just two days later, when a tornado and related storms left more than a half million customers without power — some for up to a week. In Quilogy’s case, it was more than 6 hours before utility power was restored.

According to Mike Howells, during each outage the QT generator supplied backup power within 15 seconds and operated perfectly without incident. The 25 kW Guardian unit, still hooked up to the former data center room, provided auxiliary power to the outlets there, enabling the creation of a makeshift work center during the longest of the outages.

Quilogy’s experience shows the wisdom and value of having standby power. After enduring four power outages and coming through them so smoothly, Quilogy has enhanced its reputation as a reliable service supplier. “Operating a data center requires 24/7 availability,” Mike Howells says, “and our clients depend on us to provide uninterrupted service. Downtime, even for a short duration, can be very costly. Our investment in a backup generator allowed us to provide seamless operation through the worst outages in our city’s history.”

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Designed For Commercial Applications — QT Series Generators

Generac Power Systems is renowned in the standby power business for its innovative products and technologies, a number of which are exclusive in the industry. These include the Modular Power System (which parallels and combines the output of multiple gensets without switchgear), the Gemini® Twin Pack (featuring two 300 or 375 kW generators within the same enclosure) and Bi-Fuel™ generators (which operate on a combination of diesel and natural gas fuels for lower emissions and greatly extended run times).

The QT Series is another industry-exclusive breakthrough — a line of gaseous fueled products designed specifically for commercial enterprises. The goal was to bring clean, quiet and reliable standby power within the reach of small and midsize businesses, most of which had never purchased a generator before. These units are ideal for a wide range of applications — gas stations, convenience stores, supermarkets, restaurants, fast food outlets, movie theaters, hotels, retail stores and offices.

QT Series products range in output from 20 to 150 kilowatts and are designed to address all of the concerns that have kept businesses from investing in backup power:

 

• Environmental issues — QT gensets operate on natural gas, with none of the fuel storage, spillage, spoilage, odor, permitting, or emission concerns of diesel units. Natural gas is clean, reliable and never runs out. Liquid propane vapor models are also available.

 

• Sound — QT gensets are engineered to run quieter, even under full load. The Quiet-Test™ feature operates the genset at a slower speed during its weekly self-test for near-silent operation.

 

• Cost — QT gensets are amazingly affordable, priced 20 percent to 30 percent lower than other commercial generators. Installation is easy, resulting in further savings. A QT genset can pay for itself during the first extended outage, yet provide decades of additional protection against power interruptions.

QT Series products are available with outputs of 20, 25, 35, 45, 60, 70, 80, 100, 130 and 150 kilowatts. The 100 and 150 kW QT models can be paralleled and combined to create larger gaseous-fueled systems that cost far less than traditional single-engine solutions, resulting in tens of thousands of dollars in savings.