Tuesday, May 29, 2012

Puzzling Over Effective Computer and Server Room Design

Creating an effective computer or server room design is a bit like piecing together a jigsaw puzzle. Unless you’re a glutton for punishment (which, I admit, some of us probably are), you wouldn’t get started on a puzzle without making sure you had all the right pieces or without looking at the picture on the box to see how the finished puzzle is supposed to look. In order to get the project done as efficiently and effectively as possible, you need to assess the puzzle’s pieces, make a game plan, and then begin work in a systematic manner.

When creating a server room design, not only do you need to take stock of all the elements of the server room, you also need to consider the way those components work together. It’s rare that you get a server room design right on the first try – throughout the design process, you’ll need to adjust for different design elements to make sure the systems work harmoniously.

To make sure your team has all its pieces in place, begin by meeting with your IT and facility staff to review your server room objectives based on your existing systems and facility. With your company’s design goals in mind, your team can evaluate the availability expectations as well as the requirements for your server room’s power and cooling density. The Planning & Feasibility stage defines the scope, schedule and budget for the new server or computer room. You can develop a conceptual server room design and draw up construction budgets and timelines.

With feasibility accomplished and a high level plan in place you are ready to move to the Engineering & Design phase. The end result of your design project should be a server room that not only provides enhanced scalability, flexibility and server availability, but also concurrent maintainability and fault-tolerance against failures in which a component must be replaced.

To evaluate the quality of your server room design, consider the following points:
  1. The server room should accommodate your current needs, as well as your facility’s expansion for up to five years in the future. If it doesn’t, you may need to go back to the drawing board.
  2. Your location should be centralized and in a secure location. Try to avoid placing the server room near in the basement, on the ground floor, near bathrooms, and near the roof or exterior walls because of flooding and climate control issues. Also, avoid high traffic areas in order to improve the security of your server room.
  3. When evaluating your server room’s power and cooling requirements, don’t stop with just the servers or the air conditioning system. Consider the impact of air flow, floor space, lighting, UPS, fans, and other hardware. Each of these elements affects your design’s power and cooling loads. You may have to revisit your plans multiple times to create an efficient server room design.
  4. Take security seriously. Control access to your server room via auditable methods and consider installing security cameras.
The true test of an effective server room is whether your design will allow for future expansion while remaining reliable and cost-effective in the present time. Through careful planning, you can design a sophisticated, successful server room that meet your company’s demands for years to come.

Thursday, May 24, 2012

PTS Data Data Center Solutions Open House Highlighted by Emerson Network Power Smart Solutions Tour

On May 16, 2012, PTS Data Center Solutions hosted a half-day open house featuring the Smart Solutions by Emerson Network Power. Attendees had the opportunity to tour the SmartRow solution, talk to PTS engineers about their emerging data center design requirements, and explore possible implementation of the solution within their own environments. In addition, conversations ranged from Emerson's powerful new DCIM solution, Trellis, to the latest design techniques used in green data center design and energy efficiency programs.

Smart Solutions are an alternative to traditional design. They allow data center managers to:
  • Quickly increase data center capacity
  • Improve energy efficiency and space utilization
  • Offer location flexibility and capability with existing infrastructure
  • Lower data center operating costs through lower PuE
  • Deploy higher density zones in their legacy data centers
To learn more, please contact PTS or call us at 201-337-3833.


Tuesday, May 22, 2012

Still Manually Collecting Data to Make Decisions for Your Data Center?

DCIM made simple: When you select open solutions that were designed to make use of and integrate with tools you already have and know, DCIM will be embraced by your organization.
 
No Limits Software, RF Code, RackwisePTS Data Center Solutions present, "A Lunch & Win with DCIM Experts: A Triple Play Score for Your Data Center!"
Have lunch with Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) category experts and discover the triple play that guarantees success for the implementation and continuous use of DCIM in your organization:    
  • Know where your assets are throughout their lifecycle 
  • Discover how your assets are performing throughout their lifecycle 
  • Use discovered and trended data to plan and optimize your data center with tools you are already familiar with
The 1st Lunch & Win seminar you must attend this year. You'll gain a clear understanding of today's DCIM field and how simple it is to get on base. There will be promotional offers to help attendees score this Triple Play with ease.

  • LOCATION: Chart House - Weehawken, NJ
  • DATE: Wednesday, June 13th
  • TIME: 11:30am - 1:30pm

Wednesday, May 09, 2012

Emerson Network Power Welcomes Partners into Trellis Pilot Program

Emerson Network Power today welcomed PTS Data Center Solutions and 10 additional channel partners into its Trellis™ Pilot Partner Program. The program is designed to enable this select group of Emerson Network Power partners to effectively and successfully support the Trellis data center infrastructure management (DCIM) platform. 

The Trellis platform is a real-time infrastructure optimization platform that enables the unified management of the data center’s IT and facilities infrastructure, allowing for unprecedented insight and action to achieve optimal data center performance. To help ensure success of the go-to-market strategy for this platform, participants in the pilot program were selected from the Emerson Network Power Innovation Partnership Program based on an intensive screening and interview process that identified channel partners with the strongest data center strategies and activities in place, experience selling complex software and solutions, and commitment to the vision and growth of DCIM.

“We appreciate that Emerson Network Power saw the potential in PTS Data Center Solutions to consider us as a pilot partner for the Trellis launch,” said Pete Sacco, president of PTS Data Center Solutions. “To PTS, it was critical that Emerson Network Power saw the importance and invested in preparing us to take the industry’s most advanced and comprehensive DCIM technology to our clients." 


Learn more about the Trellis Pilot Partner Program.

Monday, May 07, 2012

End-to-End Real-Time Power Management from your IT Devices to your Utility Feeds

Power Management at the IT device and utility level is a hot topic today. With legislative  driven by driving data center green initiatives, utility investment in energy audits for clients, and events such as the Con Edison Energy Efficiency Summit, data center managers everywhere are engaged in ways to build high-performance and energy efficient data center facilities.

Famed management consultant Peter Drucker once said, "If you can't measure it, you can't manage it." That statement holds true for data center power management where managers need to be able to effectively monitor and manage power consumption within the facility at both the IT device and utility level.

At the device level, PTS is bullish on the Rack Management Platform (RaMP) solution developed by No Limits Software. RaMP automates the build polls and trends power right from the IPMI chip and through service processors such as iLO & DRAC. It also makes recommendation to take specific action based upon analytics.

At the facility level, the PowerLogic Power & Energy Monitoring System from Square D monitors and measure every level of facility power infrastructure from the utility feed, to main distribution panels, to the transformers, PDU's and circuit breakers feeding data center IT equipment.

Other solutions such as Power Assure provide combined IT & Facilities power monitoring solutions. Also for consideration are other Power Monitoring solutions as well as integrated Data Center Infrastructure Management solutions from Raritan, Packet Power, nlyte Software, Emerson Network Power, RF Code, ServerTech, and Geist to name a few.

To learn more about PTS' Energy Management Services & Solutions, visit us here or contact us.