What is the difference between inlet, outlet, and circuit breaker metering

Jessica Ciesla
May 16, 2019

It's no secret that data centers have copious amounts of IT equipment. However, the challenge that data center managers face on a daily basis is knowing how to properly monitor and react (in real time) to each piece of IT equipment. The good news is that intelligent PDUs can help data center managers successfully monitor inlet, outlet, and circuit breaker metering. As any seasoned data center manager will tell you, inlet, outlet, and circuit breaker metering is critical to avoiding downtime, effectively utilizing power resources, and reducing data center costs year over year. 

What Is Inlet Metering?

The IT industry is constantly focused on improving data center efficiencies. As part of the latter measures, all aspects of a rack are measured, including metering at the inlet level. Inlet metering helps data center managers more accurately determine each rack's power usage. It is also used to analyze the rack's available capacity.

What Is Outlet Metering?

In a similar fashion to inlet monitoring, outlet metering helps data center managers more accurately determine the available capacity and power usage of each rack. Outlet metering is the metering of a single device load connected to an outlet. It also plays a vital role in the identification of underutilized servers and ghost servers, which waste funds and resources. Intelligent rack PDUs can be used to effectively monitor devices at the outlet level, so that CO2 footprints are reduced, real time power consumption is accurately measured, and the optimal operating efficiencies are achieved.

What Is Circuit Breaker Metering? 

Did you know that circuit breaker metering can help data center managers avoid overloaded circuits, tripping breakers, and downtime? As its name suggests, circuit breaker metering is completed at the local PDU circuit breaker. Data center managers will set thresholds for each circuit, and when the circuit is close to passing the established threshold, an alert will be sent to the data center. The data center manager can better understand when and where breakers might have tripped and if any circuits are dangerously close to overload. Like inlet and outlet metering, circuit-level metering can be easily achieved with the help of an intelligent rack PDU. 

Intelligent Rack PDUs Provide Inlet, Outlet, And Circuit Metering

In conclusion, inlet, outlet, and circuit metering can help data centers reduce costs, create operational efficiencies, and reduce the risk of unexpected periods of downtime. The good news is that Raritan's intelligent rack PDUs can help data center managers more accurately and effectively complete their inlet, outlet, and circuit metering tasks.

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