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Cisco Saves Millions by Deploying Thousands of Smart PDUs

Posted on December 26, 2013 by Gento

 

Imagine being able to save your company millions of dollars per year by investing in a low-cost, easy-to-install solution that’s simple to adopt and fits right into your existing infrastructure. If it sounds dumb, or perhaps too good to be true, take note—Cisco has just done it.

4 Ways Intelligent PDUs Can Help you Save Money

Posted on December 20, 2013 by Gento

1. Use metering to help you identify “ghost servers.” A SUN survey estimates 8 to 10% of servers are “ghost” servers (servers running idle). Using an intelligent metered PDU, such as one of Raritan’s PX models can help you identify these servers. Exorcise ghost servers and save real money.

2. While you’re at it, use the same data to help identify older, less efficent servers. Replacing older servers with new, energy-efficient models reduces server power consumption 25%.

3. Set up some smart sensors with your intelligent PDU to learn where you’re overcooling your data center. PX environmental sensors monitor temperature and alert you when user-defined high (too warm) and low (excessively cool) thresholds are exceeded. Use the ASHRAE-defined standards and safely raise temperatures, saving energy and money on excessive cooling.

4. Make your capacity planning and provisioning decisions with real-time data. Intelligent PDUs gather the data to make your data center’s true power capacity visible.

Experiment with the Raritan Power Management ROI Calculator to see how the savings can add up for your data center. 

What’s One Leading Cause of Data Center Downtime? It’s You.

Posted on December 18, 2013 by Gento

“To err is human, to purr is feline.” – Robert Bryne

One look at Switch’s SuperNap data centers is all it will take to convince you of the importance of color-coding within your own data center.   Switch has assembled the world’s largest data center campus, serving the enterprise needs of over 500 clients, from startups to Fortune 1000s from its secure 2.2. Million square foot campus in Las Vegas, Nevada.

With so many clients around the world relying on Switch to securely host their business services and provide near real-time results, the company can scarcely afford for any of its millions of servers to experience downtime due to power outages.  But, this begs the question, how might one reduce or eliminate power outages altogether?

Recent data center industry reports suggest that an overwhelming number of data center power outages are attributable to human error caused by mislabeling PDU racks, or being unable to identify problem areas.  It’s a finding that underpins the need for a solution like color PDUs and cables that can help data center staff to avoid outages due to careless mistakes.

Need proof?  Visit Switch’s SuperNap data center gallery to see how Raritan’s Color PDUs and SecureLock™ cables are being used in a live data center environment.   And, download a copy of Raritan’s 5 Great Reasons to Use Colored Rack PDUs to safeguard your data center from outages that could inadvertently be caused by you.

Data Center Airside Economizers and Humidity

Posted on December 10, 2013 by Gento

The American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) publishes recommended ranges for temperature (65 degrees to 80 degrees F, 18 degrees to 27 degrees C) and relative humidity (20% to 80%).

One of the best ways to understand the relationship between temperature and humidity is to look at a psychrometric chart. The bottom of the chart is dry bulb temperature meaning air containing no moisture. The scale on the right of the chart is the amount of moisture in pounds contained in a pound of dry air. The curves running through the chart are the relative humidity (RH) from 0% to 100%. The temperature scale along the 100% RH curve is the wet bulb temperature.

An Unexpected Data Center Planning Issue

Posted on December 5, 2013 by Gento

USnews.com published a fascinating article this week, “Some NSA Opponents Want to ‘Nullify’ Surveillance With State Law”

A group called OffNow plans to turn off the water supply to the Utah Data Center being built for the NSA. Their intention is to use local community law to make life difficult for the local center. After all, when you park a data center in a county, it needs electricity, water, sewer connections, and roadways. Local governments control these services. It could be argued that local governments have less political diversity of opinion. They might be easier to sway.

OffNow’s website refers to a local water supply as the NSA’s Achilles Heel. It’s the prefect description. A massive data center could be crippled because they can’t get something as simple as a water connection. Short of trucking the water in, there’s really no way around it — they can’t lay water pipes through the county. They won’t even be able to drill a well without a local permit.

This isolated event raises the specter of political guerrilla tactics in the control of data

These days, we’re surrounded by more and more polarizing events. Now, companies and government must plan for future issues that could unite a local community or action group against their data center.

Local companies helping to build the NSA’s data center could find themselves facing a boycott. But this kind of action likely won’t stop there. Consider how OffNow’s actions could inform other action groups:

• An online furrier hosted in a particular data center could lead to action against that center
• Political candidates could come under attack. Most don’t even know where their data is hosted
• Energy companies, foreign governments, all must consider where their data is hosted and the possible implications

Just when you thought data center planning couldn’t get any more complicated.

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