PowerPlay: New UPS Devices Keep Pace With Changing Needs

For a while, it seemed like time stood still for power supplies. The most significant innovations in power usage were surge protectors and quieter cooling fans. But with the advent in recent years of high-performance, high-density solutions, the need for better power management has increased exponentially.

As a result, developers of these tools have come to the forefront, and a number of new uninterruptible power supply (UPS) products have recently come to market, offering customers a more foolproof way of ensuring that their data centers stay up and running, and providing resellers with more revenue.

In recent years, the most widely used way of cooling down a data center has been to raise the floor and blow cool air through specially designed tiles. Anyone who has ever been inside one of those rooms is familiar with its refrigerated feel. But the emergence of technologies including blade servers, Linux clustering and other high-density applications and high-performance computing--such as the mainframe-based infrastructures used at university research labs--is limiting the effectiveness and making floor-cooled systems unnecessary.

In particular, the widespread deployment of blade servers has created a potential crisis situation, because a single blade-server chassis requires 4 kW of cooling power, and the typical cooling floor, which usually is raised 18 inches to 24 inches above ground level, can only effectively blow about half that much air.

"The challenge for data centers always was about just blowing cold air into a room, but not anymore," says Russell Senesac, InfraStruXure product manager for power supply developer American Power Conversion (APC). "Two or three years ago, it was all about getting more power, but now everyone needs cooling help. But rather than forcing in cool air and making a data center feel like a meat locker, the focus has changed to neutralizing hot air where it's created."

Senesac says APC advocates the "zoning" of equipment, such as blade servers, consolidating them into corners of a room and deploying high-density cooling methodologies on the servers. He says that's really the only way to ensure the blade servers won't overheat, because using the floor-cooled method to get enough air into a room with more than one or two blade-server chassis would require six to eight feet more space beneath the floor.

To address these issues, APC has developed an array of new products for its InfraStruXure architecture that integrates power, cooling, management, racks and services for on-demand, network-critical physical infrastructure (NCPI). Unveiled in June, the Rack Side Air Distribution unit has a 2U, rack-mountable design and provides cooling to networking equipment or servers that require side-to-side airflow. The unit pulls conditioned air in from the front and distributes it to the side, which allows side-to-side cooled equipment to be placed in the same rack as front-to-back cooled equipment. The product also provides greater security and organization by allowing racks to be adjacent to one another without impeding airflow.

APC also recently released new 12.5-kW three-phase, rack-mount power distribution units (PDUs) that allow users to provide up to 25 kW of dual-path or 50 kW of single-path power to a single-rack enclosure. APC offers three new PDU models: basic, which provides power distribution to the rack; metered, for users looking to obtain aggregate load information as well as power distribution at the rack level; and switched, which offers remotely controlled individual outlets in addition to the basic and metered functions.

Finally, APC released InfraStruXure with Integrated Fuel Cells, a long-hyped technology that offers hours of extended run-time for IT applications with high-availability requirements. IT project managers can stack up to three 10-kW modules per rack to create a scalable solution that stores and supplies energy to the system via bottled hydrogen. Small to midsize data centers are the most likely early adopters, although, at this point, fuel-cell technology is suitable only for a select few that may have limitations due to building codes, emission requirements or physical constraints.

Additional Offerings

Other UPS developers have also released new products in recent months. In May, French firm MGE UPS Systems, with offices in Costa Mesa, Calif., launched a series of Power over Ethernet (PoE) midspan devices that--when used with an MGE UPS--ensure continuous power to remotely connected IP telephones, wireless LANs, Bluetooth access points, and IP-powered video-surveillance and security systems. PoE is an emerging technology that integrates power and data onto a single CAT 5/5e and 6 cabling infrastructure, thus eliminating the need to install separate electrical wiring and power outlets.

Commonly installed in the wiring closet, MGE's 24-port, 10/100-Mbps midspan unit sits between an Ethernet switch and the connected equipment. It provides up to 15.4 W of 48-volt DC power per port. IP telephones typically consume up to 5 W, and wireless-LAN access points and IP-security cameras consume up to 10 W to 12 W. The unit costs $1,199, or $1,499 for the SNMP version.

MGE also has been shipping its Eclipse-T family of commercial transient-voltage, surge-suppression (TVSS) equipment since the beginning of the year. The series includes six products with single- and three-phase models, offering peak capacities ranging from 100 kA to 500 kA. The products are optimized for automation and control systems; internal protection of commercial facilities that are prone to internal surges and transients caused by heavy inductive load switching; cellular towers or broadcast sites that are subject to lightning strikes; and office equipment that can suffer performance degradation resulting from surge currents and transient voltages generated by nearby equipment. Prices range from $904 to $5,622.

Another recent update to the UPS world comes from Cleveland-based Eaton. The Powerware 3105 and the Powerware 5110 UPSs protect office equipment from common power problems. The Powerware 3105 is designed for SOHO computer and telephone equipment, while the Powerware 5110 provides added protection against typical power problems and for brownout and overvoltage conditions for SMB equipment.

Each device offers short-term mobile power and supports start-on-battery capability, allowing users to unplug the UPS from a utility power, then restart and run it from battery power elsewhere. The devices have eight outlets--four with surge protection and four with surge protection and battery backup--enabling users to plug less critical equipment into surge-protection-only outlets to save battery power.

Both devices have a network transient protector to protect equipment, such as fax machines, modems or electronic telephones, from "back-door" power surges that come from network or phone wiring. The devices also have alarms with remote notification to help users stay informed about power problems and low battery conditions.

The Powerware 3105 supports loads from 350 VA to 700 VA in a form factor that's smaller than a shoebox. The Powerware 5110 is available in several configurations--low-power units (350 VA to 700 VA), and higher-voltage models (1,000 VA to 1,500 VA) that come in a tower design. Prices for the 3105 range from $40 to $97, and from $85 to $288 for the 5110.