Inline energy meters make use of the network management features from an intelligent PDU and use ‘plug and play’ or hardware connections. The single and three phase energy meters can provide a range of power related information including volts, amps, kVA, kW, kWh and power factor and provide billing grade level accuracy within +/- 1% for colocation datacentre racks and server clients.
Inline energy meters can generally be added to existing installations quickly whether they have a PDU already in place or not. They can be useful additions when upgrading any server room or datacentre and provide both real-time and network metering and monitoring to assist load balancing, capacity planning and avoid overload conditions. Up to 6 external sensors can be added to each inline energy meter for temperature and environment monitoring.
For more information on our range of inline energy meters please contact our projects team.
Most server racks have several pieces of IT equipment to power. A typical configuration can include a server, storage device, broadband switch, and routers. In a small server cabinet, you may be able to connect everything to a rack mount UPS if it has enough socket outlets btu the likelihood is that you will need to install a power distribution unit (PDU).
The number of options available when specifying server rack power distribution units is immense. One of our server rack PDU manufacturing partners has over 5,000 drawings covering permutations that have either been manufactured and delivered or at least quoted over the last decade. Such a number is possible due to the number of PDU options available which can range from outlet socket types, to cable connections, form factors, voltage, communications and even paint colours. Our rack PDU guide details a step-by-step process to help demistify their specification and help you to select the righ server rack PDUs for your comms room, server room or data centre projects.
As soon as you start to add multiple devices to your server rack, power management can become an issue. The use of Power Distribution Units (PDUs) with some form of metering or intelligent IP connection can help to overcome this and provide a pathway for the future scale-up of your IT deployment.
Some of the metered PDUs, smart and intelligent PDUs we supply can be installed with additional plug-in sensors for temperature and humidity. The PDUs are connected to the local IP network and can report monitoring readings taken by the sensors.
With intelligent PDUs each individual socket is remotely monitored for power and energy usage and can be remotely controlled i.e. powered down or rebooted to provide total control of the connected load(s).
As well as power distribution units we have specific in-line energy meters that can be installed between power sources and their connected loads. The in-line meters come with flying leads, plugs and sockets and provide a range of power related information including kVA, kW, power factor, voltage, frequency and kWh of energy usage.
