What Thermal Exhaust Ports Have You Overlooked in Your Data Center?

RJ Tee
December 21, 2016

  • Categories:
  • Tags:
what-thermal-exhaust-ports-have-you-overlooked-in-your-data-center - https://cdn.buttercms.com/ci98dit9TbidH6wDi5Yb

Look at you, skulking around your data center like Lord Vader at home in his Death Star. Sure, you don’t have any plans to destroy any competitors’ offices or nearby planets with your super laser any time soon, but you’re pretty confident that, if given the opportunity, you could.

tep.jpg

In the meantime, you can rest easy in your ergonomic office chair knowing that your department—and job—are safe and secure. Right?

Well, this is exactly what Darth Vader did. And it didn’t work out too well for him.

giphy-10.gif

What Vader failed to realize is that his chief architect made a critical error that would ultimately lead to his demise. By overlooking the Death Star’s thermal exhaust ports, he left the space station wide open to Luke’s attack, which ultimately led to its destruction.

Should we cut the kid some slack? It’s tough to say. On one hand, the Death Star was the size of the Moon. So it’s easy to see why he did so, as he needed to expel the pent up exhaust generated by the immense station. On the other hand, there was another main exhaust port, so it may not have been entirely necessary. What we’d really love to see is a tape of the minutes from the Empire’s executive Death Star planning committee meeting. We could only hope for this to emerge someday. Hint hint, George.

In either case, there’s a valuable lesson to be learned here: You may be overlooking some critical design flaws related to energy efficiency which could come back to bite you if you don’t discover and fix them. After all, on most days, your data center consumes close to the same amount of energy the Death Star used. And while you may not have any X-wings in your neighborhood, you do have the Force-wielding C-suite to be aware of who are just itching for an excuse to outsource your department to an offsite managed services provider. So you need to ensure your data center infrastructure is highly efficient, and not hemorrhaging power and money.

By implementing power monitoring PDUs, utilizing virtualization and containers, automating data center management systems—among other architectural considerations that you can find by clicking here—you can ensure that your data center stays safe and secure.

The One, The Only: HDOT With POPS