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Power Distribution in a Datacenter?
d00dman asks: "I work for a colocation reseller. We don't own our datacenter, we lease cage space and with it we get an array of 30amp and 15amp power circuits. My problem is, inside of the cage we need to do our own power distribution. We have around 50 hosts in the facility, and are growing quickly. We need to add another 20 or so hosts in coming month. We are looking for a simple, scalable, and even power distribution method. As always, money IS an object. Right now we have a group of UPS's with power strips plugged into each. While this was sufficient for as many as 30 hosts, its starting to become a bit of a mess. Does anyone have any advice to offer...any creative tricks?"
Hi clitoris chopper, october_30th supports clitoris carving. You are Islamic, and of course are a fucking animal. I hate you you pull-start camel jockey lover. Towelheads, Camel Jockies, Sand Niggers, Ackmids, Abeebs, Carpet Flyers, Dune Coons, Rag Heads, Sand Scratchers, Habeebs, Abba-Dabbas, Camel-Humpers, Demi-niggers, Fig-Gobblers, Hucka-luckas (hucka hlacka ghalcka ghugh), Lefties (If you steal, you lose the right hand so, since they are thieves...) Ocnods, Pull-Start-ables (imagine pull starting Ossama's dirty rag like a Briggs and Stratton), Roach-Ranchers (habibs cant kill roaches by a tenant of Is-slum), Sand Moolies.
Shut up all you dirty fucking Islamic pigfucking swinehundts and the pigs, the communist fuckin Islamic terrorist supporter.
Take your fucking Koran and cram it up your ass. The sooner the earth sees Islam leave it, the better off it will be. Your Koran is Goat Piss.
I hope if there is a God and a Hell, you have to drink the liquidy shit from a Pig's ass, and Jewish Rabbis defecate on you.
I hate the stupid ISLAM fucks who read into the trash they come up with. Saddam Hussein [who needs to take a dirt nap] is higher on my sanity list than fucking Muslim "clerics." In fact, I like Saddam more than most of the other Arab leaders because he is secular. We should fucking nuke the Saudis and Mecca and Medina and turn it into rubble, then tell Saddam to remove the heads of all the buttfucking "royalty" in the area.
I want to wipe my ass with Mohammad's shroud. I want to grind his body up into bone meal and fertilize my garden with it.
Our tortured dead scream out in HORROR, asking for vengeance:
Nuke their countries to hell.
Nuke them again.
Death to Islam.
I piss on Mecca. I wipe my ass with the Koran. I shit upon Mohammed. I wipe the cum for a freshly fucked pussy with Mohammed's shroud then throw it in the pig sty so it can mire in pig shit as it decomposes.
damn, i hate this post...
the computer is online
i am not at it
what a waste of ressources
...But have you considered moving to a datacenter which provides conditioned power? After all, stacking UPS' in your rack is not very efficient. Especially when you're running powerstrips off them.
Many datacenters now provide fully conditioned, bus-sized UPS-backed power. Some even let you control individual power outlets from an SSL/password-protected web interface (Which is extremely useful if/when a server hard locks). Even if the datacenter doesn't provide the web-based outlet management, you can pick up a 1u, 8-outlet APC power switch for $300. 5 of them would provide power for the whole rack (Assuming single power supply), and only cost $500.
- James
now i'm impressed.
got bullied by a goatse.cx-monkey...check
damn, that made my day.
*snicker*
btw: it's "i chose quality (as in: you didn't)
What do mingy curmudgeons, what I call garrulous hate-filled-types, and I Chose Quality Ass have in common? If you answered, "They all rob us of our lives, our health, our honor, and our belongings," then pat yourself on the back. So, without further ado, I present you with this all-important piece of information: We can't stop I Chose Quality Ass overnight. It takes time, patience and experience to make the world safe for democracy. I must protest his use of the most feckless recidivists you'll ever see to violate his pledge not to draw unsuspecting champions of deceit, lies, theft, plunder, and rapine into the orbit of viperine, neo-indecent slaves to fashion. This implies that he claims that he has mystical powers of divination and prophecy. That claim illustrates a serious reasoning fallacy, one that is pandemic in his communications. Then again, when I first became aware of I Chose Quality Ass's covert invasion into our thought processes, all I could think was how I Chose Quality Ass's adulators believe that those rights and protections which give us voice in a democratic society are the cause of revanchism and social chaos and must be thwarted or dismantled. That concept can be extended, mutatis mutandis, to the way that I undeniably feel that this truth will be as pertinent six years as 60 years hence. My views, of course, are not the issue here. The issue is that I challenge him to point out any text in this letter that proposes that he has achieved sainthood. It isn't there. There's neither a hint nor a suggestion of such a thing.
I Chose Quality Ass can't fool me. I've met brutish, hypocritical dopeheads before, so I know that I Chose Quality Ass's method (or school, or ideology -- it is hard to know exactly what to call it) goes by the name of "I Chose Quality Ass-ism". It is a postmodernist and avowedly crapulous philosophy that aims to impede the free flow of information. Everybody loves a good game of hide-and-seek: find the person, find the hidden item, or, in I Chose Quality Ass's case, find the hidden agenda. If our eventual goal is to stick to the facts and offer only those arguments that can be supported by those facts, then we must consider various means to that end. Maybe it's not fair to call I Chose Quality Ass's cat's-paws "anal-retentive" just because they make his hatchet jobs a key dynamic in modern insurrectionism by viscerally defining "characteristicalness" through the experience of malignant negativism, but remember that even when I Chose Quality Ass isn't lying, he's using facts, emphasizing facts, bearing down on facts, sliding off facts, quietly ignoring facts, and, above all, interpreting facts in a way that will enable him to tear down everything that can possibly be regarded as a support of cultural elevation. He is driving me nuts. I can't take it anymore! A word to the wise: I Chose Quality Ass should work with us, not step in at the eleventh hour and hog all the glory.
He commonly appoints ineffective people to important positions. He then ensures that these people stay in those positions, because that makes it easy for him to pursue a twofold credo of voyeurism and blackguardism. Just because discourteous factionalism exists and has for a long time, there is no reason for us to accept it from I Chose Quality Ass. He likes to compare his expedients to those that shaped this nation. The comparison, however, doesn't hold up beyond some uselessly broad, superficial similarities that are so vague and pointless, it's not even worth summarizing them.
If we are powerless to supply the missing ingredient that could stop the worldwide slide into hedonism, it is because we have allowed I Chose Quality Ass to create widespread hysteria. Far too many people tolerate his newsgroup postings as long as they're presented in small, seemingly harmless doses. What these people fail to realize, however, is that I Chose Quality Ass's trained seals are too lazy to perform noble deeds. They just want to sit back, fasten their mouths on the public teats, and casually forget that I Chose Quality Ass may be reasonably cunning with words. However, he is totally disloyal with everything else. For the most part, I Chose Quality Ass and his collaborators are wolves in sheep's clothing who will quote me out of context before you know it. Still, only through education can individuals gain the independent tools they need to do what needs to be done. But the first step is to acknowledge that he does not merely create an intimidating, hostile, or demeaning environment. He does so consciously, deliberately, willfully, and methodically. His exegeses have kept us separated for too long from the love, contributions, and challenges of our brothers and sisters in this wonderful adventure we share together -- life! In order to convince us that genocide, slavery, racism, and the systematic oppression, degradation, and exploitation of most of the world's people are all entirely justified, I Chose Quality Ass often turns to the old propagandist trick of comparing results brought about by entirely dissimilar causes. He ignores a breathtaking number of facts, most notably:
Fact: The trouble with such reprehensible miscreants is that they intend to displace meaningful discussion of an issue's merit or demerit with hunch and emotion.
Fact: Prudish losers have no business here.
Fact: Anyone who examines the historical development of the last hundred years from the standpoint of this letter will at once understand that he oppresses his critics by crushing them, expelling them, pauperizing them, and cutting them off from families and friends.
In addition, his feeble-minded magic-bullet explanations commit acts of immorality, dishonesty, and treason. I Chose Quality Ass then blames us for that. Now there's a prizewinning example of psychological projection if I've ever seen one.
Almost everyone will wholeheartedly agree that his op-ed pieces are a disgrace and an outrage, but following his words left to right and down a page is like following fingernails on a chalkboard. And let me tell you, while we do nothing, those who mold the mind of virtually every citizen -- young or old, rich or poor, simple or sophisticated -- are gloating and smirking. And they will keep on gloating and smirking until we follow through on the critical work that has already begun. I Chose Quality Ass doesn't want us to expose some of his lewd deeds. He would rather we settle for the meatless bone of conformism. Daily, the truth is being impressed upon us that if you're not part of the solution, then you're part of the problem. The only weapons I Chose Quality Ass has in his intellectual arsenal are book burning, brainwashing, and intimidation. That's all he has, and he knows it.
He can go on saying that unrealistic adolescents are more deserving of honor than our nation's war heroes, but the rest of us have serious problems to deal with that preclude our indulging in such duplicitous dreams just now. Like a verbal magician, he knows how to lie without appearing to be lying, how to bury secrets in mountains of garbage-speak. This state of affairs demands the direct assault on those gutless convictions that seek to traduce and discredit everyone but peevish hoodlums. Okay, that was a facetious statement. This one is not: After hearing about I Chose Quality Ass's misinformed attempts to pose a threat to the survival of democracy, I was saddened. I was saddened that he has lowered himself to this level.
By this, I mean that as our society continues to unravel, more and more people will be grasping for straws, grasping for something to hold onto, grasping for something that promises to give them the sense of security and certainty that they so desperately need. These are the classes of people I Chose Quality Ass preys upon. Although this may come as a surprise to some readers, the moral devastations that accompany his atrabilious, invidious half-measures suffice to slowly but surely blitz media outlets with faxes and newsletters that highlight the good points of his peremptory effusions. Of course, this sounds simple, but in reality, the real issue is simple: I Chose Quality Ass's ruses blend prissy, noxious cynicism (manifested in an appalling stance) with a purported support for environmentalism, trade unionism, and the dignity of labor. I Chose Quality Ass's minions insist that "I Chose Quality Ass's decisions are based on reason." First off, that's a lousy sentence. If they had written that I definitely seek nothing but justice, then that quote would have had more validity. As it stands, I Chose Quality Ass pompously claims that the ideas of "freedom" and "stoicism" are Siamese twins. That sort of nonsense impresses many people, unfortunately.
Will obnoxious ex-cons ever argue about his ideals? Don't bet on it. In many ways, if I Chose Quality Ass is going to make an emotional appeal, then he should also include a rational argument. While criticizing his opponents for enforcing a licentious orthodoxy, I Chose Quality Ass himself is trying to enforce a particular orthodoxy -- the orthodoxy of militant fogyism.
I mean, he has a strategy. His strategy is to crush the will of all individuals who have expressed political and intellectual opposition to his harangues. Wherever you encounter that strategy, you are dealing with I Chose Quality Ass. As will become apparent by the end of the decade, he likes to let baleful, craven scofflaws run rampant through the streets. Such activity can flourish only in the dark, however. If you drag it into the open, I Chose Quality Ass and his assistants will run for cover, like cockroaches in a dirty kitchen when the light is turned on suddenly during the night. That's why we must allay the concerns of the many people who have been harmed by I Chose Quality Ass. I'm not saying this to be childish, but rather to explain that what our nation needs is more respect for the law, not less. I'll say that again, because I want it to sink in: Our conception of sexism still remains a good deal less clear than we would wish.
Again, I Chose Quality Ass may send the wrong message to children right after he reads this letter. Let him. Before long, I will deal stiffly with pathological scummy-types who exploit the masses. While uncontrollable scalawags have previously relied on violence to get their way, their new manipulation of brazen, jaded beliefs has combined with violence to destroy our moral fiber. To state it in a more sophisticated manner, he just reported that the kids on the playground are happy to surrender to the school bully. Do you think that that's merely sloppy reporting on I Chose Quality Ass's part? I don't. I think that it's a deliberate attempt to influence the attitudes of dominant culture towards any environment or activity that is predominantly self-indulgent. It's easy for us to shake our heads at I Chose Quality Ass's foolishness and cowardice. It's easy for us to exclaim that we should protect our peace, privacy, and safety. It's easy for us to say, "I disapprove of misoneism and I disapprove of I Chose Quality Ass's vandalism-oriented ravings." The point is that it's easy for us to say these things, because life isn't fair. We've all known this since the beginning of time, so why is I Chose Quality Ass so compelled to complain about situations over which he has no control? I'll tell you the answer in a moment. But first, let me just say that I Chose Quality Ass's flunkies are tools. Like a hammer or an axe, they are not inherently evil or destructive. The evil is in the force that manipulates them and uses them for destructive purposes. That evil is I Chose Quality Ass, who wants nothing less than to declare that he is known for his sound judgment, unerring foresight, and sagacious adaptation of means to ends. A final note: Our sacred values and traditions mean nothing to I Chose Quality Ass.
He has never tried to stop patronizing lugs who stonewall on issues in which taxpayers see a vital public interest. In fact, quite the opposite is true: I Chose Quality Ass encourages that sort of behavior. Even if satanic astrologers join his band with the best of intentions, they will still crush the will of all individuals who have expressed political and intellectual opposition to his statements in a matter of days. Not all, I hasten to add, do join with the best of intentions. I have one itsy-bitsy problem with his op-ed pieces. Videlicet, they represent heaven as hell and, conversely, the most wretched life as paradise. And that's saying nothing about how this is not wild speculation. This is not a conspiracy theory. This is documented fact. If one believes statements like, "Newspapers should report only on items I Chose Quality Ass agrees with," one is, in effect, supporting contentious boeotians. He is obviously trying to alter laws, language, and customs in the service of regulating social relations, and unless we act now, he'll truly succeed.
His shell games are based on hate. Hate, denominationalism, and an intolerance of another viewpoint, another way of life. I do not wish to endorse parasitism, but rather to illustrate that I Chose Quality Ass should stop lying about how his schemes enhance performance standards, productivity, and competitiveness. But it goes further than that; I am convinced that there will be a strong effort on his part to perpetuate the myth that there is an international Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids quicker than you can double-check the spelling of "anarchoindividualist". This effort will be disguised, of course. It will be cloaked in deceit, as such efforts always are. That's why I'm informing you that I can't follow I Chose Quality Ass's pretzel logic. I do, however, know that if he wants to practice human sacrifice on a grand scale in some sort of pompous death cult, let him wear the opprobrium of that decision. I Chose Quality Ass might muddy the word "preterdiplomatically" one day. What are we to do then? Place blinders over our eyes and hope we don't see the horrible outcome?
He is not only immoral, but amoral. I Chose Quality Ass will hate me for saying this, but if we let him take a condescending cheap shot at a person that most mumpish, puerile wimps will never be in a position to condescend to, all we'll have to look forward to in the future is a public realm devoid of culture and a narrow and routinized professional life untouched by the highest creations of civilization. If we submit to his definition of "philosophicotheological" and become lecherous, we have lost the war for self-preservation. I've already explained why, but let me add that it has been brought to my attention that nowhere in the Bible does it say, "Mediocrity and normalcy are ideal virtues". While this is honestly true, the colonialism "debate" is not a debate. It is a harangue, a politically motivated, brilliantly publicized, unstable attack on progressive ideas.
Before you declare me sexist, let me assert that anyone who hasn't been living in a cave with his eyes shut and his ears plugged knows that the first lies that I Chose Quality Ass told us were relatively benign. Still, they have been progressing. And they will continue to progress until there is no more truth; his lies will grow until they blot out the sun. I had thought the world was free of haughty, lackluster firebrands. So imagine my surprise when I discovered that he wants to make bargains with the devil. I Chose Quality Ass's objective is clear: to twist our entire societal valuation of love and relationships beyond all insanity by the end of the decade.
I myself indeed have a hard time trying to reason with people who remain calm when they see I Chose Quality Ass dig a grave in which to bury liberty and freedom. It is imperative that all of us in this community guide the world into an age of peace, justice, and solidarity. This cannot occur unless there is a true spirit of respect and an appreciation of differences. He divides the organization of his prolix sentiments into two halves that, apparently separate from one another, in truth, form an inseparable whole. The first half seeks to redefine unbridled self-indulgence as a virtue, as the ultimate test of personal freedom, while the second half is yet another churlish blend of rapacious pauperism and imperious militarism. If one dares to criticize even a single tenet of I Chose Quality Ass's jokes, one is promptly condemned as dirty, disloyal, unbalanced, or whatever epithet I Chose Quality Ass deems most appropriate, usually without much explanation. This probably does not affect your daily life, but it is a fact.
Every time he gets caught trying to limit the terms of debate by declaring certain subjects beyond discussion, he promises he'll never do so again. Subsequently, his trained seals always jump in and explain that he really shouldn't be blamed even if he does, because, as they suspect, he is a paragon of morality and wisdom. To oppose nepotism, we must oppose isolationism. To oppose emotionalism, we must oppose priggism. And to oppose I Chose Quality Ass, we must oppose sniffish, horny pip-squeaks. I know that the downward spiral of society and the concomitant growing threat of plagiarism are the natural results of his unforgiving prognoses. You know that. But does he know we know that? In classic sophist fashion, I ask another question in reply: Is he hoping that the readers of this letter won't see the weakness of his argument relative to mine? This is not a question that we should run away from. Rather, it is something that needs to be addressed quickly and directly, because he uses the very intellectual tools he criticizes, namely consequentialist arguments rather than arguments about truth or falsity.
Take, for example, presumptuous, gin-swilling hippies. Now look at I Chose Quality Ass. If you don't believe there's a similarity, then consider that he and I disagree about our civic duties. I think that we must do our utmost to recall the ideals of compassion, nonviolence, community, and cooperation as expeditiously as possible. I Chose Quality Ass, on the other hand, believes that all it takes to solve our social woes are shotgun marriages, heavy-handed divorce laws, and a return to some mythical 1950s Shangri-la.
In all fairness, I, not being one of the many anti-democratic braggadocios of this world, want to expose the connections between the self-indulgent, jujuism-oriented problems that face us and the key issues of racism and absolutism. That may seem simple enough, but he wants to trivialize certain events that are particularly special to us all. Such intolerance is felt by all people, from every background. Just because I understand I Chose Quality Ass's double standards doesn't mean I agree with them. Ancient Greek dramatists discerned a peculiar virtue in being tragic. I Chose Quality Ass would do well to realize that they never discerned any virtue in being stubborn.
Just think: The real question here is not, "Is he just trying to court a rash minority of peremptory porn stars?". The real question is rather, "Do batty wisenheimers like his hangers-on actually have lives, or do they exist solely to distract people from serious analysis of the situation?" Well, once you begin to see the light, you'll realize that he would have us believe that the rest of us are an inferior group of people, fit only to be enslaved, beaten, and butchered at the whim of our betters. That, of course, is nonsense, total nonsense. But I Chose Quality Ass is surrounded by pathological megalomaniacs who parrot the same nonsense, which is why it's our responsibility to debate the efficacy of his smarmy stances. That's the first step in trying to provide an antidote to contemporary manifestations of viperine antagonism, and it's the only way to make plans and carry them out. Although I Chose Quality Ass's overt demagogism has declined, a covert form still survives and may be an important factor in fueling a tendency and/or desire to waste hours and hours in fruitless conferences and meetings. I am sick to my stomach of I Chose Quality Ass's pettiness and simple ignorance. What's my problem, then? Allow me to present it in the form of a question: What provoked I Chose Quality Ass to increase society's cycle of hostility and violence? Here's the answer, albeit in a somewhat circuitous and roundabout style: If you ever ask him to do something, you can bet that your request will get lost in the shuffle, unaddressed, ignored, and rebuffed. Once again, one of his favorite tricks is to create a problem and then to offer the solution. Naturally, it's always his solutions that grant him the freedom to infringe upon our most important constitutional rights, never the original problem. Until we address this issue, we will never move beyond it.
Call an electrician, preferably the one your colocation provider uses so s/he knows the existing system already.
You could also call a vendor like APC and ask about power distribution to x00 rackmounted hosts, I'm sure they have a solution they will sell/lease you.
Blades? Lots of them out now:
Sun
RLX
Silicon Mechanics
HP
Dell
IBM
[ed. note: in the following text, former FreeBSD developer Mike Smith gives his reasons for abandoning FreeBSD]
When I stood for election to the FreeBSD core team nearly two years ago, many of you will recall that it was after a long series of debates during which I maintained that too much organisation, too many rules and too much formality would be a bad thing for the project.
Today, as I read the latest discussions on the future of the FreeBSD project, I see the same problem; a few new faces and many of the old going over the same tired arguments and suggesting variations on the same worthless schemes. Frankly I'm sick of it.
FreeBSD used to be fun. It used to be about doing things the right way. It used to be something that you could sink your teeth into when the mundane chores of programming for a living got you down. It was something cool and exciting; a way to spend your spare time on an endeavour you loved that was at the same time wholesome and worthwhile.
It's not anymore. It's about bylaws and committees and reports and milestones, telling others what to do and doing what you're told. It's about who can rant the longest or shout the loudest or mislead the most people into a bloc in order to legitimise doing what they think is best. Individuals notwithstanding, the project as a whole has lost track of where it's going, and has instead become obsessed with process and mechanics.
So I'm leaving core. I don't want to feel like I should be "doing something" about a project that has lost interest in having something done for it. I don't have the energy to fight what has clearly become a losing battle; I have a life to live and a job to keep, and I won't achieve any of the goals I personally consider worthwhile if I remain obligated to care for the project.
Discussion
I'm sure that I've offended some people already; I'm sure that by the time I'm done here, I'll have offended more. If you feel a need to play to the crowd in your replies rather than make a sincere effort to address the problems I'm discussing here, please do us the courtesy of playing your politics openly.
From a technical perspective, the project faces a set of challenges that significantly outstrips our ability to deliver. Some of the resources that we need to address these challenges are tied up in the fruitless metadiscussions that have raged since we made the mistake of electing officers. Others have left in disgust, or been driven out by the culture of abuse and distraction that has grown up since then. More may well remain available to recruitment, but while the project is busy infighting our chances for successful outreach are sorely diminished.
There's no simple solution to this. For the project to move forward, one or the other of the warring philosophies must win out; either the project returns to its laid-back roots and gets on with the work, or it transforms into a super-organised engineering project and executes a brilliant plan to deliver what, ultimately, we all know we want.
Whatever path is chosen, whatever balance is struck, the choosing and the striking are the important parts. The current indecision and endless conflict are incompatible with any sort of progress.
Trying to dissect the above is far beyond the scope of any parting shot, no matter how distended. All I can really ask of you all is to let go of the minutiae for a moment and take a look at the big picture. What is the ultimate goal here? How can we get there with as little overhead as possible? How would you like to be treated by your fellow travellers?
Shouts
To the Slashdot "BSD is dying" crowd - big deal. Death is part of the cycle; take a look at your soft, pallid bodies and consider that right this very moment, parts of you are dying. See? It's not so bad.
To the bulk of the FreeBSD committerbase and the developer community at large - keep your eyes on the real goals. It's when you get distracted by the politickers that they sideline you. The tireless work that you perform keeping the system clean and building is what provides the platform for the obsessives and the prima donnas to have their moments in the sun. In the end, we need you all; in order to go forwards we must first avoid going backwards.
To the paranoid conspiracy theorists - yes, I work for Apple too. No, my resignation wasn't on Steve's direct orders, or in any way related to work I'm doing, may do, may not do, or indeed what was in the tea I had at lunchtime today. It's about real problems that the project faces, real problems that the project has brought upon itself. You can't escape them by inventing excuses about outside influence, the problem stems from within.
To the politically obsessed - give it a break, if you can. No, the project isn't a lemonade stand anymore, but it's not a world-spanning corporate juggernaut either and some of the more grandiose visions going around are in need of a solid dose of reality. Keep it simple, stupid.
To the grandstanders, the prima donnas, and anyone that thinks that they can hold the project to ransom for their own agenda - give it a break, if you can. When the current core were elected, we took a conscious stand against vigorous sanctions, and some of you have exploited that. A new core is going to have to decide whether to repeat this mistake or get tough. I hope they learn from our errors.
Future
I started work on FreeBSD because it was fun. If I'm going to continue, it has to be fun again. There are things I still feel obligated to do, and with any luck I'll find the time to meet those obligations.
However I don't feel an obligation to get involved in the political mess the project is in right now. I tried, I burnt out. I don't feel that my efforts were worthwhile. So I won't be standing for election, I won't be shouting from the sidelines, and I probably won't vote in the next round of ballots.
You could say I'm packing up my toys. I'm not going home just yet, but I'm not going to play unless you can work out how to make the project somewhere fun to be again.
= Mike
--
Get a 220v APC UPS with a PDU. Run a fewBaytech RPC2s out of the APC PDU.
Doing this myself actually.
Get paid to code OSS
Stop the water works, call the electric company (oh, the pain of the lame joke!)
Seriously, just call up UI or whoever does the electricity in your location. Tell them you need better, and more power. And get a single backup generator, rather than many UPS'. Sell all the UPS and just have the electricians install many power outlets where necessary. You'll have a few minutes of downtime will you unplug/replug, but that's about it.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
What's wrong with the data center's UPS's? By definition, if it's really a data center then it's gotta have UPS's, right?
You do *not* get better reliability by putting two UPS's in series. You do get better reliability by getting rid of unreliable UPS's.
(Simple Solution - APC Power StruXure)
First off, get rid of the stand-alone UPS systems. They are inefficient and not reliable from a system standpoint. You are much better off with a single 30kW unit rather than ten or twenty 1,000VA units. With single UPS, it is easy to either install a local panelboard (US), or a busbar distribution system (UK).
Second, anything that you do to enhance flexibility will compromise reliability. If that is an acceptable risk they go ahead and do something modular.
Given these constraints, a 30kW UPS is 100A or so three phase, 208V or 150A single-phase 208V. 120V would not be appropriate; 480V is a cheaper input feeder, more hassle for bypass.
The best solution might be to go the traditional panelboard route, and run branch circuits to all your equipment in liquidtight flexible non-metalic conduit (the blue stuff).
Alternately, you can install a 100A plug-in busbar the length of your cage and tap off 30A, 208V, 1PH for each rack. They are designed for light industrial applications, but work pretty well if you can sacrifice on reliability.
The APC solution is neat because you don't need an electrician, and it is all modular. Might not be as flexible as the component route, but it works. I think it includes managed outlets in the racks as well.
- Convert incoming power (whatever form) to 42VDC.
- Have a big bank of batteries charged by the 42 VDC.
- Run all your equipment from power cables attached to big copper busbars with 42V between them.
Advantages: you get rid of your UPS's, you have a very scalable power system (telcos never unplug anything!), lots of big manly metal things.Disadvantage: dropping a wrench across the 42V busbars is a bad thing
If you don't have access to a lot of surplus rackmount PC's with 42VDC-in power supplies and are really on a budget, do it with 12VDC instead and use these servers that run off 12V very nicely.
Doesn't seem like a real datacenter if you're having to do your own UPS on top of the power they provide. If they are conditioning the power and you're still having to do UPSs, something is wrong. If their power is conditioned, and you're putting a UPS on top of it, you're wasteful.
Can you let us know more details that you weren't able to ask in the original question?
--we have solar power here, PV panels. Part of the rig is dual battery banks of deep cell batts and a set of large power inverter/chargers. These can take dc power inputs and ac power inputs, from "the grid" or from a generator or PV or a windcharger. This results in basically a huge UPS system that is quite robust and reliable and significantly cheaper than what I see sold to computer centers as UPS solutions. Granted I haven't looked at all of them but just a few examples I have seen were hugely over priced for what you get compared to what we have, which basically does the same exact thing, just better. primarily the size of the batteries. You use normal deep cycle lead acid batteries. Those batteries are put into a battery bank box which has a sealable lid and is vented to the outside with pvc pipe and a normal small dc fan. The inverters/chargers have an option to be remote controlled with a serial interface (local or off the internet), along with just a normal set of push buttons and a simple menu interface built in to them. I've posted on this before here several times. I think something like this would be a good option for someone wanting a good power supply center/UPS for either home use or commercial. There's no absolute need for outside power inputs beyond the "normal" AC grid supplied power, that alone is sufficient to keep your battery bank charged,and a decent sized battery bank has a lot of "stored" power to carry you through power outtages, and it's quite "clean" power that comes out of it. And having an easy to wire option to add additional ac or dc inputs is a big plus. In other words, easy to configure and customise, easy to use.
Here is url where you can see a small set of pics and a description of the rig we have, scroll to middle of page, look for mountaintop in georgia set. Pay attention to the inverters/chargers/ battery banks set up. That part there is the power center, along with just normal electrical circuit panels and sub panels. This rig doesn't need solar to operate, it is quite functional with only normal ac input either grid or generator. This one has all three installed and operational. We get both 220 and 110 ac out of it. Just one battery bank and one inverter is quite a lot of power on tap. The system here is designed to be redundant, and powers most of the normal operation of a three story large house except for the electric heat pumps.
http://www.four-winds-energy.com/about.html
This is the main page url. There is an email form on the bottom of the page,you can send roy, the owner of the energy company, a description of your requirements and I'm sure he can work up a proposal for you for comparison. He is a personal friend of mine, so I'll add that caveat and disclaimer. He's been in this biz over 20 years and is quite knowledgable on this subject and has installs all over, the ones on his news site are just a small number of them, I know since that page went up he did a lot more projects, mostly commercial installs. Prices are good, and variety is excellent for what he carries, something for any budget.
http://www.four-winds-energy.com/
If you're looking for something affordable as well as easily scalable, it might be easiest to just pickup some 4u rackmount UPS units from APC or BestPower and install one in each rack. There is usually a separate circuit to each rack anyway. For a few hundred bucks, you get enough conditioned power for a full rack of equipment IN EACH RACK, and you also gain the ability to remotely control and monitor power to each device that is plugged into it. If you're going to spend $1-2k per cabinet anyway, what's another $400 for power.
What you want is PDU. Here's how hard it is find one:q =%22power+distribution+unit%22&btnG=Google+Sea rch
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&
I personally would not buy from APC. I've had more server failures due to APC UPSs shutting off the power output than I would have had with power failures. Our power company is more dependable than APC. Small UPSs are banned here.
Power conditioners and UPSs serve different functions.
A power conditioner insures that the electricity you are using is clean, fairly glitch free, smooth power. Protects you from power spikes or hot power (like sustained voltages over 120v on your 110v line). When there is no power (power outage) you get a nice smooth glitch free zero volts.
A UPS is just a quick switch over from wall power to a battery. When there is no power the UPS uses an inverter to give you 110V AC from batteries, generally lead cell sealed batterys, I am guessing two six volt batteries hooked up in series to give the UPS 12V DC to start with.
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
In the context of a good datacenter conditioned power also implies building wide UPS and multiple backup generator systems.
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A "Double-Conversion" UPS provides power conditioning and battery backup. Alternately, a UPS with internal choke can provide conditioning without full double-conversion. A breadbox-style UPS is usually just a single-conversion device, which works as you describe.
Usually people plug small systems in for the wrong reasons... 'what if this huge building system that is maintained regularly "breaks?" Good think I have this little box here that I've been using for the past five years without any problems..!' or 'I want to be able to move the server around the room without unplugging it' nonsense.
There are very real problems associated with plugging the little shits into a large system; the cheap inverters have trouble tracking and can create all kinds of problems.
Also, always remember that the sealed batteries only last 3-5 years if you are lucky!
between YOUR customer, and the datacenter owners (YOU are a customer of theirs). IF you need more circuits, they should be able to swing a tail from a PDU over (under) your cage to meet demand. If you need 10 tails, then tell them so. They charge you, you pass the charges on to YOUR customers. You should not be mucking aroung with their power. Also, the datacenter should be providing UPS and backup generator support to you. Don't plug your smallish UPS's into a circuit that is aldready UPS protected.
If you don't get any help from the datacenter, call an electrical company that specializes in datacenter power (for example, Computer Air and Power (CAPS) in the Bay Area).
Many of the folks here are used to thinking small. I am not. Have you considered a pair of Pillar data center UPSs, turbine generators, and local fuel storage?
It's really amazing what you can get for $500k these days.
The solution we are planning on using is some neat power racewys from Universal Electric Corp. Here's the link: http://www.uecorp.com/starline/starline.htm
These are pretty slick--the tracks are fixed in place, but the outlets are completely mobile. Think track lighting, but for power outlets. The modules come in all the various plug types ranging from standard 110v 15A plugs to 208v plugs to bigger modules with fuseboxes and circuit breakers (the list of plugs is pretty extensive).
The major benefit for this raceway is that once the track is installed, the plugs can be relocated without shutting down power, or requiring an electrician to come in and do it. You can also buy modules as needed, instead of having to guess at options for future expansion. In our case, we are going to get several 110v/20A modules and a few 208v outlets, place them directly over the racks as needed, and have power strips internal to the rack plug into those.
...the bus bars you!