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.

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, Rackwise & PTS 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

Learn more and register here.

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." 

Read the complete press release.

Learn more about the Trellis Pilot Partner Program.

Learn more about Trellis.

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.

PTS Exhibiting at Con Edison Energy Efficiency Summit 2012

Join PTS Data Center Solutions at the Con Edison Energy Efficiency Summit on May 1st at the Hilton New York Hotel. The second annual event brings together building contractors, manufacturers, and consultants working to reduce business energy consumption. Many reports state greater than 50% of the power burden for businesses resides in the data center and its IT and facility support infrastructure. Leveraging our proprietary data center & energy usage assessment approach, PTS provides actionable recommendations to reduce energy consumption and green the data center.

Register and get the event details here or learn more about PTS' role as a Market Partner to ConEd focused on assessing and improving energy efficiency within data centers and computer rooms.

Data Center Management Gotchas

As the complexity of IT infrastructure continues to increase in data centers, managers must look ahead to avoid unexpected downtime. A list of 10 common surprises for data center/IT managers was released by PTS supplier, Emerson Network Power, at AFCOM Data Center World Spring 2012.

According to a Ponemon Institute study, an outage can cost an organization
an average of about $5,000 per minute. That’s $300,000 in just an hour.

The 10 common surprises include:

1. Those high-density predictions finally are coming true
2. Data center managers will replace servers three times before they replace UPS or cooling systems
3. Downtime is expensive
4. Water and the data center do not mix – but we keep trying
5. New servers use more power than old servers
6. Monitoring is a mess
7. The IT guy is in charge of the building’s HVAC system
8. That patchwork data center needs to be a quilt
9. Data center on demand is a reality
10. IT loads vary – a lot

For complete details on the Emerson list, click here.
As a Diamond Solutions Partner for Emerson, PTS Data Center Solutions leverages our engineering and architectural experience in designing and building data centers with our IT network, storage, virtualization expertise to avoid the surprises mentioned in the article before they result in significant downtime. To learn more contact PTS today.

An Industry Look at Locking IEC Power Connections

Not sure if any of you have experienced outages caused by loose fitting IEC power connections, but there is a big push in the industry to address the major problem of IEC plugs coming loose on equipment & power strips due to vibrations or inadvertent disconnects caused during rack equipment moves, adds and changes. Here are six (6) solutions we have found to address this issue:

1) IEC Lock. This solution is universal on the equipment side and addresses the problem by having a button that slides to engage a pin that drops down on the ground plug. This is now UL approved.
2) IEC C14 Grip Secure Insert. This solution is not UL approved, and only addresses the PDU side, but it is very inexpensive.
3) APC / V-Lock by Schurter. The solution works well, but the APC PDU must be 8000 series and the equipment outlets must be changed out to also secure the IEC receptacle on the equipment side.

4) Raritan ETO Outlets. Some Raritan PDU’s are available with this option, designated by an –E2 on their parts list. It appears to work the same as IEC Lock, but they do not address the equipment side only the PDU side.

5) Server Technology Retention Clips. Server Technology provides retention clips that clip into their power strips only and clip around the head of the IEC power cord. This solution only addresses the PDU connection and works well with ServerTech power cords. It does not work with all IEC power cords as there are variances in the size of the IEC C14 heads and input cords.

6) HP PDU Notches and Bands. HP now has notches on their PDU's and they provide bands to secure the IEC power cords to the PDU. This only addresses the PDU side of the problem.

Would like to hear about your experiences and what your organization is doing to address this issue. See this link for more information on the solutions we have found.

Guaranteeing IEC Secure Power Connections

There is a big push in the data center industry to address the major problem of Independent Electrical Contractor (IEC) plugs coming loose on equipment & power strips.

Have you been experiencing this issue due to appliance vibration or accidental disconnects when maintenance and cabling work is performed in your racks?

If so, PTS recommends and distributes five different IEC Secure Power Connections to meet the needs of data center operators. To learn more click here.

Retail Industry PCI Compliance Support

PCI 11.1 mandates retailers must execute a wireless scan once per quarter, per store. Given that on average a scan runs ~$300, for a 700 store retailer that equates to an $840,000 annual expenditure. Worse, retailers that fail Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) audits can be fined hundreds of thousands of dollars.

To support this requirement, PTS Data Center Solutions has teamed up with Fortinet as its 'go to' supplier in helping our retail clients reign in these costs and ease management of PCI compliance. And, not just we recognize that, check out the IDC, Gartner, and Frost Market Summary Report.

To learn more, read our recent IT Solutions Bulletin - Fortinet for Retail Industry PCI Compliance.

Data Center Maintenance Management Solution Version 2.0 Available Today

PTS Data Center Solutions recently announced Version 2.0 of its Data Center Maintenance Management Software (DCMMS). DCMMS first launched in March 2010 and is a "glue" product used in data centers to support maintenance management, track spare parts, schedule preventive maintenance, track service histories, and generally make life easier for data center operations personnel.

The software works with any of the Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) products available today which include discovery tools, real-time monitoring tools, BMS solutions, and IT monitoring and management solutions. DCMMS is used to maintain facility support infrastructure products in many data centers and from many manufacturers.

PTS uses DCMMS as a key component of its Data Center Managed Maintenance Service offering. The service provides various support levels from software only to software and asset maintenance tracking to full 7x24 outsourcing of asset maintenance management.

To learn more Click Here or Contact PTS.