rackmount managed PDUs

Thu Sep 25 16:56:45 UTC 2008

Justin M. Streiner wrote:
> I have some Tripp Lite PDUMH30NETs that work well and are reasonably 
> priced, but they have a few quirks (no RS-232 console port, web 
> interface seems to be a little shaky with Firefox, etc) that would 
> become more annoying when scaled up to several rows of new rack 
> footprints.  I'm also open to using managed vertically mounted PDUs.  
> The plan is for each footprint to have "A" and B" feeds, so two 
> PDUMH30NETs would take up 4U per footprint, which is a bit much...

One thing to be aware of with the vertical PDUs is where they get 
mounted.  A number of vertical Emerson PDUs were purchased for our DC. 
However only one of the Liebert cabinets was purchased with the 6" 
extension on the rear.  The PDUs mount on each side of the cabinet door 
frame with the receptacles facing the opposing PDU.  Ie, both PDUs face 
inward towards each other, not towards the front or rear of the cabinet. 
  They stick out about 2" plus the power cords stick out at least 
another 2", more depending on how hard you fight to force the power 
cables into bundles and wire-tie them off to the frame.  The rails of 
the servers barely clear the PDUs.  The cabling on the back of the 
servers is made all the harder by the bundle of power cables in the way. 
  It's a difficult physical problem to work around.  The 6" cabinet 
extension would have allowed the PDUs to be moved further from the 
servers and would have allowed for a little more robust form of wire 
management for the power cables.

Now in our CO we bought a cabinet thats 28" wide (Cooper/B-Line). 
There's enough space on each side for 4" of vertical wire management. 
Vertical PDUs would be viable in that scenario.

Just something to consider.
  Justin

PS==> The Emerson PDUs are supposed to be manageable, though I've never 
seen the GUI.