Rack PDU Blog

There is an array of variables that affect your data center uptime — from structural design to redundancy to fault tolerance. You could say that it’s a balancing act, ensuring that every element positively influences the others so that damaging issues —like power shortages — don’t tip the scale.

If you gathered data center operators from some of the world’s top brands to discuss capacity planning, you could probably pick up a helpful tip or two on how to plan for a new build or retrofit. In fact, that’s what our friends at Datacenter Dynamics Intelligence did when they set out to interview 15 data center owners and operators from companies as varied as Cisco WebEx, Defense.net, and ING Bank about capacity planning best practices. The resulting study provides a wealth of common-sense tips for those tackling either new builds or retrofits.

here’s no crystal ball to predict the future of your data center’s power density, but if you have a clear understanding of your data center’s goals, you can cut through much of the confusion that revolves around density while being prepared for eventual increases. In recent years, high density seems to have become a relative term with various data center operators having their own ideas about what it really means. For a long time, the data center was an amalgam of old mainframes, networking racks and a variety of server/storage cabinets. Around this period – roughly 15 years ago – most racks were running the 1-3 KW range with power and cooling infrastructures being overbuilt to attain maximum uptime. By the time 2005 rolled around, data center managers were seeing increased rack power, especially on blade servers.

ScaleMatrix seeks to set itself apart from the pack of cloud/colocation providers in the marketplace. The San Diego-based company provides a variety of hosting platforms and services to help companies connect workloads across development, production, and disaster recovery environments. When ScaleMatrix set out to create a new type of multi-tenant data center, its team chose Server Technology to assist with its most pressing issues.

Analysts forecast that the data center construction market is set to grow at a CAGR of 4.18 percent over the period 2014-2019, in the US alone. The reason for the rapid development of data centers in the enterprise’s growing need for dedicated IT environments as they move much of their mission-critical applications and data to the cloud.

Preparedness is a data center manager’s best friend. Between determining how best to deliver power to a variety of rack types, to energy efficiency reporting, to overseeing capacity planning management, data center management is a job that requires intense focus, methodical planning and the most reliable tools available. In this whitepaper, we broke down the 10 things every data center operations manager needs to know about power. This paper contains practical, real-world data center best practices and tips you can employ to help increase energy efficiency and gain a deeper understanding of power management and control.

Northbridge Energy Partners recently released a new study titled “Mind the Gap: Energy Availability and the Disconnect with Data,” which highlights the growing demand for electricity amongst global data centers, its main drivers and what we can expect to see in terms of energy efficiency and consumption in the future. The report reveals some compelling statistics about the current state of data center energy consumption, which all network administrators should take note of. For instance, data centers represent one of the fastest growing electricity markets in the world and are responsible for about 3 percent of all electricity consumption annually. What’s more, data center electricity consumption has increased by about 100 percent over the past five years.

There’s no shame in admitting you’re one of those resolution quitters, who will be reaching for a bag of Reese’s come February 1. All too often, we strive to reach our goals by the end of January only to fall back into our old ways by the start of February. This practice is forgivable in our personal lives, but when you’re a network administrator who has enterprise connectivity and environmental sustainability to consider, reaching your New Year’s goals is critical to your data center’s efficiency.

Normally, the majority of the US would be covered in a soft blanket of snow by this time of year. This year, however, winter jackets and snow shovels have yet to make an appearance due to unseasonably mild temperatures.

High-power density solutions will grow in popularity: On average, today’s data centers are reaching 20 years of age. As such, many of these legacy facilities cannot effectively or efficiently meet today’s power demands. Industry experts predict that many organizations will close down their data centers in favor of data center colocation solutions. But whether you decide to maintain your dedicated data center or move to a colocated solution, you can stay fully informed of your power usage effectiveness (PUE) by implementing smart power rack solutions that enable you to monitor and measure your power usage.