Rack PDU Blog

In support of the new Marc Cram white paper, “Flexibility and Sustainability for the Dynamic Data Center,” we are going to be rolling out a three-part blog series that supports some of the key data center themes covered in the document. The paper itself, a copy of which can be found here, is a mission-critical state of the union address that calls attention to the challenges facing today’s dynamic data center operators.

In our previous post , we started a conversation about the topic of DC power distribution and 48v DC power in the data center. The struggle to improve efficiency within computing facilities began long before the chipset had been invented, back in the ‘war of the currents’ in the 1880s. ...

While we touched on the topic in this 2017 blog, we wanted to spend a little more time exploring the concept of DC (or direct current) power distribution in the data center. For years, it has been an esoteric blip on the radar of critical power distribution, hovering just outside the realm of ‘interested, just not today.’ We would like to revisit the topic because a strange thing has been happening—quietly, mind you--over the last couple of years: designers and large data center operators are actually starting to implement solutions that utilize DC power.

Are you faced with the challenge of selecting a rack PDU to meet not only your existing but also future power needs? Whether it’s for a refurbishment, new build, or retro-fit, when making such a purchase, you need to ensure you are maximizing your investment for the long-term - yes? But how does a data center manager feel secure in the knowledge that he has all potential future requirements covered? Short of gazing into a crystal ball and asking for some otherworldly guidance, there has been no simple answer to the question, ‘what will my future power needs be?’…until now

Suffice it to say, 2018 has been a fun year for the Stay Powered Blog here at Server Technology. We’ve really run the gambit in terms of topics – from intelligent PDUs and IP Power Strips to Network PDU(s) and all points in between. We covered them all with, ahem, a mix of intelligence and humor. If you were to read the five most popular blogs from this year, what would they be?

The staff here at Server Tech wanted to spend a little more time spreading some Christmas cheer, so we turned to this iconic comic strip for inspiration. Charlie Brown and the rest of the Peanuts gang are so much a part of the US Christmas culture. Likewise, Vince Guaraldi’s A Charlie Brown Christmas album, and the ‘Linus and Lucy’ theme in particular, has been the soundtrack for many a family Christmas gathering.

The original purpose of this blog was to offer our readers a respite from the standard technical fare, but as you will see from the lines below, it took on a life of its own. Our apologies in advance to the great poet Clement Clarke Moore, who penned the famous opening line “‘Twas the night before Christmas” almost two-hundred years ago.

The idea that standardization benefits those of us in the data center space is neither new nor difficult to grasp. Data center standardization is a reality that directly supports the uptime goals of your organization. This applies wherever your PDU(s) are operating, like a colocation facility, corporate data center, or hyperscale complex. You may wonder, then, how PDU power factors into this equation, let alone a small receptacle tucked into a PDU at the back of a rack?

In our previous post on intelligent PDUs, we dedicated a blog to defining what it means to be an intelligent PDU. In this blog, we will discuss one of the characteristics of intelligent PDUs in more detail: data center environmental monitoring. Intelligent PDUs provide the support network that gives more rack-based data. In addition to power quality or capacity data, intelligent PDUs can be outfitted with data center environment sensors that collect additional information required for the management of the data center. Besides power, feedback on the operation of the cooling system is of utmost importance, but so is the physical security of the rack itself.

With all of the talk in the industry about intelligent PDUs, sometimes referred to as Network PDUs or IP power strips, this blog will seek to provide some basic information to help the reader understand what exactly they are.