Raritan Adds More Intelligence Throughout Data Center Racks to Better Manage Energy, IT Assets and Other Resources

LAS VEGAS, March 29, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Raritan today added more intelligence to the data center rack space so data center managers can gather additional insights on how best to manage energy, IT equipment and key resources.  First-of-its-kind intelligent Environmental and Asset Management Controller and Smart Asset Tags, as well as new sensors, join Raritan's portfolio of products that make data center racks smart enough to monitor operations health, deliver a holistic view of the data center, and take corrective action if needed.  

The new products -- which provide innovative ways to track IT assets and air pressure, airflow and cooling in data center racks -- expand Raritan's solutions that facilitate and advance key data center infrastructure management (DCIM) activities, such as monitoring data center energy, capacity, changes, and environment, and tracking IT and facility assets.  Raritan's portfolio of DCIM solutions are based on the new products introduced today, along with Raritan software offerings -- dcTrack® for DCIM and Power IQ® for energy management -- and intelligent rack power distribution units (iPDUs) for metering at the device level.

"The rack just got a lot smarter so that data centers can be managed more efficiently and run optimally," said Herman Chan, Director of Raritan's Power Management Business.  "Data centers have evolved into complex ecosystems requiring a new level of monitoring and care.  In addition to traditional uptime goals, data center managers now need to efficiently manage IT assets, capacity, changes, events, rack environment, power, energy and carbon.  It all boils down to having the right management and feedback tools to support the care and feeding of IT assets in racks."

Cost savings and optimized operations are among the benefits of more-thorough management of physical infrastructures.  One of Raritan's customers, for example, has reclaimed more than 25 percent of existing power capacity, extended the life of existing and new data centers by three years, and curbed IT energy consumption up to 25 percent.

According to Gartner Research, data center managers and senior IT leaders must now go beyond performance management of IT equipment and begin to manage the entire data center infrastructure.  "Tools for data center infrastructure management (DCIM) will provide detailed monitoring and measurement of data center performance, utilization and energy consumption, supporting more-efficient, cost-effective and greener environments," said David J. Cappuccio, managing vice president and chief of research for the infrastructure teams with Gartner.

Smart Racks with Raritan's solutions can:

• On a continuous basis, capture and record detailed power consumption statistics at varying levels, including: room-, zone-, row- or rack-level.
• Track and visualize data center assets.  View infrastructure devices, such as floor PDUs and branch circuit panels, UPSs and CRAC units.  Map physical relationships between devices to easily see how everything in the data center is physically connected.
• Collect a wide range of data types -- current, voltage, kW, kVA, kWh, temperature, humidity, airflow, and differential air pressure.
• Collect data at many points: at outlet level, circuit breaker level, PDU level, cool-air inlets at ASHRAE-recommended rack heights, hot-air exhaust for delta T, containment aisles, sub-floor air pressure, and perforated tile airflow.
• Generate billing-grade energy consumption data at +/- 1 percent accuracy.
• Interoperate within product suite and other vendor's products, as a result of supporting open standards, such as SNMP, ODBC, and Web services APIs.
• Gather and access information over almost any network, including wired and wireless networks.
• Deliver multi layers of security -- SNMP V3, HTTPS, SSL, AES, SSH.

About Raritan's new Smart Rack products introduced today:

Intelligent Asset Management Tags and Sensors

The innovative system to identify and track the location of IT assets down to the single U level in a rack, consists of Asset Management Tags (AMT), which adhere to IT devices and contain ID chips and barcodes, and Asset Management Sensors (AMS).  When a server is installed in a rack and its smart tag is connected to the AMS sensor bar, the system tells you exactly where that asset is located in the data center.  The unique ID is communicated to Raritan's dcTrack software or your existing asset management software.  If the server is moved to a new location in the same rack or to a different rack entirely, the device ID and its new location are automatically updated in dcTrack.  Modular AMS sensor bars support racks of all sizes.  (For video of the solution in action, visit http://vimeo.com/21406807)

Intelligent Controller (EMX) for Asset Management and Environmental Management

The EMX Controller, which is powered by Raritan's intelligent embedded platform, is a 1U-rack space environmental management appliance that serves as a hub for collecting data from many types of sensors -- including temperature, humidity, airflow, air pressure, smoke, water, door open and other contact closure -- and passing that information to Raritan's Power IQ energy and event management software for tracking and analyzing.

Smart sensors for measuring airflow, air pressure, and cooling:

• Differential Air Pressure Sensor measures the differences in air pressure between two adjacent data center locations, such as sub-floor and floor.  
• Airflow Sensor measures airflow accurately from 0-4 meters/sec.  Typically mounted at a perforated tile in front of the inlet side of a cabinet; but, can also be mounted in an air duct (plenum) to detect a failed fan/motor.
• DPX-T3H1 Sensor, with one humidity and three temperature sensors on one wire, makes it easy to meet ASHRAE cool air inlet positioning.

For more information on these products and on what Smart Racks can do for data centers, visit www.raritan.com/smart-rack-solutions.

About Raritan (Raritan.com)

Raritan is a proven innovator of power management, infrastructure management, KVM and serial solutions for data centers of all sizes.  In more than 50,000 locations worldwide, Raritan's award-winning hardware and software solutions -- including intelligent PDUs, energy management software, KVM-over-IP and Serial-over-IP access products -- provide IT and facility directors, managers and administrators with the control they need to increase power management efficiency, improve data center productivity and enhance branch office operations.  Based in Somerset, N.J., Raritan has offices worldwide serving customers in 76 countries.  For more information, visit us at Raritan.com  or follow us on the Raritan blog.  Raritan is an active member of the Green Grid, Climate Savers Computing Initiative, and the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design associations.  The company has been recognized by the EPA for its contribution to the agency's data center initiative.  

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SOURCE Raritan