redundant branch circuit: pricing and enforcement

[Zitibake]

Some datacenters price power differently if the customer is buying a redundant pair of circuits , versus if the customer is buying two circuits for capacity. For example, http://www.baymountain.com/colocation offers:

"Redundant 120V/20A circuit. 20A max capacity, 16A max normal usage, per pair."

...and

"Additional 120V/20A circuit. 20A max capacity, 16A max normal usage, per circuit."

...as separate products. Is it common to price these differently? If so, how do you enforce that the customer won't grow their use until the service is no-longer redundant? Do you automatically "upgrade" the customer to non-redundant pricing if their utilization exceeds 80% of a single circuit?

[Keith]

Zitibake,
Welcome to a big topic of controversy in co-locations!

A redundant circuit is usually priced out at 50% below cost of the regular primary circuit. This is simply for equipment with 2 power supplies. Since using a redundant power supply setup causes the load to be spread evenly between the 2 circuits, they are simply saying that you can have 8 amps on each circuit or a total of 16 amps on both circuits. Here is the reasoning. If your primary circuit fails and you are using 8 amps on each, a failover to the second power supply will cause 16 ams to be on the redundant circuit.

Their term of "Additional" circuit means that you are getting an additional "primary" circuit that can be loaded to 16 amps total.

Here is the controversy: Many customers see the pricing on these power circuits as being cheaper so they order it and treat it as a primary circuit to "rip-off" power from their providers.

I worked for a company that had bad business ethics and ordered every cabinet with a primary and redundant circuit and resold them as 2 primary circuits. Practices like this cause over subscribing in co-location facilities because they are now putting twice the load than what they are selling and budgeting for.

Hope this helps!

Regards,
Keith