PDUs As A Single System in the Data Center

It’s easy to think of intelligent PDUs within large populations as separate entities, each with its own needs such as operating system updates, patches, and configuration details. Perhaps the smarter approach is to consider them as a single system. That’s the argument we’ve made in the recent whitepaper, “Power Distribution as a System within the High-Density Data Center.”

When you shift your thinking to the single system approach, you aren’t completely neglecting the individual unit. You’re still retaining access to the features of the individual components including accurate power consumption reporting, remote access to metrics, and secured means of switching power at the device level. But you’re also gaining a complete intelligent energy monitoring system that’s easy to configure while providing versatile reporting along with capacity planning and seamless integration.

In fact, hundreds or even thousands of rack PDUs can be overseen as a single continuous and easily configured layer. In the whitepaper, we show you how to do this by implementing and configuring a proper energy management system. Benefits include being able to cut down on the time and effort involved with monitoring power for capacity planning in high density data centers as well as seamless integration with your DCIM efforts.

The paper also addresses:

• Taking a system approach to large populations of rack PDUs
• Achieving reliability in high temperature environments
• Dealing with rising power and equipment densities throughout the data center
• Power monitoring at the device-level within the rack/cabinet
• Depth and accuracy of energy metrics
• Version control/device management and configuration
• Support for DCIM initiatives
• Other critical data center issues