FOR OVER 30 YEARS customer driven innovation has been key to the company’s success and the recent HDOT (High Density Outlet Technology) Switched and PRO2 launches ensure that Server Technology continues to push the boundaries when it comes to the art (Science?) of power distribution and management in the data centre rack.
While Server Technology’s early history might seem somewhat removed from the subject of power management, the company’s very early focus has always been on the datacentre, they originally built software that enabled serial file transfer between PCs, closely followed by its PCanywhere technology. What was, and remains a key strength, is the ability to listen to “what was causing our customers heartache and to come up with a solution to address these pain points”. Alongside this refreshing approach to a market that still all too often seems to adopt more of a ‘build it and they will come’ approach, Server Technology’s other core strength is the quality, and loyalty, of its personnel. A range of key employees have been with the company on average for at least 15 years, providing a foundation of engineering innovation, high class production and quality management, and, by no means least, a premium level of customer service.
Brandon Ewing explains: “We pride ourselves on the quality of our staff, from the engineering group that designs our products, to the production team that makes sure that products are built to a high standard and get out of the door on time – we provide a high level of quality and support.”
“We place a premium on support for the customer – indeed we hang our hat on this, along with our innovation leadership.
I believe that we differentiate ourselves from our competitors by coming up with (and then implementing) creative ways to solve customers’ problems. To give just one small example, Server Technology was the first company to introduce a digital display on its vertical switched power strip.”
Today, the company’s core focus is power distribution products for the data centre, a focus that Brandon believes provides a noticeable edge in a fiercely competitive market. “The big server companies obviously understand servers better than us, but we have the edge when it comes to understanding power, we will continue to stay focused on power- it’s what we do well”.
Brandon continues: “It’s great to be in a competitive marketplace, it keep us on our toes – it’s very important that we understand how data centre power usage changes over time – how it’s used at the cabinet level for example – and how we can help our customers collect, and use, this information.”
While Server Technology has a large portfolio of ‘best of breed’ standard products (of which, more later), the company has built a reputation for reacting to customers’ wishes in terms of designing and manufacturing bespoke power management solutions. Brandon explains: “If someone comes to us wanting a special product, we can turn this project around in anything from four to twelve weeks, depending on the complexity we’re asked for. We might have a subset of the desired solution already available, which can speed up the design time, and we often respond to requests for iterative changes to products we already offer. For example, someone might ask for 21 receptacles instead of the standard 24. Can we do that? Yes. But does it always make sense to offer a ‘limitless’ bespoke service? No. Because first we need to make sure it makes sense with the customer in the long run.”
High density outlet technology
However, what is making perfect sense right now is Server Technology’s recently introduced High Density Outlet Technology (HDOT) technology – a great example of how the company has responded to its customers. In this case, there’s a major data centre trend to move towards higher equipment density kit within the racks and cabinets. Brandon explains: “There’s a new high density spec for servers and the facility managers are having to react to this. Equipment footprints are getting smaller and the pressure is on for everyone to do more and more in the same, or even a smaller, footprint.”
Server Technology’s Inc. HDOT drastically reduces the footprint of a PDU while retaining up to 42 C13 outlets in a 1U device. As Travis Irons explains: “You’ve never seen anything like this before in a PDU. As the name implies, we’ve designed our own unique style of IEC standard C13 and C19 which allows us to build our PDUs with the maximum possible outlet density. There is a significant trend in data centres for more outlets in a smaller space, driven by data centres being short on real estate, growing rack heights, and a proliferation of 1U equipment. This was the motivation behind the HDOT outlet. Our customers needed something that had more outlets per PDU in the smallest form factor. We delivered.”
HDOT provides up to 42 C13’s in a 42U high by 1U wide device, the highest possible outlet density available in a network connected PDU. Manufactured with robust high temperature materials carrying a UL94 V-0 flame rating makes these outlets ideally suited for harsh data centre environments. Additional features include high native cord retention that eliminates the need for custom and costly ancillary locking cord devices.
“With six different outlet modules, you’ll be able to mix and match where you want them in your PDU,” Irons says. “This will allow customers to put the right type of outlet directly adjacent to the equipment,” he says.
Another data centre trend is the focus on capacity planning (not unrelated to high density). While PDUs can’t help directly with this issue, they can provide the raw data that on which capacity planning decisions are based. Brandon says: “Using our PDUs, a customer can understand the data centre’s power footprint and, for example, identify any overhead that is not being used. In discovering what’s going on in the data centre now, it’s much easier to plan for capacity going forward – is a new facility required or can the existing one be reconfigured? Can the power be distributed more evenly within the facility? A PDU is the last piece of infrastructure before a server or router is plugged in, so it can provide valuable information as to how power is being used.”
For companies who are keen to underwrite their green credentials, understanding how much power, and how it is being used, is also beneficial – whether to tick the corporate responsibility box for the annual report or as part of a serious initiative to optimise data centre energy efficiency. As Brandon puts it: “Our PDUs can help the IT and facilities engineers’ benchmark where they are today and then help them understand how to maximise the capabilities of their electrical infrastructure to hit their future environmental initiatives.”
Throughout all the use cases outlined above, it’s Server Technology’s technical knowledge that strikes a chord with potential, and existing, customers. Brandon explains: “We’re seen as power strategy experts – customers bounce ideas off us and we become partners and help them to understand what the best solution(s) might be in terms of power usage. Our sales organisation is based around a technical, power-related background, so customers can rely on this technical expertise to help them optimise the way that they use power within the data centre. We’re also happy to put our key engineers out in front of customers – it’s all part of our commitment to provide the right PDU for our customers and our ability to be agile.”
Call it part of this agility focus, or just plain old common sense, but Server Technology’s attitude to that perennial data centre issue – cabling – is one more example of how the company thinks around a problem and comes up with an elegant solution. The outlet modules on our HDOT products are user configurable, which puts the right outlet in the right place keeping cable runs minimized.
In the case of alternative phase PDUs, every band of three receptacles has all three phases of power, so, once again, there should be no need for long cable lengths. In order to simplify phase balancing and cable management, Server Technology produces a line of ‘Alternating Phase’ PDU’s.
These PDU’s distribute the three phases on an outlet by outlet basis, rather than in discreet banks. Brandon comments: “Our approach to cabling is part of our story in the marketplace – from the receptacle to the IT asset is one metre. As everyone knows, longer cable lengths can impede airflow and cooling effectiveness. Furthermore, imagine the financial impact of minimising the overall length of power cord in a large scale data centre facility with multiple cabinets.”
Talk of wireless with customers often produces the response, as Brandon puts it: “Not just no, but hell, no!” However, some customers are already open to the idea of one direction wireless to pull data off devices and Brandon believes that bi-directional wireless will be implemented in some data centre ‘in the near future’. No surprise that Server Technology is monitoring this development with interest.
The product portfolio
As for the PDUs themselves, Server Technology has a comprehensive portfolio, covering Basic, Metered, Smart, Switched POPS and Smart POPS varieties. Brandon explains: “There are a lot of different data centres and different customer requirements out there, so we need a robust product family for power distribution in equipment cabinets to meet all our customers’ needs.”
Most notably, alongside the HDOT development already mentioned, Server Technology has developed PRO2 – a new platform for rack PDU (cabinet power distribution unit) products. PRO2 offers a shallower POPS form factor (2.18”w x 2.25” D) than previously, 25 per cent higher vertical density of outlets on switched products, more processor power and memory to support new features, and monitoring of both branch current and input current for all models.
Additionally, the PRO2 design has been put through more extensive design, test and validation procedures than any previous generation. Improvements include locking cables for Improvements include high immunity, locking internal data connections throughout. Other features worth of note are: redundant network power with hot swappable network card, branch current monitoring, faster secure connections, PIPS standard, no-board on board file system, capability to link three expansion units and additional alarms and alarm levels.
One of Server Technology’s main PDU ‘claim to recent innovations fame’ is the highly successful Build Your Own (Smart) PDU, which Brandon describes as ‘the Holy Grail of products.’ He says: “Everyone wants to have their own say in the design of the product and we can meet a multitude of requirements, with our modular approach, and help customer to develop, and then to deliver, what they want. People like to customise, and we can help them do that and I believe that we offer a level of product flexibility to our customers that others cannot match.”
Alongside the PDUs, Server Technology offers the Sentry Power Manager (SPM), that provides one central interface to monitor and manage all of the PDUs (including competitor products) within a data centre. “Our Sentry Power Manager gives customers the ability to see where their PDU products are, to help with tasks such as maintenance, and to produce a substantial quantity of data that can be used, for example, to facilitate capacity planning.”
Looking at the wider IT evolution, Server Technology’s PDU and SPM combination can be seen as a vital tool to help the facilities and IT management team achieve the incredibly high levels of uptime that are required in the modern data centre. The company’s technology also has a role to play as the trend to allow different voltages within the data centre becomes better regulated.
As Brandon summarises: “The infrastructure for a data centre will continue to change, and that’s a huge positive for us, it keeps us energised and I’ve no doubt that Server Technology will play its part in these changes.”
The most immediate demonstration of Server Technology’s desire to thrive in this volatile, if vibrant, data centre market is the launch of the HDOT Switched Alt-Phase PRO2 PDU, the first product in the company’s portfolio that combines the HDOT and PRO2
platform to the considerable benefit of the customer.
As Travis explains: “This first integrated product combines all the proven advantages of HDOT with PRO2 – next generation firmware, offering higher speeds and a single power compute interface card and controller system, with the ability to link multiple products to one master controller. Branch monitoring is incorporated as standard. Moving forward, PRO2 is going to be Server Technology’s standard platform for all new products.”
Server Technology’s confidence in the future is best encapsulated by the headline to this article, which also happens to be the company’s current marketing slogan: Stay Powered. Be Supported. Get Ahead.
Stay powered, because power is the company’s sole focus;
Be supported, because customer support is the company’s main differentiator alongside technology innovation - hence Get ahead. Brandon concludes: “We’ve listened to our customers’ feedback, they are telling us who we are to them and why they buy from us- our plan is to just keep doing what we are good at, we know it is what customers want and it seems to be working, we are growing as a company faster than the market.”
Box
HDOT Alt-Phase PRO2
HDOT Alt-Phase PRO2 merges Server Technology’s newest platform and technologies into the ‘preeminent’ cabinet PDU solution. The initial release of products covers 3 phase 208V 30A, 3 phase 208V 60A, 3 phase 400V 32A, and 3 phase 415V 32A 3-phase, 415V 30A 3-phase circuits. These products are 36-outlet Build-Your-Own PDUs with HDOT Alt-Phase Switched outlets built upon the PRO2 platform. HDOT is the industry standard for rack density providing the most outlets in 42U at 2.2” or less width. Alternating-phase outlet design provides efficiency gains with reduced cooling load and simplified load balancing. PRO2 is the professional uptime solution It carries a 60 degree C or better operational temperature rating, is available in six colors, and has four available outlet configurations.
HDOT meets the following customer needs:
Industry standard C13 and C19 outlets for density with most outlets for the size in
the market
Easy-to-use graphical web configurator with thousands of variations available
Customized product with standard lead-time
Alternating-Phase Outlets show Server Technology’s understanding of customer challenges:
Load balancing is simplified with color coded outlets for each of the three phases
distributing phases on an outlet by outlet bases, rather than in discreet banks.
Shorter cable runs made possible by putting the right outlet in the right place
Cooling efficiency and costs improved with better airflow through reduced cable
lengths
PRO2 meets customer needs that the previous PDU can’t by doing it better:
Redundantly powered, hot-swap network card
Star linking option – No daisy chain risks
Extensive monitoring and alerting
