Flywheel Maker Pentadyne Gets $22M

In another sign of confidence in the market for flywheel UPS systems, Pentadyne Power Corporation announced this week that has closed $22 million in financing from its existing investors. The funding will be used to support the company’s expansion into new markets. Pentadyne’s flywheels are resold by Emerson Network Power under the Liebert FS brand.

“This latest round of financing comes from our existing investor base – support from the folks who know the most about our company, our products, our talent and our capabilities,” said Mark McGough, President and CEO of Pentadyne. “The commitment of these investors to continue their interests in the company speaks volumes about their confidence in the current and coming success Pentadyne enjoys in the marketplace.”

Major Flywheel Deal for Active Power

In the latest sign of growing interest in flywheels, Active Power, Inc. (ACPW) this week reported its largest single order to date. The company said that “one of the world’s largest Internet search engine providers” had bought 12 of Active Power’s 1200 kVA CleanSource UPS (uninterruptible power supply) systems using 48 flywheels. The systems are scheduled to be delivered in the fourth quarter 2008.

“This particular customer’s order further substantiates the market acceptance of high performance and high efficiency flywheel UPS solutions for large mission critical data center applications,” said Jim Clishem, president and CEO of Active Power. “We continue to see rapid adoption of our flywheel technology particularly among major data center owners and operators who recognize the value proposition and performance benefits inherent with systems of this design.”

Blade Servers and the Density Dilemma

Are blade servers the answer? That depends upon the question, and some data center operators should be asking more questions before looking to blades, according to Microsoft’s James Hamilton. High-density blade server installations can create as many problems as they solve, James argues in a thorough examination of server density on his Perspectives blog.

Hamilton points out that filling racks with blade servers can result in rack power loads of 25kW and beyond, which usually leads to liquid cooling solutions - which may not have been factored into the original cost/benefit analysis for the blade servers. It’s an informative look at power, space, cooling and PUE in evaluating the cost of optimizing your data center.

“I’m not saying that there aren’t good reason to buy high density server designs,” Hamilton writes. “I’ve seen many. What I’m arguing is that many folks that purchase blades, don’t need them. The arguments explaining the higher value often don’t stand scrutiny. Many experience cooling problems after purchasing blade racks. … In short, many data center purchases don’t really get the ‘work done per dollar’ scrutiny that they should get.”

PDI Acquires Onyx Power

Power Distribution, Inc. (PDI) has acquired Onyx Power, Inc. a leading maker of  custom power magnetics and power distribution equipment for the data center, the two companies said today. PDI, which makes power distribution and voltage regulation products, is based in Richmond, Va. and was acquired by Bertram Capital in April 2007. Financial terms of the PDI-Onyx deal were not disclosed.

“The addition of Onyx will strengthen our platform’s competitive positioning in the marketplace by giving us now a third manufacturing center located in California, complementing our Michigan and Virginia facilities,” said Bertram Capital Managing Director Jeff Drazan. “It will provide enhanced customization capabilities, deeper design expertise, shorter lead times, enhanced logistics, and new product opportunities, making PDI the undisputed leader in the power distribution equipment industry.”

Green Power Solutions Gain Visibility

This week we’ve seen some interesting announcements about alternative approaches to data center power products, and one vendor saying interest in green data centers appear to be boosting their wares. Here’s a roundup:

• Capstone Turbine Corp. (CPST) said it has received a $1.3 million order for its UPSource product, an Uninterruptible Power Supply to be used at data centers in Houston, Texas and Arlington, Virginia. Capstone makes microturbines that can run on natural gas. “Instead of an air-conditioned room with rows of batteries on raised floors periodically used to provide emergency back-up, Capstone’s UPSource Secure Power product uses multiple highly reliable, natural-gas fueled microturbines that provide continuous power independent of the electric utility,” said Jim Crouse, Capstone’s Executive Vice President, Sales and Marketing. 
• APC introduced Fuel Cell Extended Run (FCXR), a hydrogen-based fuel cell backup solution that integrates with the company’s InfraStruXure racks and enclosures. FCXR, which produces power using air and stored hydrogen, is available in 10 kW increments up to 30 kW contained in a single 19-inch rack.” APC’s next generation fuel cell backup product represents one of the first commercial uses of fuel cell technology for data center environments,” said John DiPippo, senior vice president, APC Data Center Solutions, Software and Services.

Uptime: Companies Gaming PUE Numbers

Uptime Institute executive director Ken Brill said yesterday that some data center operators are manipulating or manufacturing Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) numbers.

In an online seminar, Brill said this is putting pressure on other data center managers to match these PUE ratios. Matt Stansberry has a summary at Data Center Facilities Pro:

Brill said he’s seen companies talking about a PUE of 0.8, which is physically impossible. “There is a lot of competitive manipulation and gaming going on,” Brill said. “Our network members are tired of being called in by management to explain why someone has a better PUE than they do.”

The Uptime Institute is familiar with what can happen when data center operators play fast and loose with competitive benchmarks.

Tier IV Costs $15,400 to Support $2,500 Server

Spending $2,500 on a server really means spending between $8,300 and $15,400 (at Tier IV standards) in facility capital to house and power the server. That factoid is among the data outlined by Ken Brill of The Uptime Institute in a piece today in Forbes. An excerpt:

We are currently in the biggest data center construction boom in history. At the same time, this boom is dramatically weakening the future flexibility and financial performance of information technology.

Brill calls upon companies to merge their IT and facilities departments and “dramatically improve cost knowledge within IT.”

“Servers aren’t as cheap as they first appear!,” Brill concludes. “But this doesn’t mean we should stop buying servers. We merely need to assure all relevant costs are included when making investment decisions.” One other thing: turn off those obsolete and unused servers, and you can save hundreds of millions of dollars in the next 10 years and defer new data center construction.

RagingWire: Monitoring As A Customer Magnet

Energy monitoring systems may not be the most exciting part of a data center tour. But as a growing number of enterprise customers seek granular management of their energy usage, the availability of detailed data on power is emerging as a selling point.

“We’re seeing monitoring as a key (business) enabler for us,” said James Kennedy, Facilities Manager for RagingWire Enterprise Solutions in Sacramento, Calif. “We have every branch circuit monitored. We bill some clients on actual power utilization on conditioned power. Our data has been used to justify virtualization projects.”

RagingWire isn’t the only provider to bill customers based on actual usage, rather than flat monthly fee. CRG West has also adopted this approach, which provides an incentive for customers to be energy efficient, which can in turn allow providers to get more mileage out of their utility power.

Kennedy described RagingWire’s approach to its data center operations in a presentation Wednesday at the Next Generation Data Center conference at the Moscone Center in San Francisco. RagingWire was founded in May 2000 by several veterans of Photronics Inc., and is privately held. The company has been in the Inc. 500 and has reported 16 consecutive profitable quarters, with revenue growing from $9.7 million in 2003 to $25.7 million in 2006.