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Posted on April 30, 2013 by Gento
The Uptime Institute recently conducted a webinar on the “State of the Data Center 2013 Survey Results.” Per the survey the adoption of DCIM is expected to continue – and according to the survey, in the next 2 years about 32% of the respondents indicate that they plan to buy.
It was interesting to hear that globally Data Center budgets are expanding and money is being spent to grow their footprint. In fact in the webinar it was stated that 70% of data center operators built a new site or renovated a site in the past 5 years. Tools that can provide assistance in the build seem to be essential to success.
Data center operations, deployment and design are capital intensive, so there tends to be a focus on cost and performance by the C-Suite. In fact the majority of Data Center Managers reported that they provide performance or cost metrics to the C-Suite monthly. However, depending on the organization size and the tools used, reporting can be complex and/or unavailable.
Through the survey over 80% of the respondents indicated that Facilities generally pays the energy bill, and therefore incurs the cost of inefficiencies. Finding ways to free up Data Center capacity and reduces costs are top drivers for pursuing efficiency savings. Additionally, working with IT to implement a solution that supports bill-backs can relieve Facilities of some of the burden.
While cost, integration, and database issues are often significant barriers to deploying a DCIM, the savings that can be received from improved capacity planning and energy efficiency, the ability to identify problems, and the gain in asset visibility make a DCIM solution the most efficient and effective way to manage the Data Center.
Posted on April 29, 2013 by Gento
In my last post,(link) I described the great volumes of power consumption and environmental data you can get from Raritan’s iPDUs, and how that can help you lower energy costs in the data center. We only scratched the surface, though, of the analytics and reporting capabilities of Power IQ software, and how it enables best practices in power management.
Some of the smarts we’ve put into Power IQ come right from the American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE). Here, I’m referring to their Psychrometric chart, a guide to optimal temperature and humidity ranges for the data center. You can easily set these parameters to serve as notification thresholds for Raritan’s temperature and humidity probes, or competitors’ probes.
The great news: ASHRAE has recently extended the ranges in that chart, giving you a tolerance that allows you to safely save on energy costs—as noted above, up to 4% for every degree raised.
What’s even cooler (no pun intended)—you can put your own temperature and humidity parameters into Power IQ. That’s useful because many server manufacturers have reengineered their products in recent years to handle harsher environments. Some have even certified their servers to run in 90-to-95-degree environments. You can take those manufacturer’s settings now and incorporate them into your ASHRAE Psychrometric chart. Now you can selectively raise your air temperature and save more on energy.
With the global view of temperatures you get from Power IQ, you can see where you’re over-provisioned or under-provisioned across rows, aisles, and even multiple data centers. You can even see where you’re pumping too much CO2 into the air. Now there’s a feature that’s not only good for your bottom line; it’s the right thing for the environment.
But there’s more: Because Power IQ can actually report on how much CO2 emission has been reduced, that metric yields dollar savings as well. Do a search on “data center energy rebates” and you’ll see that if you can document your CO2 reduction, many energy providers will give you a lower rate.
Being able to say you’ve reduced CO2 emissions by W, KwH by X, power costs by Y, and lowered rates by Z percent makes you a hero in your data center.
Also, Power IQ has joined the great mobile migration. If you want to be not only alerted but empowered to take action if the temperature around a certain server exceeds a certain threshold, there’s a Power IQ app for that. You can get an alert that while you’re away from the data center and proceed to power cycle the affected device, right from your iPhone.
Click here to learn more about Raritan data center power solutions
Posted on April 25, 2013 by Gento
Raritan has a limited number of complimentary passes available (for end users only) for the DCD Washington show taking place on May 2nd. Contact Dorothy.Ochs@Raritan.com.
We will also have live demos in our booth (#TCB) and a raffle drawing for an iPad mini. Hope you can join us.
For more details, visit http://www.datacenterdynamics.com/conferences/2013/washington-dc-2013
Posted on April 25, 2013 by Gento
Key Note Speaker:
EDI, Ltd.‘s Jeremy Gilbertson, CTS, RCDD
Topics Covered:
Jeremy Gilbertson, CTS, RCDD is Vice President of EDI, Ltd.‘s Data Center Practice and is responsible for overall strategic direction, management, and project delivery for the practice. Jeremy’s expertise involves helping enterprise, third-party provider, healthcare, and higher-education clients understand the current state of their data centers and develop phased strategies that address business requirements, risk profile, and budget.
Join us for an afternoon of leading edge Data Center discussions and real world case studies ranging from design through intelligent infrastructure management followed by a tasting of best brews and appetizers.
When:
Thursday, May 23rd from 12:00pm-5:00pm
Where:
Gordon Biersch Brewery (Buckhead location)
3242 Peachtree Road N
Atlanta GA 30305
Case Studies on Tap:
About EDI, Ltd. EDI, Ltd. is a leading healthcare IT consulting and design firm specializing in medical communication technologies, information systems infrastructure, security, audio-visual systems, and data center.
Attendees will be entered into a drawing for a Kindle Fire!
Space is limited.
Posted on April 23, 2013 by Gento
Last week, Raritan shipped our first production run of—what we believe to be—the highest-density rack power strip in the industry to date.
Like all other Raritan rack power strips sold in North America, these units are UL Listed (bear the true UL Listed Mark). They will be placed in cabinets that will obviously get very hot, so like all Raritan power strips with the part number prefix “PX2”, these units have a maximum ambient temperature of 140°F (60°C) in North American markets.
Although the customer application is confidential, generally-speaking this power strip could easily handle up to twelve blade chassis (with common configurations) in a Tier IV environment:
**This is meant as a generalization. Please be sure to consult your Raritan power architect for more detailed provisioning guidance.
Today, the status quo for cabinet densities tends to be approximately 5 to 10 kW. Raritan has been very fortunate to have partnered with some of the industry’s most forward-thinking datacenter operators and architects—and have thus designed and deployed a significant number of different power strip configurations at higher densities. For electrical reasons, they cluster in the 14kW, 25kW, 28kW, 33kW, and now 55kW ranges.
It’s a great deal of fun, and I enjoy advising clients on the best way to deploy ever-increasing power densities at minimal cost.
Here are some more photos, if you’d like to take a closer look:
For the technical folks in the audience, here are the comprehensive engineering submittals—including mechanical diagram and one-line drawing.
Please note:
I am obligated by law to mention that this power strip happens to be from Raritan’s PX2-4000 Series—which means that in addition to supplying an absurd amount of power, it also provides billing-grade (+/- 1%) kWh energy metering for every inlet, breaker, and individual outlet [C13 and C19]. It is compatible with our wide variety of environmental sensors (temp, humidity, differential air pressure, leak, door open/close); WiFi (802.11a/b/g/n) options; daisy-chaining; USB mass configuration; etc. And it can be queried via either SNMP v1/2c/3 or JSON-RPC.
But enough with the infomercial… fundamentally, I just think it’s awesome to have a single rack PDU that delivers the equivalent amount of power as consumed by five average U.S. homes.