Making Light Work of Configuring with Zero Touch Provisioning

It has recently come to my attention that not all intelligent, cabinet-level power distribution units are smart.

Now, don’t get me wrong – we’ve come a long way since the days of bulky, black, power bars that were available in black or, well, black.

More modern power distribution units are chock full of features, colors, and options for voltage, monitoring, and controls that would rival the most sophisticated switchgear available.  But when it comes time to plug these sophisticated cabinet-level units into your data center’s network, eyes glaze over and thoughts wander at the prospect of manually configuring those new units.  Each. And. Every. One.

What if this process truly could be plug and play?

Well, it can.  The engineers at Server Technology have developed the ability for new PDU’s to be provisioned uniformly and automatically.  If you use a server featuring dynamic host configuration protocol (DCHP) on your network, and store your user settings on a separate trivial file transport (TFTP) server on the same network, new Server Technology equipment will be provisioned automatically. 

Now, there’s nothing trivial about that.

Using the moniker ‘Zero Touch Provisioning,’ or ZTP, any PRO1 or PRO2 Server Tech PDU can be set up in a flash.  And the same ZTP feature can be used to provide updates or configuration changes to all your power distribution units simultaneously.   Now, users of all sizes can appreciate that kind of flexibility.