The world's largest soft drink company
headquartered in Atlanta Georgia

Losing all global data twice in a 24-hour period, the world's largest soft drink company headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, sought the expertise of Prime Power. Here's what happened and how Prime Power restored service.

The Challenge

In September of 2010, a large corporate data center at a leading global soft drink company experienced a major interruption of the Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS), causing its generator to start and transfer load. After repairing the UPS, a closed retransfer of power from the generator to utility was unsuccessfully attempted, resulting in an open transition that caused a momentary drop in power. That momentary drop in power caused the data center to lose all data worldwide. After a second attempt to repair the UPS, the closed transfer failed again. The second drop in power resulted in complete data loss for a second time. After two failed repair attempts and two data losses within 24 hours, the company's corporate management called the Prime Power Project Team.

Prime Power was tasked with:

• Overseeing onsite repairs, maintenance, and operations during the system restore
• Managing a two-week oversight period of equipment and personnel
• Testing equipment offline
• Installing a new emergency battery

The Solution

Prime Power immediately took over 24/7 onsite maintenance of the generator until the UPS system was restored. The project team coordinated a two-week schedule with center managers so that a Prime Power technician or engineer was continuously on site to record vital engine and generator readings, and maintain emergency equipment overwatch, including:

• Hot exchanges of Racor fuel filters
• 1000-gallon fuel refills twice daily
• 4000-gallon fuel transfer to the skid base tank
• Evaluations of a coolant lead emerging from a failed water pump seal

The UPS was repaired and tested offline during Prime Power's two-week onsite maintenance and oversight. Prime Power disabled a15-second flywheel back-up and installed a new 15-minute battery. Power was transferred back to utility after both modifications were successfully tested offline.

After two weeks of operating on generator power, technicians successfully executed a closed transition transfer back to utility. Prime Power then performed a major PM, oil and filter change, and a water pump replacement. The system was restored and ready to operate smoothly when required.