Need a Customized PDU? Raritan Can Build It for You

Jessica Ciesla
October 18, 2021

Raritan offers a large portfolio of rack Power Distribution Units (PDUs) with more than 700 models to choose from. Despite all those options, some companies have unique data center requirements and need custom PDU solutions. That’s where Raritan’s Advanced Engineering team comes in.

Raritan’s team of engineers can design, build, and deliver custom PDUs to data center customers within 12 to 16 weeks, said Calvin Nicholson, Raritan’s senior director of product management.  

“If companies are looking for something unique, need a fair amount of them, and are looking for someone to build it, we have the horsepower and the engineering resources to do it,” Nicholson said.  

Raritan offers a family of intelligent and non-intelligent PDUs, which are devices fitted with outlets to distribute electric power across a rack of data center equipment, such as servers, storage hardware, and networking equipment.  

The most basic “non-intelligent” PDU is essentially a power strip that accurately distributes the correct voltage and current to IT equipment in a rack. On the other end of the spectrum, Raritan’s most advanced “intelligent” PDU displays meter power at the infeed or the outlets – or in both places – over a secure network, allowing data center managers to identify power consumption at the device level.  

The intelligent PDU also offers remote management capabilities, such as the ability to turn off connected devices if they are not in use. The ability to remotely view and manage power usage helps reduce data center costs, but it also makes it easier for data center operators to allocate costs to specific customers.  

Customers that have turned to Raritan for custom PDUs include Fortune 500 companies whose use cases include cloud and edge deployments and power-intensive applications, such as artificial intelligence and high-performance computing, Nicholson said.  

Raritan can make small modifications to existing models or engineer new products. For example, some data center operators need a custom PDU solution to support power from multiple countries. They may need a specific number of outlets or type of outlet or want different form factors or densities, Nicholson said. They can also request custom colors to make it easier for technicians to identify the A and B power infeeds. 

Two Raritan customers – technology companies Seagate and Ericsson – needed custom PDUs that would work in North America and Europe. Raritan Advanced Engineering solved both companies’ problems by designing PDUs for each company that accommodated voltage standards from both continents.  

Raritan has also built custom PDUs for eBay, so it could support high-density power loads of up to 55 kVA.  

In all, Raritan develops more than 200 new custom PDU designs every year. If you have unique PDU needs and want to learn more, go to the Raritan Advanced Engineering web page or contact our team.