Raritan's Intelligent Power Portfolio Just Got Smarter with New Controller; New Capabilities Support Data Center Uptime

Besides distributing power efficiently and reliably, Raritan intelligent rack PDUs with the new iX7 onboard controller provide more compute and memory power to support new applications and to gather and analyze data on electricity used by IT equipment, available power capacity in data centers, and cabinet environmental health. The new iPDUs also provide more sensing and infrastructure data collection points.

In addition, the new iPDUs deliver new uptime capabilities -- including redundant networking and power sharing -- and cost-cutting features, such as expanded iPDU cascading to reduce network implementation costs and costly IP ports and drops.

IT equipment refreshes are occurring more frequently as data centers transform to meet new business and digital demands. "To keep pace and meet new evolving demands, Raritan has designed its controller -- the brain of the iPDU -- with more headroom and more customization capabilities to support future user-defined applications," says David Wood, Director of Power Solutions at Raritan.

"For example, for their edge data centers or colo sites, a customer may want to employ multi-level biometrics access authorization to open and close doors of remote cabinets -- our new iX7-powered iPDUs can enable that application," adds Wood. "Or, a customer may want, at some point, to take advantage of faster network speeds -- our iPDU supports gigabit Ethernet. Whatever problem needs to be solved, our intelligent PDUs are versatile and powerful enough to handle new data center management applications -- without needing to do a rip and replace of the power and monitoring infrastructure."

New iX7-enabled capabilities include:

• Dual Networking for Reliability and More Access Options. For high-availability connections and access, the Dual Networking feature enables users to connect to an iPDU from two distinct networks.
                          
  In addition, you can granularly define user access and permissions -- such as "Monitor Only Access" -- for each network, enabling additional authorized resources to help monitor power uptime and usage. For example, users can provide access to their iPDU and power data to a colocation provider on a separate network; without having to give access to the local area network.
                 
• Redundant Power Sharing. Leveraging the typical dual-power feed design in a data center cabinet, a standard Cat5 cable can be used to connect the iX7 controllers of A- and B-side iPDUs. In the case of a power loss to one of the feeds, the second iPDU powers both controllers and instant alerts of the power outage are sent; never losing connectivity to either iPDU. Downstream cascaded devices, including iPDUs and environmental sensors, will remain powered and be visible on the dashboard -- helping improve mean time to repair and uptime.
               
• Extended Cascading by Mix and Matching USB and Ethernet Connections. Cut down on network implementation costs, including expensive IP drops, by sharing a single Ethernet port. Choose the best way to daisy chain up to eight PDUs using one of the two USB ports, or leverage the Gigabit Ethernet port for cascading.
               
• New Easy-to-Use HTML User Interface. Makes it easier to see data center power data and environmental information. The responsive web GUI can be accessed from any device or tablet, or directly from a desktop. The newly designed dashboard provides the most important information at your fingertips so you can easily see the health of your iPDU, as well as a cabinet's power consumption history. It also provides easy-to-recognize alerting and alarm conditions in order to take action quickly and prevent potential outages.
                                 
• Highest-Resolution Color TFT Display. The bright display will change color depending on the alert level sensed by iPDUs. Field technicians can quickly identify the iPDUs where thresholds have been exceeded, get the correct power information right away, and act accordingly.

Availability
Starting today, iX7-powered iPDUs are available worldwide. Raritan's online product selector enables customers to easily identify intelligent rack PDU configurations equipped with the latest iX7 controller.  Customers with existing Raritan iPDUs can take advantage of many of the new capabilities by using the new iX7 firmware.

The new iPDUs are being demoed at the DatacenterDynamics conference in Raritan Booth 101.

Raritan Power Portfolio
Recognizing that a rack PDU has one of the best monitoring vantage points in a data center, Raritan was the first (in 2007) to add a user-programmable computer to a networked rack PDU to create a platform for smarter racks and intelligent data centers. As a result, data center operators can now monitor energy, power capacity, temperature, humidity, and the status of PDUs, lines, circuit breakers and individual outlets -- as well as power cycle IT equipment remotely.

Today all Raritan power products are built on the Xerus™ technology platform, which consists of a firmware stack and a physical circuit layer board designed and owned by Raritan.  The open firmware architecture supports all programming languages and scripting methods for developing and tailoring data center applications and for maximizing device interoperability.  Xerus also provides the latest security protocols and access authentication -- such as strong passwords, multiple user profiles, LDAP, and RADIUS -- and open APIs to support BMS, DCIM, and other management systems.

Raritan's announcement of its next-generation intelligent power product portfolio was made at the DatacenterDynamics-Enterprise conference in NYC, and comes on the heels of Legrand's recent launch of its Eliot (Electricity + IoT) program in North America. For more information about Eliot, visit legrand.us/eliot.

About Raritan 
Raritan began in 1985 by developing KVM switches for IT professionals to manage servers remotely.  Today, as a brand of Legrand, we are a leading provider of intelligent rack PDUs, KVM switches, and other data center infrastructure management solutions. Our solutions increase the reliability and intelligence of data centers around the globe, including 9 of the top 10 Fortune 500 technology companies. To learn more visit Raritan.com, LinkedIn or Twitter.

About Legrand, North America
Legrand is a global specialist in electrical and digital building infrastructures. Its comprehensive offering of solutions for use in commercial, industrial and residential markets makes it a benchmark for customers worldwide. Innovation for a steady flow of new products with high added value is a prime vector for growth, including, in particular, connected devices stemming from Legrand's global Eliot (Electricity and IoT) program. Legrand reported sales of $5.3 billion in 2015. Legrand has a strong presence in North and Central America, with a portfolio of well-known product lines that include C2G, Cablofil, Electrorack, Luxul, Middle Atlantic, Nuvo, OCL, On-Q, Ortronics, Pass & Seymour, Pinnacle, QMotion, Quiktron, Raritan, Solarfective, Vantage, Wattstopper, and Wiremold. Legrand is listed on Euronext Paris and is a component stock of indexes including the CAC40, FTSE4Good, MSCI World, ASPI, Corporate Oekom Rating and DJSI (ISIN code FR0010307819) www.legrand.us.

Video of Raritan iPDU's new capabilities: www.raritan.com/newix7

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SOURCE Raritan

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