Chatsworth recently released the N-Series TeraFrame™ Network Cabinet storage solution (part number NF4M-113C-C42) for the Juniper Networks EX8208 and EX8216 Ethernet switches. The Juniper Networks EX8200 Ethernet switches are high-density, high-performance modular platforms that provide Gigabit Ethernet network connections for servers and access switches. The N-Series, designed specifically to support modular network switches and network cabling.
Extra Space for Airflow and Cables
Offset doors and side panels create an open space around the switch for increased airflow and easy access to equipment and cabling. Line cards, fan trays or power supplies are easy to add or swap and cables are easy to trace.
Thermal Management
The network modules and line cards in the EX8200 Ethernet switches are cooled by right-to-left airflow through the switch chassis. Hot exhaust air from the side of the switch is captured and redirected away from the cabinet by an integrated Network Switch Exhaust Duct, providing front-to-rear airflow for hot /cold aisle applications.
Cable Management
Cable entry is limited to the right side so the vertical fan tray on the left side of the switch is always accessible. The N-Series includes snap-on plastic T-shaped Cable Management Fingers that align with each RMU so you can organize cables by line card. Cable access ports around the perimeter of the top panel allow cables to be easiily rerouted to other cabinets.
Equipment Support
The N-Series can safely support up to three EX8208 switches or two EX8216 switches. Two pairs of 19” EIA equipment mounting rails provide front and rear support and 45 RMU of vertical mounting space. The N-Series cabinet supports up to 2,500 lb (1134 kg) of equipment.
For more details check out the product page or download the application sheet. Configure a custom N-Series TeraFrame Network Cabinet using our Product Configurator.
Questions or comments? Please use the comment tool below or call us at 800-834-4969.
Shalini Booluck joined Chatsworth Products in August 2008 as Office Manager - EMEA. She works in the Bourne End office with Lauren Tucker, Ian Cathcart, Sundeep Raina and Ben Parker. Shalini wears several hats. Her responsibilities include serving as a link between the distributors/customers and the CPI Team providing pricing, requesting quotations, ordering product samples and literature as well as and coordinating trade shows for EMEA region. She is also responsible for the office administration and local marketing.
Originally from Mauritius, Shalini has her master’s degree in translation at Aston University in the United Kingdom. She speaks French, Creole, Hindi and English. Before joining Chatsworth Products, she worked as editor for a construction magazine where she gained valuable experience in marketing and communications. Shalini is single and enjoys yoga and meditation. She says they are great for reducing stress. Shalini also enjoys long walks and swimming. John Bennett, Sr. eMarketing Specialist
A two-minute video overview of CPI's Cable Pathway Solutions is now available. The video discusses our Cable Runway as well as our new OnTrac™ Wire Mesh Cable Tray. For additional information you can download our brochure or visit www.chatsworth.com/pathway.
The product shown in the video is installed in our Product Showroom at the new Research, Training and Development Center in Georgetown, Texas. If you have a question or comment about our Pathway Products or the RD&T Center, please give us a call at 800-834-4969 or use the comment link at the bottom of this article. Kim Ream, Sr. eCommerce Specialist
Ian Seaton, CPI’s Technology Marketing Manager, recently received the following question.
Question: My data center is a limited floor space (1600 sq) and running at 18 kW per cabinet. The cooling experts are indicating that a load of 18 kW would require about 2700 CFM to cool the equipment. They also indicate that max let through on a "Tate" floor tile is 1300 CFM. In this scenario we designed a wider cold aisle to accommodate a (2:1 - 2.5:1) floor tiles to enclosure ratio to meet the CFM required by the equipment.
This scenario leads to the potential of high density exceeding traditional cooling capabilities whether using CPI's Vertical Exhaust Duct or not, if there is not the floor space for additional perf tiles then your equipment cold air demand can potentially exceed the let through ratio. If true, would there be a watt per square foot - line/threshold, based on traditional cooling, raised floor height etc.
Answer: First, it is theoretically possible that you could get to a density where you just don’t have enough floor space to fit in enough flow tiles. Additionally, it can also become problematic on where to fit all the air handlers. For those reasons, we typically try to guide designers for very high density applications away from raised floors and computer room air handlers. Very large chilled water central air handlers feeding the data center through the ceiling or through a wall can be a much more effective design alternative for higher densities, and if they are roof mounted or mounted between the roof and the data center, the architectural concept is closer to being able to accommodate air-side economization. All that notwithstanding, it should not necessarily start being a problem at 18 kW per cabinet or even up into the 20s, at least in a 100% isolation data center such as cabinets deployed with CPI's Vertical Exhaust Ducts. Read more about CPI Passive Cooling Solutions.
Also, you want to think about what kind of airflow you really need. In your example, the 2700 CFM for 18 kW works out mathematically, but not necessarily practically. That might take a little explaining. Your typical 1-2 RMU servers will consume about 150+ CFM per kW, which falls right into your example. However, blade centers will range from 60-90 CFM per kW. These figures come from the equation describing sensible cooling: CFM = 3.1W ÷ ΔT, where W = watts and ΔT = the temperature rise of the air through the server between inlet and exhaust. As you can see, the heat transfer in blades is much more efficient than in standard and legacy servers.
Then, consider what you can fit into a cabinet. For example, 21 2 RMU HP DL-380’s will consume 42 RMU of cabinet space and produce about 10 kW of heat. Therefore, you will find that it is not likely that you can get 18 kW of low ΔT (ergo high airflow) equipment into a single rack. It is not impossible, but it is not likely in most applications. Therefore, the higher densities are more typically going to be comprised of blades or larger equipment that is going to be designed to use air more efficiently, with a resultant higher ΔT.
Remember also with the Vertical Exhaust Duct, there is no traditional hot aisle or cold aisle so you can stick those perforated floor tiles anywhere in the room just to assure the space is adequately replenished with replacement chilled air.
I don’t think that you can get much more definitive than that without actually building a computational fluid dynamics model of the space in question. Our Technical Support group can help with that.Give them a call or send them an email at techsupport@chatsworth.com. If you have a question for me, leave a comment or email me at iseaton@chatsworth.com. Ian Seaton, CPI Technology Marketing Manager
The clock is ticking but you still have time to make your plans. We are just 13 days away from the 2009 BICSI European Conference. The event is scheduled for June 22-24 in beautiful Dublin, Ireland at the Citywest Hotel Conference, Leisure & Golf Resort.
There are lots of great reasons to attend this exciting event including technical presentations and an exhibit hall full of the industry’s best suppliers. Chatsworth Products, Inc will be participating in the activities. Be sure to visit our booth (203 & 205) on the exhibit hall floor or attend our presentation regarding data center thermal management.
Several of our products will be on display including our next generation F-Series TeraFrame™ Cabinet with thermal accessories.
Ian Cathcart, RCDD, CPI Technical Support Manager, will be presenting a Technology Innovation Presentation titled "Managing Data Center Heat Issues" on Tuesday, June 23 at 1:30 pm. This presentation will include an examination of data centre heat load trends and the detrimental effects that increasing equipment densities are causing in the data center environment. The traditional data center layout, including the hot aisle/cold aisle configuration and the limitations which this imposes will be discussed. In addition, an assessment of the benefits and negatives of various cooling techniques including water-cooled cabinets, cold aisle containment systems and passive cooling strategies will be conducted. Five simple mitigation techniques that can be deployed in existing data centres to overcome hot spots will be explored along with the economic benefits of complete isolation between HVAC cool supply and hot return air in the cabinet and data centre which eliminates the possibility of hot air recirculation.
For additional information, please contact our United Kingdom office at +44 (0) 1628 524 834 or email us at sbooluck@chatsworth.com.
To register for the event, visit the BICSI European Conference Website. We look forward to seeing you. Sarah Gaskins, eMarketing Specialist and Shalini Booluck, Office Manager-EMEA
Ian Seaton, CPI’s Technology Marketing Manager, recently received the following question.
Question: What floor tile perforation pattern (percentage open) do you recommend in data centers using cabinets with Vertical Exhaust Ducts?
Answer: If your data center uses CPI cabinets with Vertical Exhaust Ducts (VED) such at the F-Series TeraFrame Cabinet or the T-Series SteelFrame Cabinet, it ultimately does not matter where the air comes from or how it gets into the data center. However, since we have not addressed this particular subject before, your question represents an opportunity to talk further on the subject.
We recommend using one style of perforated tile through-out the space. Varying tile styles creates a mind-set for micro-managing the tile deployment, which is completely unnecessary in a VED data center. In fact, the concern is that a great concentration on micro-managing insignificant details could result in over-looking the only macro variable of any consequence – assuring there is enough total air volume delivered into the space to maintain a slight positive pressure.
We do not recommend baffled floor tiles for both the above micro-managing concern as well as the very real danger of baffles being closed during room/network maintenance activities and not re-opened. All of us who spend time auditing user sites have seen this happen.
In general, it is safe to say that for lower densities it is appropriate to use 25% open tiles and for higher densities it would be appropriate to use 56% open grates. However, it is not a simple matter to determine where that line should be drawn. The chart below provides some guidelines on how much heat might be dissipated per floor tile, based on the static pressure under the raised floor. If the static pressure is therefore known or, more importantly manageable, then these relationships would indicate what type of tiles would be required to deliver enough air into the room to dissipate a particular heat load if there were a 1:1 relationship between server cabinets and perforated floor tiles. Furthermore, that ratio of perforated floor tiles to cabinet can be increased for higher heat loads. However, more perforated floor tiles do not magically produce free extra air – an air source must adjust to maintain the associated and requisite static pressure.
kW Cooling per Cabinet per Floor Tile |
Static |
1-2 U Server |
Blade Server |
Pressure |
25% |
56% |
25% |
56% |
.01" H2O |
1.5kW |
3.9kW |
2.6kW |
6.8kW |
.025" H2O |
2.5kW |
6.2kW |
4.4kW |
10.8kW |
.05" H2O |
3.6kW |
9.1kW |
6.2kW |
15.9kW |
.075" H2O |
4.4kW |
11.3kW |
7.6kW |
19.8kW |
.1" H2O |
5.1kW |
12.5klW |
8.9kW |
21.9kW |
|
|
|
|
|
Published flow specs for Tate brand tiles using
90 CFM per kW for blades and 155 CFM for 1-2 U servers
Finally, In a VED data center where all bypass leaks are sealed off and the raised floor joints themselves have less than 0.1% leakage, then significantly higher under floor static pressure levels can be achieved for greater flow per tile, thereby reducing the tile count requirement for high densities.
In conclusion, therefore, while the type of floor tile is important in standard hot aisle – cold aisle data centers, it is really much less critical in a VED data center than assuring there is enough total airflow and sufficient sealing between the supply and return air masses to maintain a positive pressure in the supply mass of the room. If you have comments or questions about this article, please leave a comment or call us at 800-834-4969. Ian Seaton, Technology Marketing Manager
For the second year in a row, Jessie Spearman of Vision Technologies (Glen Burnie, MD) was named winner of BICSI's Installer Of the Year competition held at the association's spring conference in Baltimore.
"I couldn't believe that I won again," says Spearman. "But win or lose, being here is a great experience. Before the competition, I thought BICSI was just a training organization, but through these conferences I've learned BICSI is more about career development and helping people grow. Since the last competition, I was promoted from foreman to supervisor, and now I oversee Vision Technology's Virginia office operations."
After completing several events—including structured cabling; copper cable terminations; fiber termination; cable assembly; cable troubleshooting, technical support; professionalism; and a written competency exam—winners of each level were named during the award ceremony.
ITS Installer 1: 1st — Vincent Stantucci, Vision Technologies; 2nd — James Sundy, Staley, Inc.; 3rd — Steven Hartley, Staley, Inc.
ITS Installer 2: 1st — Andrew Davis, Vision Technologies; 2nd — John Barczak, RKB Electric and Supply LLC; 3rd — Jeffrey Johnson, Staley, Inc.
ITS Technician: 1st — Jessie Spearman, Vision Technologies; 2nd — Timothy Roberts, Access Communication Services; 3rd — Stephen Stamp, James River Communications.
As overall winner with the highest score of the competition, Spearman walked away with the $5,000 honor. Other awards included a UniCam Toolkit and a Deluxe Fiber Toolkit donated by Corning, a Testifier Pro and Optical Probe from JDSU, a Rhino 6000 Hard Case Kit from DYMO, a two-year BICSI membership and various other gift cards, tools and packages from Unique Firestop, Siemon, STI, Sumitomo, Mohawk, Abesco , Kitco, Klein and RANDL.
In total, the grand prize was worth over $15,000. First place winners in the other categories won prizes totaling over $2,000. Read the complete press release at BICSI's Website. Kim Ream, Sr. eCommerce Specialist