A Global Trend: Why Data Centers Everywhere Are Seeing Value in Intelligent Power
May 06, 2021
Rack power distribution units (PDUs) may represent the last leg in the power chain, but they're certainly one of the strongest. That's because as rack densities continue to increase, it's become critical for organizations to implement rack PDUs with monitoring capabilities for high-density deployments to ensure they meet the power requirements at the rack level. Beyond the need to support higher equipment power ratings, the demand for advanced security, power provisioning and remote control are requiring data center managers everywhere to rethink their power distribution strategy.
And, at a time where uptime and remote control of the data center must go hand-in-hand, a trend across the globe showing a desire for more intelligent products makes sense.
"Having intelligent power distribution as part of your solution is a game-changer, with one major part being the cost savings," says Ashish Moondra, Chatsworth Products' (CPI) Sr. Product Manager, Power, Electronics & Software. "For example, to manage a remote site, you traditionally need an IP address for every cabinet. At an estimated $500 per port, having several or in some cases, thousands of cabinets can get expensive. CPI solutions can manage 24 cabinets with 48 PDUs and 96 environmental sensors with only two IP addresses."
CPI's intelligent eConnect® PDUs provide current, voltage, temperature and humidity, and power consumption information, allowing IT managers to remotely monitor and control power, environmental conditions and cabinet access through a safe, user-friendly interface.
Other World Areas See the Value of Intelligent Power
In Europe
Average rack power density is increasing to an average of 7 kW per rack according to Jon Barker, CPI Technical Manager for the region. This reflects the increasing demand for CPI's intelligent PDU products at the Switched Pro capability, and greater interest on three-phase models.
In these high-density environments, intelligent PDUs cost more than basic and metered units, but they provide the added value of being able to track and trend power use against known limits. If the site is power-limited, then the investment in intelligent PDUs and Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) software to track power use may provide the insight to adjustments that extend the life of the site, a lower expense than adding power capacity.
"High-density data center architectures allow organizations to pack a lot of compute power in a small footprint. We see this now in Finance and Education sectors," Barker adds.
Latin America
Rack densities average from 1 kW to no more than 3-4 kW in most cases, although there are exceptions such as the financial industry, where densities are higher.
"Users are beginning to understand the need, but many are still unwilling to make the investment, and the limitations brought on by the pandemic have changed the minds of many customers," says CPI Area Director for Latin America, Alfonso Santos. "Price is the biggest pain point," he adds.
Middle East
Customers are beginning to understand the benefits of intelligent PDUs. "IT teams want to manage fewer IP addresses, so they are looking for intelligent monitoring solutions that allow for a higher number of cabinets to be connected through only one or two IP addresses," explains Sundeep Raina, CPI Regional Sales Director in the region. "Consider that CPI PDUs integrate access control and environmental monitoring in the same hardware and software interface, which further reduces the complexity and saves procurement and installation costs."
What about Data Protection and Privacy?
In the United States
"A growing trend in the United States today is to bring protection to the cabinet level, because data must be protected wherever it is stored or accessed," Moondra explains. "Traditional mechanical locking systems, typically acceptable for secure data centers, do not meet the security requirements for an edge or remote deployment. In retail, for example consider the network required to operate credit card transactions. The system, including networking equipment and cabling, is supposed to be secure, but who provides the security? It should be the corporate IT team, not the mall security team."
Canada
Security is handled primarily via typical keyed door handles on the rack and access cards on room and facility doors as well as security guards. "There is a trend toward electronic access control at the rack level. Having a detailed access log is important, and compliance issues related to PCI SCC and the North American Electric Reliability Corp. (NERC) standards are driving this level of physical security as well," states Area Sales Director for Canada, Stew Munns.
Europe
Customers in Europe address security from a physical and cyber standpoint. "We see a considerable number of inquiries related to electronic access control with two layers of authentication, like biometric and card, coupled with monitoring devices to better control ad mange all equipment in a typical deployment," Barker says.
The Future: A Hybrid Where Cloud, Colocation and Edge Exist
The cloud has revolutionized the distribution of software while enabling computing and storage as a demand-based utility model, and this has led to massive growth for cloud infrastructure. So, what happens to other data center models including colocated services, enterprise networks and telco buildouts? It may surprise you.
In the United States
"In the United States, we are seeing growth in each category," says Sam Rodriguez, CPI Sr. Product Manager for Industrial Solutions. "Undoubtedly the fastest growth is in cloud infrastructure, colocation and the edge. But rather than everything moving to the cloud, we are seeing a move toward a hybrid model. Companies are using the cloud as their primary data center, but maintaining a smaller on-premises data center, and then extending the network to the edge, because everything is connected."
Europe
Similar developments are occurring, with the cloud and colocation experiencing the fastest growth. Large corporations are looking at ways to reduce costs related to their IT network deployments and management.
Asia-Pacific
Companies are leaning away from building their own data centers and moving to colocation, and to edge computing deployment for smart manufacturing and IoT. "This requires that servers are close to the application to provide a quick calculation/response capability and to reduce the demand for networking bandwidth," says Michael Zhang, CPI Technical Manager for APAC.
Middle East
"Our energy sectors are expected to deploy IoT on a large scale. Smart cities are being planned and that is all about IoT," say Raina. "Health care also holds very high potential for IoT as hospitals compete with one another to be innovative. And looking further into the future, we are already talking about driverless cars powered by solar energy."
Latin America
The market is interested, but growth will be gradual. "Our market traditionally responds to new technological developments after these solutions have been implemented in other regions," CPI's Santos says. "Global corporations like Google and Facebook usually bring these new technologies into the region, and then local companies follow. Right now, this process is not happening as quickly as other regions."
In Summary
It's evident that advancements in technologies, the demand for connectivity everywhere, the adoption of IoT and IIoT... simply put, nothing is slowing down. And, because 2020 showed us that even remotely, we can leverage intelligence to optimize data center operations, it's likely our futures wherever we are will continue to create demand for upgrades in data center infrastructure, beginning with the need for a robust power management strategy. Be prepared for the exciting, digitally-connected future that lies ahead.
Learn more about the capabilities of intelligent power solutions by watching the videos below or visit our power solutions web page here in the chatsworth.com website.
Posted by Brittany Mangan, Digital Content Specialist at 5/6/2021 12:39:17 PM