White Papers

Below is a list of the white papers available for download. Click on the title to start the process.

10 Gigabit Ethernet over Fibre Operation: More Range Than You Thought
Although it has been said that 10 Gigabit Ethernet has been clearly defined, and that according to the standard, if the system exceeds either the maximum length or the maximum attenuation, then it won't work. The reality is, the operating range is not as fixed as people believe. This white paper from Corning Cable Systems looks at trying to clear up some of the myths about 10 Gigabit Ethernet Operation.
Owner: Corning Cable Systems
doc type: PDF | size: 162 KB

Cabinet Power Distribution Units: Features and Benefits of Implementing Server Technology's Cabinet Power Distribution Units in Your Data Centre
With the high cost of data center floor space and current advances in technology, new installations with denser cabinets that require more power and cooling continues to be the trend. This paper investigates the features and benefits of implementing Server Technology's Cabinet Power Distribution Units within your data centre.
Owner: Server Technology, Inc
doc type: PDF | size: 456 KB

Best Practices For Windows Server Consolidation: A Comprehensive Guide
Server consolidation promises great benefits, but can entail serious pitfalls as well. About 60% of IT shops are now consolidating, and nearly half of those projects will fail to meet their full expectations, according to Gartner. But with good planning, it is possible to deliver on the expected results. File server consolidation through virtualisation is fast becoming a critical initiative in large enterprise organisations around the world. With consolidation, users can improve resource utilisation, simplify infrastructure management and reduce capital and operating cost, all while increasing an organisation’s ROI. This article by Jon Toor, VP of marketing at ONStor, offers a framework to structure a consolidation project as well as some tips to help organisations plan, execute and succeed, on time and on budget.
Owner: ONStor
doc type: PDF | size: 1.58 MB

Optimising Data Protection in Linux Environments
The need to balance business continuity with cost has created a new set of storage best practices that blend backup and recovery with leading-edge data replication to accommodate varying information availability requirements. Conventional data protection methodologies are simply insufficient as traditional backup and recovery technologies can be unreliable, slow and require an inordinate amount of administration. By adding replication to data-intensive Linux environments, however, enterprises of all sizes can refine and improve the efficiency, simplicity and effectiveness of their data protection strategies while strengthening business operations substantially.
Owner: BakBone Software
doc type: PDF | size: 73 KB

Securing IT Data Centres - The Choices Available
Whether a small business or a major enterprise - the demands placed on IT performance are incessantly growing. Highly complex applications, ever-faster processors, round-the-clock information and communication call for more than just an intact physical infrastructure. This gives rise to a number of elementary questions which are discussed in this white paper as well as how to safegaurd the availability of your IT systems.
Owner: Lampertz GmbH & Co. KG
doc type: PDF | size: 110 KB

Blade Server Power Solutions - Cabinet Level Power Distribution Solutions for High Density Cabinets
With the high cost of data center floor space and current advances in technology, new installations with denser cabinets that require more power and cooling continues to be the trend. Besides the challenges that new installations present, equipment cabinet upgrades can also be a problem as the existing power and cooling currently provided may not support the new cabinet configuration. The focus of this paper is to investigate blade server power trends at the cabinet level and offer power solutions depending on your application. This will make the critical infrastructure choice of providing power at the cabinet level easier to understand and manage.
Owner: Server Technology, Inc.
doc type: PDF | size: 215 KB

High Performance QFS With Solid State Disk Metadata Storage
Find out how RAM based Solid State Disk from Texas Memory Systems helped improved the San Diego Supercomputer Centre file system performance up to 4000% in this white paper.
Owner: Texas Memory Systems
doc type: External Link | size: N/A

Two White Papers: Matrix Computing and Matrix Server Architecture
Both white papers are available from the PolyServe website.
Owner: PolyServe
doc type: External Link | size: N/A

Infrastructure Consolidation in the Windows Data Centre
This white paper is available from the PolyServe website. Please click here to request your copy of this white paper.
Owner: PolyServe
doc type: External Link | size: N/A

Physical Security in Mission Critical Facilities
Physical security — controlling personnel access to facilities — is critical to achieving data center availability goals. As new technologies such as biometric identification and remote management of security data become more widely available, traditional card-and-guard security is being supplanted by security systems that can provide positive identification and tracking of human activity in and around the data center. Before investing in equipment, IT managers must carefully evaluate their specific security needs and determine the most appropriate and cost-effective security measures for their facility. This paper presents an overview of the principles of personnel identification and describes the basic elements and procedures used in security systems.
Owner: APC
doc type: External Link | size: 337 KB

Strategies for Deploying Blade Servers in Existing Data Centers
Blade servers operate at power densities that exceed the power and cooling capacities of virtually all data centers. Installing blade servers in an existing data center creates a bewildering set of challenges and options. This paper explains how to evaluate the options and select the best power and cooling approach for a successful and predictable blade deployment.
Owner: APC
doc type: External Link | size: 346 KB

Standardization and Modularity in Network-Critical Physical Infrastructure
Failure to adopt modular standardization as a design strategy for Network-Critical Physical Infrastructure (NCPI) is costly on all fronts: unnecessary expense, avoidable downtime, and lost business opportunity. Standardization and its close relative, modularity, create wide-ranging benefits in NCPI that streamline and simplify every process from initial planning to daily operation, with significant positive effects on all three major components of NCPI business value – availability, agility, and total cost of ownership.
Owner: APC
doc type: External Link | size: 551 KB

Guidelines for Specification of Data Center Power Density
Conventional methods for specifying data center density are ambiguous and misleading. Describing data center density using Watts / ft2 or Watts / m2 is not sufficient to determine power or cooling compatibility with high density computing loads like blade servers. Historically there is no clear standard way of specifying data centers to achieve predictable behavior with high density loads. An appropriate specification for data center density should assure compatibility with anticipated high density loads, provide unambiguous instruction for design and installation of power and cooling equipment, prevent oversizing, and maximize electrical efficiency. This paper describes the science and practical application of an improved method for the specification of power and cooling infrastructure for data centers.
Owner: APC
doc type: PDF | size: 341 KB