INDUSTRY INTELLIGENCE POWERED BY THE DCA power and environmental parameters within the cabinet . Growing regulatory and security demands also require end customers to control physical access to the cabinet and maintain an audit log of all success attempts .
While these solutions provide significant advantages to the end customer , the challenge is to deploy them speedily over the network and quickly configure them to be fully operational . Intelligent Power Distribution Units ( 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 utilising intelligent power distribution units with Secure Array IP Consolidation that allow 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 . The alternate and inefficient solution would have been to first install , wire and configure extra network switches purely for infrastructure monitoring , connecting them to every monitored device and then taking a crash cart to each device to perform their IP setup .
Once the PDUs are deployed on the network , the next step that could take a considerable amount of time is the configuration of every monitored device that includes network access , threshold and notification settings . In this scenario , choose PDUs with bulk configuration capabilities over the network . However , the preferences of end customers for mass configurations can differ .
For example , while a data centre operations group may prefer bulk configuration through a Data Centre Infrastructure Management ( DCIM ) software solution , network professionals or developers may prefer automated configuration using a Command Line Interface ( CLI ) or Application Programming Interface ( API ). This means colocation vendors that deal with a multitude of end customers will be ahead of the competition if they provide a solution that supports most types of bulk configuration methods . All these capabilities not only make initial deployment and configuration easier , but also simplify ongoing management .
Another important and usually overlooked aspect to consider is the serviceability of the products . The most common maintenance to be performed on Intelligent PDUs is timely firmware upgrades . The products chosen should allow for these upgrades to be easily performed over the network or through UB ports on the equipment . A fieldreplaceable controller on the unit also allows for seamless serviceability and upgradability . These upgrades should be capable of being performed while the units continue to provide basic power distribution to connected equipment . Finally , consider that intelligent products such as PDUs should include warranties with an advanced replacement coverage as a norm rather than an exception .
With data consumption growing faster than ever , speed of deployment and delivery is the most pressing challenge for colocation providers . The ones that consider the two recommendations above will be able to have a competitive edge that will ultimately allow them to grow their top line revenue faster and be ahead in the race . ◊ www . intelligentdatacentres . com
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