Protecting Your Devices From Extreme Temperature Conditions, Exceeded In-Feed Load, and Loss of UPS Power
A large National Research Lab located in the South West was having cooling issues in their data center. At one point, the temperature became so hot that the fire suppression system was triggered, with no notification, and destroyed $300k of critical server and network equipment.
The Data Center Director searched for a way to bring down groups of equipment within the data center when the temperature reached a specific threshold to preserve equipment before damage due to overheating occurred again. They also wanted to be alerted when these thresholds were exceeded.
Working with Server Technology, The Labs found a solution to this problem.
The first part of the solution is environmental monitoring for temperature and humidity. All Server Tech Smart and Switched Cabinet Power Distribution Units (CDUs) can support two environmental probes. The data from these probes can be seen on the CDUs built in firmware.
The second part of the solution is called "Smart Load Shedding", which is an optional feature for all Server Tech Switched CDUs.
Smart Load Shedding automatically manages individual or groups of devices based on temperature, current load and UPS power status. Should the temperature or current load exceed defined thresholds or the UPS lose power and go onto battery, all or a portion of the devices in the equipment cabinet may be automatically shut off to ensure longer operational life of the critical devices. If one or more of the devices being shed is a server, a graceful shutdown may be accomplished via a Remote Shutdown Agent. This Remote Shutdown Agent intervenes before power is shutoff to the device to protect valuable data. When the specific threshold is no longer being exceeded or the UPS comes off of battery, a user configured auto-recovery time will restore power to the load shed devices. This feature is fully configurable and it is up to the operator if the system will be allowed to auto-recover on none or all of the configured key parameters.
In addition to the outlets powering down upon being triggered, an SNMP trap and email alarm can be sent to the data center employees to notify them of this event.
The Labs chose the CW-8H1-C20 based on their needs. With the Switched CDUs' Smart Load Shedding and temperature and humidity probes, they can now safeguard their devices against unforeseen power and environmental events.
