Today’s data centers service billions of users, supporting countless business applications and zettabytes of file storage and network traffic. It’s no surprise these complex environments create a number of challenges. Some are highly sophisticated; the trends toward virtualization and convergence in data centers are changing everything, including power demands. Others are frustratingly simple; nagging problems like cable management, airflow—and simply keeping machines plugged in—can be a constant headache.

Eaton engineers began to see power distribution units (PDUs) as both a hardware and a software challenge. And to address it, Eaton brought the ePDU G3 to market, a next-generation power distribution platform that offers multiple technologies—Basic, Metered Input, Metered Outlet and Managed—to solve increasingly demanding power distribution needs.

Data centers require an immense amount of power for normal, everyday operations. In fact, in 2014 data centers used 3% of the world’s electricity.* And all that power ultimately travels through plugs and outlets. So Eaton engineers asked, what if the plug itself could be an intelligent device?

The Eaton ePDU G3 Managed models were designed to work with Eaton’s Intelligent Power Management software to give data center operators the ability to monitor and manage energy usage down to the outlet level. This makes it easy to turn outlets on and off, and remotely power cycle IT equipment when devices need to be rebooted—from any location, anywhere—which saves time and effort. Now, when devices locked up, there was no need to drive out and manually reboot.

Both the Eaton ePDU G3 Managed and Metered Outlet configurations feature advanced metering with LCD pixel displays that allow users to measure power consumption to ±1%, all the way down to a single device. This allows data center operators to capture highly accurate power billing information, whether it’s for budgeting, cost projections—or as part of the revenue stream in multi-tenant data center environments.

Now operators can make more informed decisions to optimize the energy consumption of an individual device, and across the data center. What’s more, the intelligence modules can be hot-swapped for service with no loss of power to the ePDU or the connected devices.

*Source

During development, Eaton engineers knew it was critical to sit down with industry leaders like Cisco, VMware and SimpliVity in order to create a power distribution solution that was perfectly suited for each environment. Then they validated their designs every step of the way.

Finding a way to manufacture and customize the ePDU accordingly, and at scale, was an interesting challenge. Many designs were white-boarded, tested and discarded. Ultimately, Eaton’s engineers landed on the idea of an extruded aluminum chassis. This enabled Eaton to create a U-shaped metal case that was an integral part of the ePDU. The chassis is cut on three sides with a computer controlled router, so it can be “mass customized” to any configuration—and meet lead times faster than ever before.

It brings other benefits as well. Using lightweight aluminum reduces shipping costs. It makes installing hundreds of them in a data center a less taxing job. And aluminum helps dissipate heat, allowing the PDU to operate up to 140 degrees Fahrenheit (60 degrees Celsius). In fact, the chassis’ entire low-profile design is optimized for rear- or side-rack mounting to prevent interference with fans, power supplies and cables. The pre-installed mounting buttons make tool-less installation a breeze.

By design, IEC standard power plugs are meant to be easy to disconnect. But, in practice, plugs tend to get unplugged inadvertently. For high-availability, zero-downtime businesses, that’s just not an option. Data center operators typically turn to expensive locking power cords or mechanical cable management solutions to keep cords in place. Eaton engineers asked, what if we could solve the problem at the outlet itself?

After hundreds of hours of design and testing, they found a simple, elegant solution. Eaton’s ePDU G3 uses an IEC outlet grip that has an integrated securing lever to hold plugs in place. Not only does this prevent accidental disconnect, it eliminates the need for bulky cable management bars that reduce airflow and limit service access.

Eaton’s ePDU G3 features color-coded outlet sections to make it easy to identify which circuit breaker feeds which outlets to simplify load balancing. And the ePDU G3 Metered and Managed models allow eight ePDUs to be daisy-chained from one IP address and network port. This results in less cable management—and a reduction of physical infrastructure installation cost by up to 87.5%.