​It’s unprecedented to see a single uninterruptible power system (UPS) model approaching four decades of exceptional performance on the market. But that’s precisely the case for the Eaton FERRUPS, introduced 38 years ago and still going strong. While end users have embraced the unit for years – most notably in industries such as oil and gas, military deployments, 911 centers, machinery automation, industrial automation, manufacturing facilities and other harsh electrical environments – issues with obsolete parts forced Eaton to rethink its design.

As data and applications become increasingly important for small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs), the need for a reliable, high-performance data center is critical.  Yet for many SMBs, IT — while a backbone for the business — is definitely not the business.  In these situations, selecting the right colocation facility can be a daunting prospect — particularly when considering there is more that goes into a data center than racks of servers.  What’s more, with today’s reliance on virtualization and converged infrastructure, the local colocation that seems like the best, most convenient choice may present overlooked legal ramifications that can be costly in the long term.  When exploring colocation options, SMBs would do well to take a big picture assessment that goes beyond simply looking at hardware and software options.

Virtualization has undoubtedly been a boon for SMBs, allowing many to achieve the flexibility and compute capacity of much larger organizations.  However, virtualization can also create challenges that can result in significant legal ramifications.  For starters, the U.S. has different laws governing privacy of personal data than Canada, Latin America, or the European Union.  SMBs need to explore whether data stored at a colocation will ever be transmitted to another jurisdiction — thereby violating privacy laws.  SMBs also need to match their regulatory compliance requirements to the facility they choose. HIPAA, PCI, Sarbanes Oxley, SSAR 16, and SAS 70 are just a few of a number of standards that are meant to regulate how businesses handle sensitive data.  Make sure colocation providers have put into place the necessary policies, procedures, and technology that allow their facilities to be compliant, thus allowing SMBs to have their sensitive business data located outside the confines of their own four walls.

A colocation by its very definition is a multi-tenant facility.  SMBs need to evaluate both physical access to servers and equipment as well as logical access to data and applications.  It is fairly simple to determine how well a colocation physically secures access to its facility and equipment; more challenging is determining the integrity of logical security.  Colocation services vary drastically, from traditional data center hosting of end user equipment to advanced offerings such as managed IT and cloud.  When considering advanced services that take advantage of IT resources from the colocation, be aware that virtualization enables a single server to host applications and data from multiple sources. Determining whether or not a colocation provides for logical separation can be a critical factor when deciding suitability of a particular colocation partner or particular service.

Not all colocations are created equal. Wholesale data centers typically provide space for servers and little else.  This may be fine for SMBs that don’t require additional services and need excess computing capacity now and then. However, given that many SMBs are not in the data center operations business, additional services may be needed.  This is where retail data centers come into play.

Such providers offer a multitude of services in addition to just floor and rack space.  Those SMBs without dedicated IT staff may want to take advantage of a number of services, such as cloud-based applications, managed hosting, managed storage, and business resiliency, among others.  In addition to the variety of services a retail colocation may offer, SMBs should evaluate service level agreement (SLA) options — both in terms of what is offered as well as what the capabilities are to make good on a contract should any issues occur. While many colocations may accurately boast 5-9s in terms of reliability, SMBs need to verify that such facilities have the ability — and the intention — to redress any service level problems that should arise, and do so with a high degree of urgency. 

In a report released by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), the multi-tenant data center type of providers are broken up and defined as seen in next column.

In addition to services, SMBs will need to evaluate offerings on the facilities side of the equation. While a colocation may offer enough power, make sure there is redundancy. Is the colocation provider using the latest technology in high efficiency power and sensible thermal management?

These are competitive advantages that will result in lower cost for the provider, and ultimately a better price for the tenant. In addition, check how easy it is to make changes.

• Can you add equipment and can the colocation effectively manage density requirements?
• Is it possible to quickly spin up or spin down servers based on current and projected needs?
• Is cooling adequate and redundant?
• Does the facility promote and encourage proper thermal management practices?
• Does it properly segregate hot and cold air streams to protect the equipment running your data?
• Is there the ability to satisfy your requirements for equipment isolation if that is the case?
• Are racks or even servers within those racks shared with a few other customers, or is there sharing among many other customers? 

To accurately gauge your comfort level with multi-tenancy, these are the types of questions that require thorough examination to select the colocation that’s right for your SMB.

Clearly, selecting a data center is an involved process that requires due diligence on the part of an SMB.  Yet considering the mission-critical role data and applications play for many SMBs, it is important to do your homework. With virtualization and globalization, even those SMBs with only a local presence need to be aware of the implications that privacy requirements around the world could have on their operations. SMBs need to select a colocation they trust as a true partner. While the selection process may seem daunting, begin by looking at those colocation providers that have a reputation for service and reliability.  If location is a priority, evaluate those facilities that are close enough to afford convenient site visits, then delve into the inner workings of those providers — everything from procedures and policies to hardware, software, and power equipment.  One important criteria worth noting is whether a data center has SOC 2 certification, an independent designation that attests to adherence to security, availability, process, and privacy controls.  Choosing such a data center can offer assurances that an SMB’s data is adequately safeguarded.

To find the most appropriate data center, SMBs need to do thorough research. After all, their business depends on IT.  Yet selecting the right data center is only one part of the equation.  To ensure maximum operational effectiveness based on an SMB’s individual reliability and security needs, it’s necessary to think on a granular level.  After all, most colocations are focused on the operations of the facility overall. It’s the job of an SMB to take care of operations down to the rack level to get the most out of the data center.

Whether an SMB has a rack, a group of racks, or equipment segregated in a caged section, it’s important to be able to monitor and manage its own equipment within the facility.  Even though a colocation may have superior thermal management and heat rejection systems throughout the facility, an SMB’s individual rack may be vulnerable to hot spots caused by neighboring racks.  Environmental rack monitors and probes can keep tabs on racks, allowing SMBs to know temperature and humidity levels for their specific equipment.

For SMBs that require reliability and availability above all else, installing a UPS at the rack level can provide an additional measure of redundancy. When evaluating UPS devices, SMBs should look for the following features: 

• Hot swappable to ensure continuous uptime
  
• Integration with intelligent power management software  for remote management via a secure Web browser or  SMTP interface
  
• Customized UPS settings
  

To ensure reliable and cost-effective power operations, combine a rack UPS with an intelligent rack power distribution unit or rack PDU. Taken together, these two devices can provide detailed and granular information to ensure efficient rack operations. Ideally, intelligent rack PDUs should have the following features:

• Outlet-level management to provide receptacle-level information about your equipment with ±1% billing grade metering to ensure accuracy
  
• Modern low profile form factor to facilitate proper airflow  within the rack, and a high temperature rating to handle the  hot conditions at the back of the rack
  
• Ease of installation, without zip ties and screwdrivers, to improve installation time and minimize additional labor costs  that are incurred from the colocation provider
  
• Plug grip retention to reduce the risk of inadvertently disconnecting a plug 
  
• Robust mounting options to facilitate various equipment configurations
  
• Color-coded outlet sections to prevent unbalanced loading and streamline troubleshooting
  

Along with monitoring outsourced equipment and environmental conditions at a colocation, SMBs need to monitor and manage what remains behind, the on-premise IT components that ensure connectivity with the colocation facility.  For onsite equipment, SMBs need to pay attention to power conditioning, security measures, and cooling and heating practices.  In effect, SMBs need to operate a data center in a box — a concept that encompasses organization, protection, and management.

When it comes to organization, racks that include cable management options can both streamline troubleshooting and reduce the incidence of human error. Protection of on-premise equipment can include the use of rackmount UPS devices with form factors that fit into the confines of network closets, as well as UPS devices that support virtualization via a network card.

On the management side, intelligent power management software used in conjunction with environmental probes and rack monitors enable SMBs to accurately gauge how efficiently onsite equipment is operating and identify issues before they become full-blown problems. Such management tools allow IT administrators to remotely monitor and manage multiple devices across the network from a single interface, so they get the right information in the most preferable way to manage the IT environment.

While selecting the right data center in terms of the facility, location, and reliability is critically important, SMBs need to understand they can realize significant value when they insist on maximizing the operation.  SMBs should not assume their equipment is well-tended just because the colocation is operating smoothly, and therefore SMBs should take the initiative when it comes to organizing, protecting, and managing their own equipment — both at the colocation as well as on-premise

​An uninterruptible power supply or a UPS system is an electrical apparatus that provides emergency power to a load when the input power source or mains power fails.  A UPS system performs three primary functions: conditions the incoming dirty power from the utility company to give you clean, uninterruptible power, provides ride-through power to cover for sags or short-term outages, and enables seamless system shutdown during a complete power outage.

Phases of a UPS, such as a single-phase UPS or a three-phase UPS, describe the number of electrical phases that a UPS receives and transmits. Electrical utilities generate three-phase power because that is the most efficient way to transport electricity over long distances.  And for larger power consumers, such as large data centers, industrial manufacturing and hospitals, the power stays as three-phase, requiring a three-phase UPS. For smaller power consumers, including residential or office buildings and most K-12 schools, the power is converted to single-phase power.

​Some applications contain a mix of single-phase and three-phase equipment and require a UPS that can protect both. For those deployments, a split-phase UPS, which can simultaneously provide 120V and 208V output, is often the best option.

UPSs are given a power rating in volt-amperes (VA) that range from 300 VA to 5,000 kVA. This rating represents the maximum load that a UPS can support, but it shouldn’t match exactly the power load you have. To allow room for growth, the best practice is to choose a UPS with a VA rating that is 1.2x the total load you need it to support. If your UPS will be supporting motors, variable-speed drives, medical imaging devices or laser printers, add more VA capacity to your requirements to account for the high power inrush that occurs when those devices startup.

​Companies that are anticipating rapid growth should use a higher multiplier than 1.2x. Newer server hardware tends to have higher power requirements than older models, so factoring in additional VA will account for adding more and newer equipment.

Being prepared for the worst is prudent advice for anyone in or near hurricane country. So, consider the basics first. Here’s a detailed breakdown of what you’ll need when preparing for hurricane season. Evacuate means just that, so have a packing list prepared and secure what you leave behind.
Visit Ready.gov/Hurricanes

​Three things to understand about hurricanes:
​

1. An unpredictable threat
   Some hurricanes just aren’t visible. It takes advanced technology to recognize them. Plus, when over water they can be difficult to track. Hurricanes can be a small as 30-40 miles across, but most average 300 miles in width yet massive storms can reach 600 miles in diameter.
2. The eyes tell a story
   A ragged, asymmetrical eye shows a storm struggling to strengthen. A smooth, round eye reveals a stable and strong storm. A tiny eye—sometimes called a pinhole or pinpoint eye—can mean an intense storm.
3. It’s more than wind
   The push of seawater brought inland by the storm’s force is the storm surge, and it can cause massive destruction. Like a high-powered flood, the storm surge is fast and can amass up to 20 feet of water. Storm surges have been known to travel several miles inland. Just for reference, a cubic foot of seawater (3 feet x 3 feet) weighs 1728 pounds.

Electrical disruptions and outages can reach for hundreds of miles. The storms and rough weather spun off from a hurricane can deliver brown-outs, blackouts, and surges to electrical systems miles and miles away from the center of the storm.

Trending demographics will show you there’s been notable population growth in the Southern and Southeastern portions of the U.S. Sure, baby-boomers are retiring and often headed to warmer climates. But good jobs are also pulling population groups to these areas.
​
According to the United States Census Bureau, the top five fastest-growing populations are all within reach of typical hurricane paths, and outages could have a halo-effect, extending the damage for miles beyond these urban centers:

The terms: working from home, telecommuting, or working remotely are all becoming more commonplace. With numbers more than doubling since 2005, 4.7 million employees (3.4% of the workforce) now work from home at least half the time. That currently puts roughly 30% of remote workers within reach of hurricanes.
Why does this matter? With most companies, at-home employees are often responsible for the well-being of their equipment or the property of the company. It’s worth having the right backup and surge protection equipment to provide peace of mind for your remote workspace.

Don’t think you need to be in the direct path of a hurricane to witness power damage.  Tornadoes, lightning, high winds, and heavy rains are often the residual destruction that can spin off hundreds of miles from the center of a hurricane.  Take smart precautions today, use advanced power protection technology to safeguard your digital life, and livelihood.  Contact us today!

The arrival of new trends, such as data growth, mergers and acquisitions, expansions and new construction, among others, are forcing many healthcare organizations to upgrade the infrastructure within existing closets and consider more robust technologies for new closet designs.

Healthcare network closet infrastructure must not only be designed for the specific equipment and applications being supported but to other factors as well, such as local power quality, the size of the space, regulatory requirements, and available maintenance resources.
Download this whitepaper to understand the following considerations when updating or designing network closet infrastructure:

​Ensuring power continuity

• Distributing and monitoring power within the closet
• Organizing and protecting closet systems
• Ensuring airflow and preventing excessive heat
• Monitoring and managing network closets
• Servicing and maintaining network closets
• Simplifying purchasing and deployment

1. What are Eaton solutions for VxRail?
Eaton continues its innovation leadership with the release of Intelligent Power Manager (IPM) version 1.67 that now integrates with Dell EMC VxRail Hyperconverged Infrastructure. By utilizing an Eaton UPS (5P, 5PX, 9PX, 9PXM, 9SX or 93PM UPS product family) with Gigabit Network Card (version 1.7.5) and IPM (Gold license), you can now enable automated and graceful shutdown of VxRail clusters experiencing unplanned power events to safeguard data integrity. Further enhance the solution with these Eaton products: metered or managed rack PDUs, environmental monitoring sensors, enclosure and cable management options. 

2. How are Eaton solutions for VxRail unique in the market?
Existing solutions only had the capability of shutting down one or two nodes, leaving clusters exposed to power problems. Dell EMC and Eaton worked hand-in-hand to develop and extensively test an integrated solution from Eaton that utilizes VxRail APIs and existing functionality in place with VMware APIs so that Eaton IPM working with the Eaton UPS and Gigabit Network Card can gracefully shut down a VxRail cluster in the event of an unplanned power event to preserve data integrity. IPM is installed within the VxRail, eliminating the need for an external VM to host IPM for shutdown.

3. What is the typical or standard amount of UPS and rack PDUs needed for a 4-node VxRail solution?
A typical Eaton solution will consist of one UPS powered by the Gigabit Network Card, an IPM Gold license and possibly one rack PDU. For redundancy, you can have two UPS models each powered by a Gigabit Network Card, two rack PDUs and an IPM Gold license. The right UPS model is determined by the voltage and typical watts rating of the VxRail system, network switch and any other device included in the rack. Count the number of plugs that need to be connected to determine whether a rack PDU is needed. The IPM Gold license level is determined by the number of power devices, called nodes, to be supported.

4. What counts as a node when talking about IPM?
Nodes, when talking about IPM, are power devices like UPSs, rack PDUs and environmental sensors. The number of VxRail nodes is not calculated in the number of nodes IPM needs to support.
​
5. Is Eaton an Advantage member of the Dell EMC Technology Connect Partner Program and
VMware Technology Alliance Program?
Yes. As an Advantage member of the Dell EMC Technology Connect Partner Program and VMware Technology Alliance Program, Eaton is proud to collaborate with Dell EMC and with VMware to deliver cohesive solutions to maintain business continuity.

Brisk Worldwide understands the necessity for data storage is growing by the day.  As the need for larger loads and greater capacity increase so does the need for efficient and economic power distribution. The Vertiv Geist family of Rack PDUs allows your space the flexibility of growth and the ability to stay ahead of the game.
​
From basic Rack PDUs that offer reliable, space-saving and cost-effective power distribution at the rack to Intelligent rPDUs equipped with a network interface to monitoring, management and automated alerts, Vertiv Geist PDUs allow your data center to operate at peak performance and efficiency.

And recently, the newest member of the Vertiv Geist Power Distribution, UPDU, is offering businesses everywhere a more robust, versatile solution to meet their critical power needs.

Vertiv’s Geist Universal Power Distribution Unit

The newest member in the Vertiv Geist Power Distribution family is the UPDU.  The UPDU offers even more flexibility than other PDUs in that it mates to any geographically specific Facility Side Cable (FSC). This universal application can be deployed in every rack, in every data center around the world to improve consistency and simplify inventory management.

The UPDU is available in available in models in 11kW and 22kW max power load capacities, both horizontal and vertical configurations with a variety of receptacle count, monitoring level and management options.  Each location can select the FSC unique to their facility and the Vertiv Geist FSC is available in multiple global power configurations.

Features of Vertiv’s Geist UPDU

The Vertiv Geist UPDU offers more simplified monitoring and networking with the introduction of Vertiv Intellignece Director.

This software allows for quick deployments and a truly plug-and-play infrastructure.  With the ability to daisy-chain up to 50 units, access data from all downstream rPDU and UPS devices from one master rPDU, aggregate data grouping devices by rack or row and the ability of all downstream devices to self-configure the Vertiv Intelligence Director is a perfect pairing to the robust UPDU.

How to Choose Your UPDU Model

1. Select a UPDU model based on anticipated maximum rack and power usage.
2. Choose between a 2U Horizontal or 0U Vertical with a variety of monitoring, management, and outlet configuration options.
3. Install the same UPDU model in all racks and cabinets. The pivoting input adjusts from 0 to 90 degrees to simplify power cable routing.
4. Identify the facility power available for each location and select the FSC with the appropriate power configuration needed.

Ready to Simplify Your Data Center Environment?

Vertiv Geist offers rapid deployment of all racks and PDU equipment. The process is as simple as selecting your rack and adding your Power Distribution Units, we deliver it all in one shipment.  We offer a no-hassle installation process where everything is setup before shipment.  Taking the burden off for you and getting your data center space online quickly and correctly.  All of our equipment is backed by a 5-year warranty.

Try Vertiv’s rPDU finder here.

From the benefit of chain agility to global data center operation, improved power efficiency with input and outlet level power monitoring and decreased inventory management costs, the Vertiv Geist UPDU can bring your data center to the next level. Connect with Brisk Worldwide to learn more.

It was not long ago when there was a pervasive feeling that everything was moving to the Cloud, an unstoppable, inevitable flow of on-premise IT capacity towards huge, highly centralized service provider data centers.  But for many reasons, this hasn’t happened.  One big reason has to do with the growing need for compute capacity at the edge of networks, closer to users, be it humans or other machines.  Why is this needed?  Sending data over a network takes time and costs money…enough so that it is making more sense to deploy compute and storage at the edge rather than having all that data move to and from the cloud or some other remote data center.

The “Internet of Things” (IoT) phenomena itself is a big driver for needing edge computing capacity as more and more connected devices are generating and collecting data. With the cost of sensors and network connectivity being so low, the volume of data collected by local devices has exploded. Combine that with advances made in data analytics, automation, and artificial intelligence, and this data has become very valuable. The increasing value of device data is driving this IoT world where everything is connected and continuously collecting data. It’s now making more financial sense to process, clean, and store, at least, some of this data locally than it would be to send it all to a distant data center. Regardless of sensitivity to latency and cost, the fundamental driver for having compute at the edge of the network really comes down to the desire to benefit from digitization.  Adding compute and network connectivity to every “thing” and to virtually every aspect of our society is dramatically impacting society’s productivity, efficiency, and wellbeing.  Compute everywhere is our future.

Use cases for edge computing deployments has exploded as a result.  The digitization of industrial processes and manufacturing is certainly a key use case.  Brick and mortar retail’s deployment of local IT for providing in-store, immersive digital experiences is another.  Deployment of 5G mobile networks, however, may have the biggest impact on the growth of the edge computing market. 5G offers the promise of sub-millisecond latency, a speed necessary to make many of the world’s tech dreams a reality such as fully autonomous vehicles, robotic surgeries, virtual/augmented reality, and the real-time management of distributed energy sources. 5G will enable a world of incredibly high data speeds for huge numbers of users all while improving reliability and security in an energy efficient manner. 5G’s communication architecture requires the deployment of hundreds of thousands of mini communication clouds and antennae to make all of this come to fruition. So not only will 5G networks help drive the larger edge computing market by enabling edge applications to do even more, the deployment of 5G itself will be a significant edge computing application driving the overall market.

This “compute everywhere” trend has led us to a hybrid computing architecture where more and more organizations’ IT assets and data are spread across large centralized data centers, smaller regional data centers and very small local edge sites.  This highly distributed environment creates challenges for those deploying and managing the IT infrastructure.  And this complexity is exacerbated when you consider that each of the local edge sites require high availability to ensure uninterrupted operations and service. As IoT technologies and edge computing applications become a more integral part of the day-to-day business and/or customer experience, the edge IT infrastructure that houses the associated distributed IT equipment must be robust. The role of IT is no longer viewed as a cost center, rather it is tightly connected to the business strategy and to profit as a value creator, making resiliency even more imperative.

There are two unique attributes of local edge environments, in contrast with regional edge or centralized data centers, that make it challenging to achieve the necessary resiliency: (1) lack of IT and/or facilities staff on-site, and (2) having many sites, geographically dispersed.  These two things create issues such as:

• Complexity in selecting and configuring IT infrastructure components: mistakes can propagate across sites, you must choose parts that not only support the application but that also are compatible with the other parts and with each site’s local conditions
• Logistical/workforce challenges of deploying IT infrastructure to each site
• Operating and maintaining multiple sites from afar: having visibility to all sites and assets, troubleshooting problems without local trained staff, maintaining everything in a standardized efficient way, interpreting alarms and status notifications, knowing who is accessing the equipment, and so on.

Mitigating these challenges starts with partnering with a collaborative ecosystem of vendors, integrators, and service providers. Together using their expertise and tools, they can address configuration, integration, delivery, and operations/maintenance challenges. IT vendors should drive easy interoperability through reference designs, selectors, APIs, and certification programs.  Effective physical infrastructure vendors (racks, UPS, cooling, etc) simplify deployment & operations through easy-to-use configurators, reference designs, resilient infrastructure, and software management tools. Systems integrators will add tremendous value through the complete integration of your IT hardware, software, and physical infrastructure systems ideally before delivery to the site.  And, finally, managed service providers (MSPs) will operate & maintain edge infrastructure for you through management tools and digital services provided either by themselves or by the infrastructure vendor.

Software management is a critical part of the solution to solve edge challenges. The tools are necessary for giving visibility and control from afar. New cloud-based software suites have emerged that offer open APIs and take advantage of cloud, IoT, data analytics, and artificial intelligence technologies. These new tools are what connect members of the ecosystem together to the operations phase of edge IT deployments.  These new capabilities along with the MSPs who employ them essentially augment staffing for the end user by providing remote visibility and proactive control over all edge IT assets.

To paint the picture in very broad strokes, the ecosystem works together to simplify the design and deployment phases while providing both a physical and virtual workforce to ease management and maintenance burdens.  By working together, edge computing owners and operators will be capable of not just surviving in our new complex world of “compute everywhere” but should be well-positioned to thrive in whatever ways they serve their customers. To learn more about mitigating edge challenges through this integrated ecosystem, download our white paper “Integration isn’t just for the micro data center”.