Data Center Decisions Conference in Chicago

This Thursday, October 23rd, I’ll be a featured speaker at the 2008 Data Center Decisions Conference in Chicago, IL. This year’s conference will focus on four major topics: data center design, systems management, virtualization, and disaster recovery.While the pace of data center and facility design improvements has continually lagged that of IT systems demand, in the last two years vendors have been...

Ongoing Maintenance & Monitoring

It is an obvious truism that given enough time everything will fail. The only tool we have at our disposal to hopefully delay this eventuality is maintenance service. Unfortunately, it’s another truism that for most small computer room operations, this vital step is not performed. As is unfortunately typical, we often put off short-term inconvenience for future unplanned and unpredictable grief.Whatever...

Receptacle Level Load Monitoring & Control

Power monitoring and control at the receptacle or rack level is a hot topic lately. Part of the interest can be attributed to the lure of the unknown – that feeling of “I’m not sure why I want it, but I’ll probably need it!” But there are some really solid reasons for data center managers to consider receptacle-level power monitoring/control solutions.The ability to trace watts information at the...

New White Paper on Power Usage

Managing data center power usage is critical due to rising energy costs and diminishing supplies. But where do you start? To help answer this question, PTS Data Center Solutions in collaboration with Raritan, a leading manufacturer of power management products, developed a new white paper that examines the myths and realities of power usage in the data center. Entitled “Power Moves: Understanding...

Tips for Handling Data Center Moves and Shortages of Space

Look for PTS Data Center Solutions in the July 11th issue of Processor magazine (Vol.30, Issue 28).Kurt Marko interviewed me for the feature article, “Need More Data Center Space?: IT Managers Are Faced With Options Ranging From Simple Housekeeping To Major Construction”. Adding data center space can be a complex and costly issue. If your data center runs out of room, the basic options are 1) reorganize...

Data Center Energy Summit 2008

On June 26th, the Silicon Valley Leadership Group (SVLG) held its first Data Center Energy Summit in Santa Clara, CA. The industry event focused on issues involving data center sustainability, energy efficiency and green computing.In conjunction with Accenture and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), the SVLG also unveiled a report containing real world case studies from its Energy Efficient...

PTS Data Center Solutions Turns 10-Years Old!

Time flies like the wind. Fruit flies like bananas.-- Groucho MarxAll kidding aside, time really does fly! It's hard for me to believe, but it was a decade ago that we founded PTS Data Center Solutions (known way-back-when as Power Technology Sales, Inc.). Our goal then, as it is now, was to provide our clients with unparalleled service and optimal solutions to meet their data center and computer...

Article: “Changing The Oil In Your Data Center”

This is just a quick update before everyone heads out for the holiday weekend.If you haven't already done so, I encourage you to check out the May 16, 2008 issue of Processor magazine (Vol.30, Issue 20). Drew Robb interviewed me for his latest article, entitled “Changing The Oil In Your Data Center.” Maintenance neglect is an all-too-frequent cause of unplanned data center downtime. This people-related...

The National Data Center Energy Efficiency Information Program

Matt Stansberry, editor of SearchDataCenter.com, posted a blog entry on the National Data Center Energy Efficiency Information Program. I'm echoing his post here because energy efficiency is such a critical issue for the industry. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) have teamed up on a project with aims to help reduce energy consumption in data centers....

CFD Modeling for Data Center Cooling

Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) modeling is a valuable tool for understanding the movement of air through a data center, particularly as air-cooling infrastructure grows more complex. By using CFD analysis to eliminate hot spots, companies can lower energy consumption and reduce data center cooling costs. Mark Fontecchio at SearchDataCenter.com has written a great new article on the subject,...