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B U Y E R ' S G U I D E

Equipment Racks

January 23, 2003
By Steven Schuchart Jr.

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	In this article
	Introduction
	Power to the Servers
	Rack Checklist

What good is a library if the entrance is on the third floor and there isn't an elevator? Can you use the library's collection if it's been saturated by rain from a leaky roof? The building that houses a library collection is like the racks that house your servers. If you can't access the equipment or if it's stored in an unstable or unsafe environment, your big investment is in danger. Therefore the seemingly small task of selecting server racks warrants serious consideration when you're building or stocking your storage area.

Let's Get Physical

Each environment has unique requirements you'll need to consider when purchasing racks. For manufacturing environments, you might need to ensure the racks can protect servers from potentially harsh conditions--able to fend off dust, humidity and extreme heat, for example. Medical, educational or government institutions might make rack security a priority. Do conditions dictate an opaque surface, or is a metal mesh panel sufficient? Do you need a solid door? If so, you'll have to consider the heat characteristics of the cabinet: Would Plexiglas hold up better and keep things cooler than solid sheet metal?

Racks come in all colors and shapes, but their size is the only feature monitored by industry standards. Use the official standard for height and width as set by the Electronics Industries Alliance, standard EIA-310, as your guide to maximize floor space. You'll find traditional full-enclosure racks, two-post open racks, four-post open racks and wall-mount racks, among others. Choose the racks that will optimize the area you have for storage and provide the most reasonable access to the appliances within. For safety and to avoid future frustration, purchase the right racks for the job--wiring racks for the wiring closet, server racks for servers, and so on. Two-post communications and wiring racks are not meant to hold servers. Can they? Sure. Are they an unsafe and potentially time-wasting hack? You bet.

It may sound trivial, as functionality is paramount, but don't dismiss the importance of appearance. When you bring the CEO of one your customers through your facility to help seal a large deal, racks made of kiln-dried two-by-fours and plywood won't inspire confidence.

And buying all your racks from a single vendor may be your best bet: You can use extra mounting hardware from new racks elsewhere; cabinets will be all the same size; and you can apply the lessons learned from previous rack installations to new ones.

Functional and Secure

Best practices dictate that, in addition to a limited-access data center, rack fronts and backs should be restricted to authorized personnel. If you select a rack with removable side panels, make sure there is a lock or other mechanism to secure those panels. Troublemakers with a mind to kick out cables or power-off servers may be deterred if denied access to the machines. If your IT infrastructure is too small to justify a dedicated server room, a locking equipment rack may suffice.

For added security, you can buy a sensor to monitor the doors, temperature, humidity and voltage conditions in each rack. For the rack that has everything, we like NetBotz RackBotz and WallBotz sensors. We tested the WallBotz a year ago (see "NetBotz WallBotz 400 Is the Next Best Thing to Being There") and found it so efficient for room monitoring that we use one in our NWC Inc. lab (see our NetBotz monitoring system in action at inc.networkcomputing.com).