Rack PDU Blog

Mainframes and Moore’s law led to personal computers. Client-server applications became possible with the first local area networks. Cellular radio systems and Wi-Fi, along with Moore’s law (again) combined with improved battery technology have made laptops, tablets, cell phones, and augmented reality headsets key drivers of internet activity today. Tomorrow’s applications will be more widespread, and possibly less visible. Think smart cities, where the lamp posts and the sidewalks work together to guide you to your destination so you don’t have to watch your progress on a map application on your phone. The solar powered talking trash bin on the corner can call a driverless Lyft for you. Need to make a phone call? Put your hand on the glass of the bus stop shelter and you can have a video call for a few micro-cents.

In a nod to Server Technology’s continued dedication to innovating new technology in the data center space, STI recently was awarded the prestigious Wagon Wheel Award from the Northern Nevada Development Authority. The award recognizes the “Best New Technology, Product or Patent” from a northern Nevada company each year.

Server Technology won two awards from the Northern Nevada Development Authority. The Comstock Award for Innovator of the Year and the Wagon Wheel Award for Best Technology, Program or Patents.

Sometimes, the road less traveled proves to be the better route. That’s certainly the case with a less common, new approach to PDU design that employs 3 phase power distribution. In the past, this has meant dividing power into several branches within the rack PDU, but this new approach from Server Technology makes use of alternating each phase on a per-receptacle basis instead of per branch. As you can imagine, demand for more power in the cabinet is behind the move towards a 3 phase PDU in many data centers. If the search for more power is on your mind, alternating phase PDUs might be the answer to your problems.

Do you have Server Technology in your data center? If so, you know that Server Technology PDUs are the best in the industry, backed by over 30 years of innovation and supported by power strategy experts. That's why this year, Data Center Solutions has made Server Technology a finalist for our product "High Density Outlet Technology (HDOT) Rackmount PDU In Switched and Smart POPS."

The sun is out, the sky is blue and baseball season is right around the corner. That’s right, folks, springtime is here. It’s the perfect time to roll up your sleeves and give your data center a fresh overhaul. In doing so, it’s vital to take a hard look at your facility to see if your equipment is up to par. Look for ways of improving network performance or energy efficiency now, before the hot weather rolls in and puts your setup—and budget—to the real test.

Power industry groups such as ASHRAE, IEEE, The Green Grid and Emerge Alliance are good examples of organizations working to improve the state of the art data center’s design and power utilization effectiveness. As these groups work to foster new ideas and technologies that will result in more energy-efficient data centers, one fact remains clear: minimizing the number of operating power supplies and power conversions at the highest (most efficient) input voltage possible translates to greater operational expense savings.

In the advertising world, there are no such things as coincidences. When you hop on the Internet to find a product and you come across an ad that seems perfectly tailored to you, it’s no mere accident. More than likely, an advertising tech company like our client, Turn, has helped you find that product by serving up relevant ads through consumer data. In order to power its platform – which response to half of the world’s Internet page views in as little as 10 milliseconds. Turn employs a highly scalable multi-tiered server infrastructure using a Big Data analytics engine and a powerful suite of software. Recently, Turn sought to reconfigure its hardware with one setup containing 23 devices per rack and 43 devices per rack on the other. It also sought to make the most of its colocation space while powering support to customers via data-driven advertising efforts. Finally, Turn was looking for remote monitoring capabilities for its hardware.

In the arcade game Whack-a-Mole, the object is to smash multiple mechanical rodents with a large felt mallet as they pop up from their holes. Simple enough, right? That is, until the game progresses and the moles start popping up with alarming frequency, requiring you to exercise cat-like reflexes just to keep up. Similarly, being a data center operator takes constant vigilance in order to avoid unscheduled downtime, obsolescence and other operational moles from popping up.

or centuries, philosophers and laymen have loved to ask the really big questions in life, even if they don’t always come up with satisfactory answers. Questions like “why are we here,” “how can the universe be infinite if it has a beginning” and, “if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around, does it still make a sound?” But it’s not always the big existential quandaries that keep data center managers up at night. Sometimes it’s the much more practical concerns, such as “what is the optimal density to provision for and what sorts of variations in power usage should I expect over time?” While this question may not rank up there with “what’s the meaning of life,” it’s still pretty important when you’re overseeing millions of dollars worth of capital investments.