Many data centers use a hybrid cooling strategy, with row cooling for all the rack-mounted IT equipment and supplemental cooling for ancillary equipment such as tape systems and storage units… Read more »
Featured Post:
Six Air Containment Solutions Will Help You to Save Energy in Your Existing Data Centers
For an existing traditional data center, hot air and cold air mixing can lead to more than 25% waste of the cooling capacity. As a result, the cooling system is… Read more »
posted: May 6, 2013
Featured Post:
Schneider Takes Home Alliance Awards – and Our Customers Win, Too
It’s no secret that Schneider Electric is a big fan of strategic alliances. Perhaps you’ve read previous blog posts on the topic by my colleague Tony Despirito, such as this… Read more »
posted: April 2, 2013
Featured Post:
Cruise Ship Lines Could Learn Lessons from Data Center Operators
A few days ago a colleague emailed me a photo taken on the ill-fated Carnival Triumph cruise ship, the one that was stranded in the Gulf of Mexico for about… Read more »
posted: February 26, 2013
Featured Post:
How Energy Efficiency Efforts Can Spell Trouble When the Power Goes Out
A number of important trends are helping companies save lots of money on electric bills by making their data centers more efficient. While this is certainly a worthy and justified… Read more »
posted: February 12, 2013
Featured Post:
Build Better Data Centers Faster: Use a Reference Design
IT is becoming more critical all the time and trends such as the explosion of big data are only adding to the requirements that IT groups must meet. To keep… Read more »
posted: January 29, 2013
Dealing With Changes in IT Loads from a Power and Cooling Perspective
September 21, 2011
490 views
In any given data center, it’s to be expected that the IT load will change over time. Growing companies typically need more computing power and storage capacity, which of course… Read more »
Planning for Future Data Center Power Requirements: A Modular Approach
September 21, 2011
599 views
Data centers are essentially living, breathing entities that change over time. The problem is, it’s difficult to predict in advance how they’re going to change – and therefore to anticipate… Read more »
Strategies for Cooling IT Equipment Closets and other Small Spaces
September 20, 2011
1,295 views
Most any company has a number of closets, branch offices and other locations that house some IT equipment, be it servers, VoIP gear, switches or UPSs. Some of these locations… Read more »
Dual Power Paths: A Crucial Element in a High-Availability Data Center
September 19, 2011
1,510 views
Protecting your data center against power failure is crucial to providing maximum availability. But the job entails more than simply having a backup power source, such as a generator. You… Read more »
Pushing the Data Center Boundary Blog: HACs vs. CACs – Do we really need to have this conversation?
September 19, 2011
5,371 views
I was reading some articles online recently and I’m astounded by the lack of understanding of HACs (Hot aisle containment) versus CACs (cold aisle containment). Let’s get right to the… Read more »
How to Calculate a More Accurate PUE
September 16, 2011
2,062 views
Part of any effective energy management plan is determining data center infrastructure efficiency, as measured in Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE). But it can be difficult to establish the PUE for… Read more »
For Data Center Energy Efficiency, Hot-Aisle Beats Cold-Aisle Containment
September 15, 2011
2,261 views
There’s little argument that hot-aisle and cold-aisle containment systems provide big energy savings in a data center, while eliminating the hot spots found in uncontained data centers. But which strategy… Read more »
Save On Data Center Cooling With Economizer Mode
September 15, 2011
1,070 views
Most data centers are located in areas that don’t experience warm weather all the time. (If yours is at the equator, you can stop reading this right now. There’s nothing… Read more »
Measuring Electrical Efficiency in Data Centers Requires Accounting for Many Variables
September 13, 2011
930 views
Every company has a vested interest in ensuring its data center is energy efficient, given the cost of wasted energy. Consider that a 1 MW high-availability data center can ring… Read more »
Joint Commission: 10 most cited Healthcare facility standards
April 11, 2013
586 views
At my last HAAHE (Houston Area Association of Healthcare Engineers) meeting I watched a dynamic presentation by Susan B. Laughlin, FASHE, CHFM, CHSP who spoke about the most frequently cited… Read more »
Data Centers and Sailboats- “ Separating Wants vs. Needs”
October 21, 2011
583 views
By Mike Hagan I have been sailing for over 20 years, mostly on other people’s boats. Early on in our marriage, my very cool wife supported my goal of buying… Read more »
Winning the Data Center Marathon
March 25, 2013
564 views
How to learn from marathon runners when planning the capacity of your data center. Schneider Electric sponsors the annual marathon in Paris. Even though I’m not going to participate myself,… Read more »
In Virtualized Data Centers, Capacity Management is a Must
September 7, 2011
547 views
For all the benefits virtualization brings to a data center – reduced rack footprint and power consumption, greater efficiency and reliability, lower overall costs – enterprises frequently leave other benefits… Read more »
Optimize Your DCPI to Increase Its Business Value
August 19, 2011
538 views
Data center physical infrastructure (DCPI) long has been the foundation of an enterprise’s IT business operations and until recently its business value was based almost exclusively on availability (or uptime)… Read more »
Ensure Your Bases are Covered: Categorize Your Data Center Management Tools
September 13, 2011
529 views
In an ideal world, data center managers would have a single software package that addresses all of their data center management needs. The reality, though, is far from that. The… Read more »
How Alliances Will Help Us Build Smart Cities and Stave Off Doom
May 6, 2013
528 views
I recently finished reading an insightful book called “The Third Industrial Revolution” by Jeremy Rifkin, an accomplished author and president of the Foundation on Economic Trends, among various other titles… Read more »
5 Ways Data Center Operations Can Protect Your Utility Bill
October 21, 2011
507 views
By Martin Brennan, Critical Facilities Manager Let’s picture it for a moment: you’ve built your top of the line data center with all the bells and whistles. This room should… Read more »
CiscoLive!, The World of Solutions Opens
June 13, 2012
505 views
CiscoLive! really started to pick up today with the majority of attendees arriving. Early morning shuttles were packed, as were the registration and dining areas. Attendees lined up 30 minutes… Read more »
4 Ways to Reduce Data Center Energy Consumption
August 19, 2011
500 views
Many enterprises accept as inevitable the substantial electricity costs of running a data center. Much of this attitude stems from the inability of IT managers to accurately apportion energy consumption… Read more »
Schneider Electric-Cisco Partnership Delivers 3 Solutions for Building Smarter, Less Costly Data Centers
April 27, 2012
11,826 views
I’ve mentioned Schneider Electric’s partnership with IBM a couple of times, most recently about how the partnership involves a close working relationship to deliver products of value to customers. Another… Read more »
CiscoLive! US 2012 Comes to an End
June 14, 2012
65 views
CiscoLive! US came to a close Thursday, the first beautifully sunny day this week amidst milder temperatures. The ending keynote featured the overwhelmingly attendee demanded Mythbusters. The inspiring talk from Adam Savage… Read more »
Best to Take a Systems View on Free Data Center Cooling
August 29, 2012
1,853 views
Free cooling for your data center. It sounds great, doesn’t it? You are likely familiar with the term, but perhaps want to know more about its limitations, and wise use… Read more »
Why PUE Values Can Be Misleading
October 24, 2012
1,493 views
If I tell you my data center has a power usage effectiveness (PUE) rating of 1.2, you’d likely think I was doing very well at addressing energy inefficiencies. But if… Read more »
Executive take: the OpEx Opportunity Remains Strong
December 18, 2012
1,194 views
If you’re wondering when the economy will return to high-growth in capital expenditures for building automation, data center infrastructure, and other products needed during boom times, you may be overlooking… Read more »
DCIM Brings Important New Insights For Outsourced Data Centers
February 13, 2013
1,560 views
Conferences and expos are always a good place to explore new product and solutions offerings – DatacenterDynamics Converged 2012 in London was no exception. Schneider Electric used this important gathering… Read more »
4 Potential Drawbacks of Data Center Facility Modules
August 29, 2011
656 views
In a related post (“Save Time and Money with Data Center Facility Modules”), we discussed the many advantages of containerized power and cooling modules – or “facility” modules – in… Read more »
5 Cooling Strategies for High-Density Racks and Blade Servers
September 22, 2011
1,347 views
More and more companies are installing blade servers, in part to support their server virtualization efforts but also simply because blades are more efficient than traditional servers. But the trend… Read more »
Steel Orca Unveils Plans to Open New Facility During Company Event
November 14, 2011
1,218 views
Wednesday night’s Steel Orca event at Bobby Van’s restaurant in lower Manhattan proved a very illuminating evening. First, the food and drink were terrific (see photos elsewhere on the Mission… Read more »
What’s in your attic? Making a start in the Data Center Industry
February 21, 2012
2,219 views
I had reason this morning to visit the attic and wound up taking a trip down memory lane. Specifically I wound up browsing clips of articles I wrote in the… Read more »
