RPDU Best Practices

Yigal Schneider - April 24, 2017

The Intelligent Rack PDU is an essential building block for resilient, agile and energy efficient datacenters. The Processing power and Ethernet connectivity provide exciting new opportunities to improve operational efficiency, safety and total cost.

Many users still specify something like “Zero U, 32A 3Phase, 18 C13 and 6 C19 outlets with monitoring”. Here is a list of features they should consider …

 

  1. Support temperatures of 60 degrees Celsius: It can get pretty hot in the back of your cabinet. You want to make sure it works.
  2. Monitoring at the CB level: most PDUs provide monitoring at the PDU or outlet levels.  It is actually very important to know if a CB tripped.  So add CB monitoring to your requirements.
  3. Residual Current Monitoring: reduce the risk of electric Shock by measuring current leaking to ground.  A system alert is generated to keep technicians safe.
  4. Configurable power sequencing: sophisticated outlet sequencing minimize breaker trips due to inrush currents.
  5. Low Profile, flush mount circuit breakers: improve rack accessibility by eliminating circuit breaker “dog houses”.
  6. Cascading: easily daisy chain multiple PDUs and save money on IP drops.
  7. Quick setup: use ordinary USB sticks to configure hundreds of PDUs in minutes.
  8. Environmental monitoring: your PDU controller can be your environmental controller. Just connect temperature humidity, airflow, water, or contact sensors to your Raritan PDU.
  9. Add Asset Management: your PDU can now help you manage your assets in real time.
  10. Lockable outlets and cable: prevent downtime by inadvertently disconnecting AC cables. Use lockable cables.
  11. Color differentiation: use different colors of PDUs to differentiate and ease visual management.