New Article Provides Two Recommendations for Speeding Up PDU Deployment
March 24, 2020
A recent Cisco Annual Internet Report confirms that by 2023, nearly a third of the global population is expected to have internet access. That's about 5.3 billion users. Meanwhile, the number of IP networks is projected to be more than three times that number.
Within the data center space, the colocation market may see the most growth, with an estimated CAGR of almost 11% from 2020 to 2025. Needless to say, delays in bringing a new customer withing a multitenant environment directly translates into lost revenue. It's no surprise that colocation providers are challenged to scale up with solutions that are quick to deploy, manage and service.
The following are two key points for colocation vendors to consider when looking to quickly get new customers up and running quickly.
Vendor Selection
Within colocation environments, end-customer requirements generally vary based on budgets, functionality required and the IT equipment that will be housed within the cabinets.
While evaluating equipment vendors for the ability to deliver products in short lead times, it is critical that data center professionals ask questions related to location of the supply chain as well as rick mitigation plans. Equipment manufacturers in North America that rely on in-region sources for long lead time components (think circuit boards) will have a better ability to scale quickly to meet demands of larger projects.
The common denominator within the data center is the equipment cabinet. Dealing with vendors who can preinstall all infrastructure solutions within the cabinet, including power distribution equipment, cable management solutions, access control and environmental monitoring per the end customer's needs will save colocation vendors significant time, effort and money.
Product Considerations
To allow remote manageability of the off-premise equipment, colocation vendors provide intelligent hardware solutions that enable monitoring and control of power and environmental parameters within the cabinet. While these solutions provide significant advantages, the challenge is to deploy them speedily over the network and quickly configure them to be fully operational. Intelligent PDUs that also integrate environmental monitoring and access control provide a unified solution that require just one single network connection.
The speed of deployment can be further enhanced by utilizing intelligent PDUs with Secure Array® IP Consolidation technology that allows up to 48 intelligent PDUs to share one primary IP address and an alternate one for failover capability. This setup allows the white space infrastructure for complete rows of cabinets to be managed by one or two ports on a network switch.
Once PDUs are deployed, consider bulk configuration through a data center infrastructure management (DCIM) solution, or a PDU that can offer automated configuration using a Command Line Interface (CLI) or Application Programming Interface (API). All these capabilities not only make initial deployment and configuration easier, but also simplifies ongoing management.
To learn more about the considerations and recommendations for achieving speed to deployment and delivery, read the full article.
Ashish Moondra
Sr. Product Manager, Power, Electronics & Software
Chatsworth Products
Ashish Moondra has a total of 20 years of experience developing, managing and selling rack power distribution, uninterruptible power supply (UPS), energy storage and Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) solutions. Ashish has previously worked with American Power Conversion, Emerson Network Power and Active Power, and has been an expert speaker at various data center forums.
Posted by Ashish Moondra, CPI Sr. Product Manager, Power, Electronics & Software at 3/24/2020 12:00:00 AM