Please note: These product-specific sessions are presented by official Data Center World Expo exhibitors and will run concurrently with educational sessions.
The following sessions are from the Spring 2008 conference:
P01: High Density Servers/Data Centers: Driving a New Imperative for Integrated Physical Layer Management Systems
Kevin Brown, Vice President of Marketing, Data Center Solutions, Services and Software, APC
The trend towards higher density servers is leading to unique challenges to provide adequate power and cooling to those servers. The dynamic nature of virtualization introduces additional variables. This presentation will outline the complexity this trend presents to data center managers and why the need for a fully integrated suite of management tools like APC’s Capacity and Change Manager can effectively manage the physical infrastructure of today’s data centers. Additionally, the presentation will discuss the impact the stranded capacity has on data center efficiency.
P02: Simulate Airflow/Temp to Meet Your Cooling Challenges
Suhas Patankar, President, Innovative Research
You can now create a computer simulation of airflow and temperature distribution to identify cooling problems and to overcome them. The software product TileFlow allows you to model your data center and calculates the air velocities and temperatures. TileFlow is delightfully easy to use, runs very fast, and produces useful plots. The presentation will include a live demonstration of the capabilities of TileFlow, show a spectacular display of the results, and thus convey the power of simulation.
P03: Short-Length Cabling in Server Rows
Gary Bernstein, RCDD – Director of Product Management, Leviton
Today’s data center often requires short cabling lengths within server rows in order to accommodate connections between server cabinets and switch cabinets. This presentation will review the various cabling architectures available that can deal with these challenging environments including the benefits of using pre-terminated copper trunks in these critical applications.
P04: Trends and Challenges for Cabling Infrastructure of High Performance Optical Data Centers
Rick Dallmann, Infrastructure Technology Manager, CXtec
With the recent trend towards 10Gb Multimode Fiber Networks, the Data Center cabling environment requires new design approaches and test assumptions. Topics covered in this class will address trunking solutions and creating a structured cabling environment, while addressing the seven key areas that affect performance, reliability and manageability. This is a practical, non-theoretical discussion of real world design challenges for these high-speed passive optical links and best data center design practices.
P05: Scalable Power for Critical Spaces of All Sizes
Peter Panfil, VP Power Engineering, Liebert AC Power, Emerson Network Power
Explosive capacity growth, 24x7 availability requirements and energy efficiency pressures aren’t limited to large data centers. This presentation will present strategies to scale systems of all sizes while preserving both availability and your initial investment. Attendees will learn about state-of-the-art power growth strategies, including a new technology that allows you to add UPS capacity without adding hardware. You’ll learn how you can grow from 40 to 60 to 80 kW or from 80 to 100 to 120 kW – without adding equipment!
P06: The Evolution of Branch Circuit Monitoring
Dave Mulholland, VP Marketing, PDI, John Day, VP Sales, PDI
PDI’s patented Branch Circuit Monitoring System has evolved since 2000 into a platform that will allow you to manage all aspects of power in your data center.
P07: Fully Automated Asset Tracking and Inventory (From the Data Center through the Distributed Enterprise)
Mitch Medford, CEO, RF Code
As the number of IT assets grows, tracking becomes difficult. Compliance requirements and business policies demand timely, 100 percent accurate inventories. The traditional annual audit is inefficient, expensive, inaccurate and obsolete the moment it’s taken. Wouldn’t it be better to automatically have an instant inventory in real-time, all the time? This session will focus on how RF Code’s active RFID-powered technology enables on-demand, rack-level asset inventories in the data center – and beyond.
P08: Advanced Front Terminal VRLA Battery Technology for UPS Systems
Steve Vechy, Marketing Director - UPS/Utility, EnerSys
Many UPS systems currently use top terminated valve regulated lead acid (VRLA) batteries in cabinets. This session will present advanced front terminal UPS batteries that are now available as an alternative to traditional top terminated batteries. These batteries offer the user simplified installation and maintenance, reduced footprint, improved reliability and cost effective solutions for data centers and other critical UPS installations. Additionally, the introduction of high capacity 750 Watt per Cell battery can greatly reduce the need for parallel strings in large capacity UPS systems.
P09: The Future of Data Center Configuration and Planning: Real Time Connection Management Documentation using Radio Frequency Identification (RFID)
Tyler Miller, Account Manager, Connectivity Technologies
This will be a live, interactive presentation detailing the planning and implementation stages, along with installation, and real time connection management documentation through Radio Frequency Identification (RFID). The presentation will consist of software used to manage the Data Center RFID infrastructure, power capacity, inventory, and assets. Included will be a “Best of Breed” infrastructure and cabling presentation to aid in the design of your high speed network.
P10: Being Green without Spending a Lot of Green
Carrie Higbie, Global Director DC Solutions & Services, Siemon
This session will cover case studies and information from a variety of sources to help data center managers learn ways to improve efficiency and green initiatives without breaking the bank. A company can spend millions on greener gear, but without certain basics, the money spent will not provide the desired results. In particular, we will discuss growth, abatement, pathways, cooling, power and new technologies that will help in reduction of power and cooling demands.
P11: Improving the Thermal Efficiency of Data Centers
Paul Bemis, President, Applied Math Modeling Inc.
The EPA report to Congress in August of 2007 concluded 1.5% of all electricity generated in the US was consumed by Data Centers as a cost of $4.5B. If current growth trends continue, this value is expected to reach $7.4B by the year 2011. With increased focus on global warming, there will soon be strong economic incentives to reduce the rapid growth of electricity consumption in Data Centers. The most cost effective means to reduce costs by improving the thermal efficiency in Data Centers is to model the environment with a CFD (Computational Fluid Dynamics) tool, such as CoolSim, to understand what improvements to make and what effect they will have on the thermal efficiency of the Data Center. This user-friendly software tool computes temperature distributions and airflow patterns both under and above floor spaces, and pinpoints hot spots and possible air short-circuiting in the data center.
P12: Modular Power and Cooling Utility in a Box – Driving Efficiencies through Rapidly Deployed and Right-Sized Power and Cooling
Martin Olsen, Director, Product Management and Development, Active Power
Interested in saving money on energy bills? Limited floor space in the data center? With floor space at a premium, operators are turning to solutions that are rapidly deployable, space efficient and available in containerized package complete with diesel generators, generator starting modules, power distribution components and more. This presentation will highlight the next generation of modular power/cooling utilities and how right-sized systems are becoming more and more common. In fact, containerized high efficiency UPS systems can save the end user approximately 86 percent alone in the first year of operation compared to a 10 megawatt ‘brick and mortar’ legacy UPS system.
P13: Next Generation Data Center Management
Steve Yellen, Vice President, Product and Market Strategy, Aperture Technologies
This session discusses next generation data center management, highlighting the three vital elements of data center management: planning, operations and monitoring. The relative merits of each component will be examined along with their importance in successfully managing the data center environment and scaling for growth. Real challenges such as space, power, cooling capacity, and the management of high-density equipment will be reviewed with practical recommendations and advice.
P14: When Physical and Virtual Worlds Collide
Ivan Passos, Director of Product Management, Avocent Software Products
Virtual servers offer numerous attractive benefits, but in the mixed physical-virtual environment, how do you tackle management? Separate tools and staff essentially have IT running two separate data centers, which adds complexity. The key to eliminating complexity is a single point of access and control for both worlds. Avocent will outline options and strategies for confronting the physical and virtual collision head-on to prevent inefficiencies from outweighing the benefits of the virtual data center.
P15: Data Center Air Management Solutions for Lower Costs, Higher Availability and Increasing Densities
Ian Seaton, Technology Marketing Manager, Chatsworth Products, Inc.
CPI Passive Cooling Solutions provide answers to every aspect of data center cooling, including: green field designs, major renovations of existing spaces, supporting upgrades to higher density blade servers, and mitigating hot spot problems in operating data centers. This presentation will show how to apply these airflow management products and systems to various applications for lower cost cooling, higher uptime availability and surprisingly high power/heat densities.
P16: Infrastructure Planning for Future Growth
Marc Naese, Global Solutions Development Manager, Panduit Corp.
Data center infrastructure is at the core of business activity; it must handle today’s demands and support tomorrow’s growth. Proper planning within the data center creates a reliable, robust and manageable infrastructure that will support several active equipment lifecycles. This presentation focuses on real-world data center application best practices (including cable management and thermal management, as well as bonding and grounding) that can ensure seamless design, swift implementation and reliable operation of the data center.
P17: Energy Efficient Data Center Cooling Technologies and Strategies
Joerg Desler, Vice President, Stulz-ATS
This technical presentation covers energy efficient strategies and technologies for cooling the data center, including topics of traditional data center cooling methods versus innovative new developments that are significantly reducing data center operations costs. Calculations and examples will be provided for illustrative and discussion purposes.
P18: Power Solutions for Your Blade Server Environment
Jeff Miller, Major Accounts Manager, Geist Manufacturing
Are you utilizing HP, IBM or Sun Blade Servers? With this new technology, a need for increased power to the cabinet is created. Distributing this power is a chore. We will discuss some of the options available to help solve power distribution problems created by blade server applications.
P19: Reduce Costs and Increase Productivity Across the Enterprise with a Search Driven Discovery Engine
Alfredo Perez, Senior Technical Consultant, Software Engineering of America
IT organizations are faced with the problem of dealing with dissimilar information, job control language, programming languages, databases, transaction management systems, operational documentation and schedulers. We will discuss the main problems an IT organization faces when managing its corporate assets in order to reduce the elevated maintenance costs and minimizing risks when assessing the impact of a change. We will present scenarios of how a solution can reduce the costs and complexities of these problems.
P20: Enabling Data Centers That are Both Automated and Dynamic
Aid Galijatovic, Principal Product Manager, CA, Inc.
Kouros Esfahany, VP, Development, CA, Inc.
As data centers move toward the role of service providers to the business, the automation of IT processes must evolve. Automating IT processes offers advantages in both improved business service and cost control, but scheduled server provisioning tasks are simply not enough. Provisioning, change and configuration management must be performed dynamically and in real-time. Join us as we explore the current and future states of data center automation, as well as the key considerations that automation should accommodate: from ensuring the availability of business services, to compliance controls, to “green” IT initiatives.
P21: Plan Before You Execute
Gary Woodcock, Vice President of Business Development, Bick Group
Steve Davis, Vice President of Business Development, Bick Group
Proper planning can save time and money and reduce risk. This is especially true in the data center environment. Bick Group will demonstrate approaches to planning by showing some of our mission critical facility planning services: site analysis, facility survey, facility analysis and facility programming. This session will give you direction regarding how you should approach planning and what deliverable you should expect as well as what components should be addressed.
P22: Go Green While Improving Availability
Eric Williamson, President, WES
Mark Wesko, P.E., Director, WES
Balance efficiency with availability in your data center. Using real-life case studies, learn how WES solutions can help you fine tune your facility to maximize energy efficiency, reduce your carbon footprint and operating expenses while maintaining a high availability environment. Whether designing for a new space or operating an existing space, this session will provide indispensable information.
P23: The First Step to Powering a Greener Data Center – Monitoring
Herman Chan, Business Unit Manager, Power and Management Solutions, Raritan
Today, there are regulatory and corporate initiatives driving companies to become more “green.” Data centers are faced with insufficient electrical power to feed new IT devices and IT managers are feeling pressure to take ownership of data center power management. This session will present power and environmental monitoring techniques data center managers can use to minimize wasted power and identify underutilized available power to meet growing IT power demands.
P24: Balancing Operating Cost and Reliability in the Data Center
Nick Gangemi, Northern Regional Sales Manager, Data Aire, Inc.
Energy efficiency is becoming more of a factor when designing and operating data centers. Not long ago the cost of energy was low enough that data center managers could justify high energy consumption for reliability and availability. The importance of reliability and availability has not changed, but the cost of providing them has. Leading the quest for better operational efficiencies are ASHRAE, Green Building Council, Uptime Institute and GreenGrid. Current ideas and best practices will be presented for data center managers seeking to balance operating cost and reliability.
P25: Adaptive Airflow Management in Data Centers
Wally Phelps, Product Manager, DegreeC AdaptivCool
This session will present case studies applying active and adaptive airflow management in data centers to manage hot spots, compensate for CRAC failures, and reduce cooling energy costs. The implementations include environmental monitoring as well as a method for trending and alarming. Case study results show the positive effects of reducing server inlet temperatures and reduced energy costs. In all cases, no server downtime was incurred during installation.
P26: Increased Density and Air Flow Considerations: Structured Cabling for 21st Century Data Centers
Lisa Huff, Data Center Applications Engineer, Berk-Tek
High-density data centers require a reassessment of traditional structured cabling products and their impact on air flow, a key consideration related to cooling efficiency. NetClear solutions, brought to market jointly by Berk-Tek, a Nexans Company and Ortronics/Legrand, feature innovative structured cabling products focused on addressing and mitigating this data center concern. These exceptional systems also convey many other benefits for data center structured cabling that include enhanced performance, quick installation, simplified cable management and streamlined future network modifications.
P27: Tons of Cooling, Yet Hot Equipment? Cooling Path Design for the Modern Data Center
Akhil Docca, Manager of Engineering Services, Future Facilities
Traditional data center analysis tools provide only a simple, generic feel for the temperature and airflow distribution in the room rather than tackling the root source of the problem – equipment overheat. Cooling path design with the virtual facility overcomes the limitations of traditional tools by addressing the equipment cooling problem directly. The process involves stepping through the full route taken by the cooling air in a 3D, virtual model to systematically identify and fix cooling breakdowns and inefficiencies as a function of the equipment cooling requirements. The process is easy to use and integrated with inventory management so that thermal safety can be maintained over the life span of the data center. A case study will be used to illustrate cooling path design.
