Rack PDU Blog

Network administrators are continuously caught up in many torrid technological romances. Just consider their love/hate relationship with bandwidth. That is, administrators love the data center uptime they get when bandwidth capacity is aligned with network loads but hate struggling to ensure uptime when systems are overloaded. So, imagine how their love will be tested as the bandwidth demands of 5G networks barrel toward them.

As the human race blasts forward into the future, network professionals are looking for new territories in which to build innovative data centers. For instance, we recently posted a blog about the first waterborne data center—check out the article here if you haven’t yet. Now, the likes of NASA and organizations in the defense aerospace technology space are looking to set up shop in the final frontier.

Picture this: you run a state-of-the-art 5.5MW, 34,000 square foot data center with more than 450 cabinets and power capacities up to 600W per square foot. In that situation, issues such as security, reliability and accessibility are at the top of your list of priorities, meaning every component in your data center needs to be 100 percent reliable, every time. That’s exactly what one of Server Technology’s clients, Nevada-based Cobalt Data Center, faced with its Las Vegas Tier III multi-tenant data center. Cobalt supports a diverse customer base by helping its customers analyze, measure and control power usage so they can, in turn, perform better capacity planning.

Working as a data center IT professional is not unlike juggling chainsaws: there’s little room for error and a mistake could lead to disaster. While most data center IT pros are smart enough to stay away from flying power tools, they are tasked with juggling uptime, reliability, performance, and efficiency. And the stakes are high.

Bandwidth is the hottest commodity of the new year and will likely continue as such for the long haul. After all, both enterprise and consumer appetites will only become more insatiable as technology continues to require more support from the Internet. For example, enterprises are increasingly using the public cloud to run applications and store data due to its cost efficiency and simplicity. However, the more enterprises that utilize the cloud, the more bandwidth that is required to support their needs. Additionally, a surge in mobile video consumption is also impacting bandwidth requirements. This particular driver of bandwidth demand will likely multiply over the years as consumers continue to watch videos on social media, stream movies and use video chatting applications such as Skype or FaceTime.

We recently sat down with two of our in-house power strategy pros to talk about what the Server Technology slogan “The Power Strategy Experts” really means. The conversation helped to underscore the importance of doing one thing and doing it well, an idea that’s at the core of the Server Technology philosophy.

The Super Bowl continues to be one of the most watched television events in history, year after year. In fact, last year’s game where the New England Patriots took on the Seattle Seahawks became the No. 1 most watched televised event ever with an astounding 114.4 million viewers. And while you might be thinking about the outrageous strain on bandwidth—and thereby power consumption—required to broadcast this live event to televisions across the nation, the Super Bowl is actually one of the most energy efficient live broadcasted events.

Your servers generate a ton of heat over the course of a single day. So, why not take this excess heat and pump it back into your office building during cold winter months? It’s a great way to save money and reduce waste at the same time. Think about it: A typical server running at 400 watts will generate almost 1,400 British thermal unit (Btu) per hour. A standard 20-by-20 room with a 10-foot ceiling only needs about 35,000 Btu per hour to maintain a 72 degree temperature. Since a large enterprise will run several thousand servers at a given time, it will generate more than enough energy to keep an entire building heated for an extended duration.

What you’re looking at is a long-term forecast of heat load by footprint, specifically made for the IT datacenter and the telecom market. Today, the upper limit of air-cooled compute infrastructures sits right at 4.5kW / ft^2, which aligns nicely with ASHRAE’s prediction. Call it a self-fulfilling prophecy or call it an advancement in cooling and liquid immersion systems, the end result is a slow, but steady rise in compute densities over time.

In a recent post, we ruminated over the fatal design flaw in the Death Star’s thermal exhaust port that ultimately led to the destruction of the space station. As we mentioned, it’s difficult to pin blame on the Death Star architect alone, as all of that exhaust had to go somewhere...but, we digress. Check out the article and share your thoughts with us. Fast forward to The Force Awakens: The Galactic Empire has fallen, and the First Order has commandeered an abandoned ice planet in the Unknown Regions. Enter Starkiller Base, a massive facility capable of destroying not just planets, but entire star systems. Now, you’d think in the First Order’s quest to establish itself as the new head honchos in the galaxy that they’d at least not make the same mistake that the Empire did and leave their fancy new weapon vulnerable to attack. But, they did.