The Raritan Blog

Power Tip #5: Identify Failing Power Supplies

Jessica Ciesla
October 5, 2020

Power supply failures are a leading cause of server failure. Additionally, most power supplies don't fail overnight but degrade over time. One key indicator of a degrading power supply is a declining power factor (PF). The PX3-5000 PDU series meters at each outlet. This metering monitors the power factor of each server. Most modern power supplies are rated for 85% (0.85 PF) or higher efficiency. Thus, setting a lower warning threshold for every outlet in use for a PF of 0.75 and a lower critical threshold for a PF of 0.65 can provide you with a preemptive alert to an impending power supply failure.

This alert can allow you valuable time to investigate and, if necessary, proactively turn the power supply off in a controlled scenario before an unexpected server outage occurs. This early alert can potentially help you to prevent a larger scale outage at the rack. Lastly, a degrading power supply over time consumes more power than average and can deprive power from other servers.

Power Tip #4: Create Additional Logins for All New Remote/Home Users

Jessica Ciesla
September 3, 2020

With more staff working from home, it is the best protocol to provide them with their own user accounts instead of sharing the default admin account. Having individual user accounts makes all actions traceable.

Power Tip #3: How to Safely Trigger and Test the Alerting System

Jessica Ciesla
August 31, 2020

While onsite staff might be unavailable to observe any on-premise issues, it is even more important to be assured that the alerting system you've set up works as intended. You can safely test the alerting setup without causing a real event.

We suggest you try this on just one PDU at first before all PDUs installed so you don't get flooded with alerts.

Setting up the test - lower the default thresholds for Inlet Voltage.

Blazing Virtual Media Speed for the Dominion KX IV - 101

Jessica Ciesla
August 12, 2020

When we talk about the Dominion KX IV -101 as Raritan’s fastest KVM-over-IP switch, we are usually focused on its ability to support 4K video or 1080p video at 60 frames per second. But video isn’t the only area where the KX IV-101 shines!  Due to its all-digital architecture and its direct USB connection to the target computer, the KX IV-101 supports virtual media much faster than our current generation Dominion KX III switches.  

Power Tip #2: Avoid Overloading Phases Within a PDU

Jessica Ciesla
July 23, 2020

While three-phase PDUs provide higher power capacities, they do require planning before server deployment. An unbalanced power draw on one or two of the three phases of the PDU creates stranded capacity which increases wasted electricity. Additionally, this scenario can lead to a cascading failure condition upstream. PX3 PDUs actively monitor balancing between phases and if configured correctly can alert you or your team when phases are unbalanced beyond a certain threshold. As a best practice it is important to have all three phases as balanced as possible to minimize unanticipated disruptions and wasted electricity.

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