RBS Guarantees 2N+1 Resilience for its Trading Floor

The primary function of any UPS system is to provide a reliable source of power in the event of a catastrophic loss of mains electricity. Typically, above a certain level the UPS will also operate in conjunction with a standby diesel generator, which once operational will take over from the UPS and maintain the power supply until the mains power is restored. The justification behind this type of investment is fairly simple – the cost incurred from a loss of power and the resulting business interruption is significantly greater than the cost of the system put in place to guard against it. This is undoubtedly true of any transaction/process related business or data centre. For major financial and investment institutions, where millions of pounds of transactions could be taking place every second, UPS systems are especially vital. As one of the largest banks in the in the world, the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), operates as a cornerstone of the UK economy. Its success is dependent on highly resilient business infrastructure systems and services. UPS’s are therefore a vital and fundamental component of this. As a result, RBS has adopted an uncompromising approach when it comes to specifying a UPS. At the core of its policy is the need to maintain high availability. However, of equal importance is the need to reduce ongoing costs, increase energy efficiency and provide the flexibility to support the growth of its business infrastructure and services. Earlier this year RBS identified a requirement for a new, highly resilient UPS system to support trading operations within a key central London office. The area in question represents a key revenue centre for RBS in the capital, and as such required the highest levels of power protection to ensure against any eventuality. Phil Jones, Area Property & Technical Operations Manager for RBS, explains the requirement: “As a business we regularly review all aspects of our mechanical, electrical and IT infrastructure to ensure it is meeting our needs and to understand where efficiencies can be made. As part of this process, we concluded a new UPS system was required to maintain the desired level of protection provided to this particular floor. Representing one of main trading floors within our portfolio, a loss of mains power combined with a system fault would have disastrous consequences on the business’ reputation – as well as significant financial implications. Because of this, we wanted to install additional redundancy within the system supporting this area of the business. The existing UPS was offering an acceptable level of protection but we wanted to maintain true 2N resilience and that was not achievable with the system currently being used. For us, it was all about identifying potential risk and eliminating it.”