Ken's Korner

"It's not just a promise, it's a commitment" Abraham Lincoln once said: "COMMITMENT is what transforms a promise into reality. It is the words that speak boldly of your intentions. And the actions which speak louder than the words. It is making the time when there is none. Coming through time after time after time, year after year after year...

A recent article in Clean Technica Renewables Could Generate 48% of ICT (Information and Communication Technology) Industry's Power Supply by 2020, shares some interesting statistics compiled by the EPA's Green Power Partners program. Based on the reports small sample size, the percentage of renewable energy used to power tech and telecom (data centers) is over 30%. That's a pretty big...

"Not every server is mission-critical. Not every data center needs to be, either." I saw that quote in a recent article about how some data centers are looking to offer options on power redundancy to clients who can get by with something less than five-nines. Branch Circuit Power Distribution Cables are a Critical Component of Successful Load Delivery For data...

As recently reported in the Washington Post, the Main-Syracuse Longitudinal Study (MSLS) found that people who eat chocolate at least once a week tend to perform better cognitively. Prior studies have shown that nutrients called cocoa flavanols, found in cocoa and chocolate, have a positive effect on people's brains. Cocoa flavanols increase blood flow to the brain which in turn...

Following up on the emailing about the importance of using proper electrical device torque settings, a customer shared his experiences dealing with improperly torqued connections. We recently installed three new 480V electrical panels with Square D breakers to feed HVAC units for our raised floor. When load tested with our generators the following month, one of the breakers popped. Little...

Electrical device manufacturers recommended torque settings that range from 12 to 90 inch pounds depending on the device type, when terminating conductors. Device torque settings can vary dramatically between manufacturers for the same device. As an example, for a CS8369 device one manufacturer recommends 25 to 30 pounds, while another recommends 45 to 54 pounds. That's a very broad range...

More and more businesses, large and small, are beginning to reach a point where their data needs have outstripped their in-house computing capabilities. Instead of spending the capital or devoting resources to upgrade their infrastructure, they are seriously considering contracting with a retail data center to host their data. Your concerns when outsourcing data hosting are the same as when...

First off free cooling isn't free it would better described as reduced cooling. My data centers were located in Minnesota so we were able to take advantage of the outside temperatures for a good part of the year. Two of our sites utilized CRAC units with compressors to cool raised floor space. We set our wet cooling towers to make...

One of our AirGuard customers pointed out that a company he'd never heard of was advertising their version of a data center cable floor seal. I visited their website, and found them promoting rubberized vinyl foam that resembled a rough textured anti-fatigue mat that is glued over cable openings. You have to cut holes or slits in the rubber with...

As we approach the new year one tradition I'd be happy to do away with is...FUTURE PREDICTIONS. When you consider that we can barely predict the weather a day or two out, how can we predict what new technologies will take hold in a dynamic industry. People are bad at making predictions and that includes experts. Humans tend to overestimate...