Well I am building a new data center and have some interesting things to research. Some new trends have emerged since the last time I had to participate in anything like this. Some of them make great sense and others seem like the same old way with a new spin.

One new item that has caught my intrest is to run the equipment on higher voltage such as 208 single phase. This allows for some power effeciencies as well as allows for some bigger power strips. Along with this goes metered power distribution units. Some vendors have these available in 24 c13 plugs which is nice since I am running 4 pdu’s to a rack right now. Going down to just two will be a bit neater.

Another trend is hot isle containment. A few vendors have different ways of doing this currently. One vendor builds a box out of your racks by putting doors and a roof on a group of them to form a pod. Another vendor actually puts chimneys on the back of your racks and sends heat to the plenum in the ceiling. If you have a raised floor with underfloor cooling this second method seems great. If you have spot cooling or in row cooling the first method seems to be a better fit. I have read some articles that say cold isle containment is actually better however it has a downfall. People who enter the data center will always be warm or hot. I like a cold data center myself.

The last trend that has caught my interest is physical security and monitoring. The prices on equipment and software to accomplish this has come down quite a bit.

I’m interested in comments around this topic if you have them.

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