Rack PDU Blog

While use of vertical PDUs, or vertical rack power distribution units, has become nearly ubiquitous in today’s data center, they are not the only game in town. Since we have been getting a lot of questions lately about Horizontal rack PDUs, we thought it would be useful to take moment to pause and reflect on our counterpart from the other axis. Besides orientation, the most obvious difference between the two rack mount power strips is that of space – outlet space to be exact. Since the typical horizontal PDU fills 1 to 2U gaps, the number of outlets available is limited to the width of the rack or the number of U spaces you are willing to part with.

Ireland’s state-owned Electricity Supply Board (ESB) recently made headlines when the company publicly referred to its data centers as a liability for their heavy power consumption. As explained in Data Center Dynamics, the remarks appeared in an interim financial statement from 1H17. The issue was referred to as a principal risk to the company and was later clarified by a company spokesperson.

October is already here, which means we’re rapidly approaching the end of the year. Before you know it, the holiday rush will arrive, followed closely by the start of 2018 — which means time is running out to plan your data center’s 2018 power management strategy. Now is an important time to round up your team and discuss ways that you can reduce energy waste next year so that your data center can save money and become more efficient in the process.

According to a new study, companies have thus far invested $18.2 billion in U.S. data centers, which is double the amount they pulled in last year. At this pace, they are on track to surpass the total amount for the last three years combined.

How do you balance the electrical needs of a cabinet of equipment with available technology? Many data center facilities have come to rely on a standard rack mount power strip PDU configuration fed by 3-phase, 30A circuits running at 208V. This setup can yield approximately 8 kW to feed your power-hungry IT gear.

Yes, Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook, and Google – we’re talking to you and your kind. While most would consider it a good day to dominate the world of commerce, you and your hyperscale computing compatriots have completely changed the landscape of information technology and data centers as we used to know them. Your executive leadership is brilliant, your stocks are soaring, and you’ve got the world at your feet. Well, ever think about what life would be like without the right rack PDU? OK, you have to admit, we’ve got you there.

Your hyperscale data center operates on a lean budget. You want to install your hardware and be done with it until you decommission it for the next efficiency-driven replacement cycle. But real world hardware does fail, and when it does, you want your suppliers to be both knowledgeable and responsive. They need to be able to troubleshoot remotely or on site, and get you answers and replacement product quickly so that your application can be restored.

Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS) systems have emerged as a main driver of growth in the booming data center power market — a market, it should be noted, that will continue growing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6 percent until 2025, when it will reach $10.77 billion.

Hurricane Harvey’s rainfall has finally passed, meaning the long cleanup and recovery process can now commence. Here at Server Technology, our hearts go out to all of the victims that were impacted by the storm, and to those who will be facing terrible difficulties in the days to come. Already, Harvey is being called the biggest flood-producing storm in U.S. history. Its winds reached 125 mph and brought more than 50 inches of rain to the region, which is an American record. Looking ahead, there are many questions that are starting to come to the surface — perhaps the biggest for the U.S. data center community being, when will the next major storm reach land? And what will it entail? Some scientists now believe hurricanes are in fact getting worse due to climate change, and weaker storms are also happening less frequently.

In a surprising announcement, the Chinese government has issued a full ban on data centers in Beijing whose power usage effectiveness (PUE) exceeds 1.5.