Dual Corded Servers
Why use Dual Corded Servers?
Let's face it - a facilities greatest challenge is to keep servers up and running 7x24, even during maintenance on the critical power paths that feeds the equipment. Even if you are one of the lucky sites that allow you to shut down all the servers on an annual basis you are still faced with the possibility of failed power supplies in the IT equipment, or tripped circuit breakers, which can and cause an outage.
The solution…Dual corded equipment.
The great advantage of using dual corded equipment is it will allow continuous uptime to your servers in the event of a power supply failure, or tripped circuit breaker, as well as giving facilities the necessary window of time to do proper maintenance as stated by a known source - such as NETA or NFPA - without having to shut down the servers.
The important thing to remember is to make sure that the sum of the two power paths does not exceed the capacity of either one of the single feeds, including the PDU / RPP, in the event they should fail and that you are indeed utilizing both power paths. As a facilities manager, I found using different colored liquid tight feeds, with good labeling on each path, makes this much more user friendly for facilities and their IT customer.
A good way to organize your dual critical power feeds and to ensure you are indeed utilizing both power feeds is to use color coded labels to mark your PDU / RPP's and use a matching color of liquid tight for each power feed coming from the specific source to the servers for easy identification of which feed each cable coming off of. The obvious extra cost to run dual paths to all your servers is always a consideration, especially with the economy as is today, but you have to ask -what does it cost you if your site goes down.
If it is continuous uptime you are trying to achieve along with good maintenance program - dual corded equipment is the best way to go.
Ken Koty