Re: Article about IBM racks

[DrFranken <midrange@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Recently I was working in a rack where the PDU's are two piece. One 
piece mounted in the middle of each side (almost unreachable) that then 
distributes power to smaller PDUs for the equipment at the rear. The 
connectors in the middle PDU point straight up and down. Those 
connectors have no strain relief so the only thing keeping them in is 
friction of the plug, the ones pointing down are at great risk. While 
installing additional hardware in the rack we bumped one and it fell 
out, dropping power to everything connected to it. Finding it, and 
connecting it again was a pain because you couldn't see the thing as 
there was equipment mounted on both sides. Luckily nothing important 
went down in this case but it could have!!  And they have fork-lifts 
running by within 10 feet of these racks. That rumbling alone is going 
to cause them an outage one day....

    - Larry

On 4/6/2011 11:18 PM, Pete Massiello wrote:
> Rob is right on it here.  I have seen some racks with no space in the back,
> and the cables get all twisted together.  Then when someone tries to slide
> out a draw, something gets disconnected.  What is the cost of that downtime?
>
>
> Everyone has their favorite vendor, but sometimes you have to look beyond
> the costs.  The lowest cost rack isn't always the cheapest decision in the
> long run.  The best rack is the one which fits your needs.
>
> 	Pete
>
> --
> Pete Massiello
> iTech Solutions
> http://www.itechsol.com
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> -----Original Message-----
> From: midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx
> [mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of rob@xxxxxxxxx
> Sent: Wednesday, April 06, 2011 9:41 AM
> To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion
> Subject: Re: Article about IBM racks
>
> We have multiple racks.  One thing to consider is the space available
> between the doors and the equipment.  Some are so close that the doors are
> just removed because you'll never get them closed without smashing cables.
>   Some aren't so bad.  Some have enough space to accommodate either duct
> work on the front and back, or, a rack mounted cooling unit.  Without
> direct cooling you may have to cool your room down to beer cold just to
> get that thermometer hung on the inside of the rack down to a safe level.
> It's an efficiency thing.  Not that we used that knowledge when we just
> put in new air handling equipment in our new computer room.  (And that
> special rack is still sitting empty in our lobby where it's been for the
> last several years.)
>
>
> Rob Berendt