Tape Tracker - Visibility and security for backup tapes travelling outside the data center
Tape Tracker is a turnkey surveillance solution for securing and protecting backup tapes in-transit. The solution features specialized Advanced Global Positioning System (AGPS) tracking tapes powered by LoJack InTransit software and 24/7 monitoring center. 

Determining Total Cost of Ownership for Data Center and Network Room Infrastructure
An improved method for measuring Total Cost of Ownership of data center and network room physical infrastructure and relating these costs to the overall Information Technology infrastructure is described, with examples. The cost drivers of TCO are quantified. The largest cost driver is shown to be unnecessary unabsorbed costs resulting from the oversizing of the infrastructure.

Essential Rack System Requirements for Next Generation Data Centers
Effective mission critical installations must address the known problems and challenges relating to current and past data center designs. This paper presents a categorized and prioritized collection of rack system challenges and requirements as obtained through systematic user interviews.

The Seven Types of Power Problems
Many of the mysteries of equipment failure, downtime, software and data corruption, are often the result of a problematic supply of power. There is also a common problem with describing power problems in a standard way. This white paper will describe the most common types of power disturbances, what can cause them, what they can do to your critical equipment, and how to safeguard your equipment, using the IEEE standards for describing power quality problems.

Ten Cooling Solutions to Support High-Density Server Deployment
High-density servers offer a significant performance per watt benefit. However, depending on the deployment, they can present a significant cooling challenge. Vendors are now designing servers that can demand over 40 kW of cooling per rack. With most data centers designed to cool an average of no more than 2 kW per rack, innovative strategies must be used for proper cooling of high-density equipment. This paper provides ten approaches for increasing cooling efficiency, cooling capacity, and power density in existing data centers.

Cooling Strategies for Ultra-High Density Racks and Blade Servers
Rack power of 10 kW per rack or more can result from the deployment of high density information technology equipment such as blade servers. This creates difficult cooling challenges in a data center environment where the industry average rack power consumption is under 2 kW. Five strategies for deploying ultra-high power racks are described, covering practical solutions for both new and existing data centers.

Four Steps to Determine When a Standby Generator is Needed for Small Data Centers and Network Rooms
Small data centers and network rooms vary dramatically in regard to the amount of UPS runtime commonly deployed. This paper describes a rational framework for establishing backup time requirements. Tradeoffs between supplemental UPS batteries and standby generators are discussed, including a total cost of ownership (TCO) analysis to help identify which solution makes the most economic sense. The analysis illustrates that the runtime at which generators become more cost effective than batteries varies dramatically with kW and ranges from approximately 20 minutes to over 10 hours.

Cooling Strategies for IT Wiring Closets and Small Rooms
Cooling for IT wiring closets is rarely planned and typically only implemented after failures or overheating occur. Historically, no clear standard exists for specifying sufficient cooling to achieve predictable behavior within wiring closets. An appropriate specification for cooling IT wiring closets should assure compatibility with anticipated loads, provide unambiguous instruction for design and installation of cooling equipment, prevent oversizing, maximize electrical efficiency, and be flexible enough to work in various shapes and types of closets. This paper describes the science and practical application of an improved method for the specification of cooling for wiring closets.

Power and Cooling for VoIP and IP Telephony Applications
Voice Over IP (VoIP) deployments can cause unexpected or unplanned power and cooling requirements in wiring closets and wiring rooms. Most wiring closets do not have uninterruptible power available, and they do not provide the ventilation or cooling required to prevent equipment overheating. Understanding the unique cooling and powering needs of VoIP equipment allows planning for a successful and cost effective VoIP deployment. This paper explains how to plan for VoIP power and cooling needs, and describes simple, fast, reliable, and cost effective strategies for upgrading old facilities and building new facilities.

Implementing Energy Efficient Data Centers
Electricity usage costs have become an increasing fraction of the total cost of ownership (TCO) for data centers. It is possible to dramatically reduce the electrical consumption of typical data centers through appropriate design of the network-critical physical infrastructure and through the design of the IT architecture. This paper explains how to quantify the electricity savings and provides examples of methods that can greatly reduce electrical power consumption.

Virtualization: Optimized Power and Cooling to Maximize Benefits
Data centers are routinely and unknowingly missing a great portion of their entitlement from virtualization. Beyond virtualization’s undisputed IT benefits – from reduced rack footprint to disaster recovery – is the parallel story of a substantial benefit from optimizing the physical infrastructure that supports it. In particular, row-based cooling, correctly sized power and cooling, and real-time capacity management are essential elements in realizing virtualization’s full potential in cost reduction, efficiency, and reliability.

Creating Order from Chaos in Data Centers and Server Rooms
Data center professionals can rid themselves of messy racks, sub-standard under floor air distribution, and cable sprawl with a minimum of heartache and expense. Whether the data center mess is created over years of mismanagement or whether the cable-choked data center is inherited, solutions for both quick fixes and longer term evolutionary changes exist. This paper outlines several innovative approaches for dealing with the symptoms of chaos and for eliminating the root causes of disorder.

Strategies for Deploying Blade Servers in Existing Data Centers
When blade servers are densely packed, they can exceed the power and cooling capacities of almost all traditional data centers. This paper explains how to evaluate the options and select the best power and cooling approach for a successful and predictable blade deployment.

An Improved Architecture for High-Efficiency; Higgh-Density Data Centers
Data center power and cooling infrastructure worldwide wastes more than 60,000,000 megawatt-hours per year of electricity that does no useful work powering IT equipment. This represents an enormous financial burden on industry, and is a significant public policy environmental issue. This paper describes the principles of a new, commercially available data center architecture that can be implemented today to dramatically improve the electrical efficiency of data centers.

The Advantages of Row and Rack-Oriented Cooling Architectures for Data Centers
Room cooling is an ineffective approach for next-generation data centers. Latest generation high density and variable density IT equipment create conditions that room cooling was never intended to address, resulting in cooling systems that are inefficient, unpredictable, and low in power density. Row-oriented and rack-oriented cooling architectures have been developed to address these problems. This paper contrasts room, row, and rack architectures and shows why row-oriented cooling will emerge as the preferred solution for most next generation data centers.

Ten Errors to Avoid When Commissioning a Data Center
Data center commissioning can deliver an unbiased evaluation of whether a newly constructed data center will be an operational success or a failure. Proper execution of the commissioning process is a critical step in determining how the data center operates as an integrated system. The documentation produced as a result of commissioning is also the single, most enduring value added deliverable in a data center’s operational life. This paper outlines the ten most common errors that prevent successful execution of the commissioning process.

How to Solve Downtime Challenges to Manufacturing and Supply Chain Operations
Every manufacturer - from heavy - duty industrial and automotive to consumer products and packaged goods—faces one ongoing challenge: time.

Real-Time, On-Demand Information for Business Intelligence and Data Integration
This white paper shows you how a software-based data replication solution can drive value by providing simplified, on-demand enterprise-wide data sharing and right-time data integration for any business.

The Benefits of Continuous Data Protection (CDP) for AIX Environments
Downtime and data loss pose intolerable risks to every business today. From IT departments to the Board Room, managers have seen the importance of business uptime and data protection for continued success, productivity and profitability.

The Essential Guide to IBM AIX Disaster Recovery
IT managers have been - or soon will be - asked to find ways to eliminate or reduce the adverse impact of downtime on the business. Recent events have shown that disaster recovery plans and data replication alone are often not enough.