Power management company Eaton has added new Metered Outlet, Switched and Managed models to its award-winning range of rack power distribution units (PDUs) available in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. 

As well as providing reliable power distribution, the latest models include new features that enable greater control at equipment level, helping IT professionals to accurately monitor and control the power consumption of their IT equipment.

Stefan Coote, product manager, Eaton EMEA said: “These new models are the latest additions to our third generation of rack-based power distribution units, also known as enclosure power distribution units or ePDUs.

“They offer customers the ability to optimize power usage, control costs and save time more effectively than ever before.” 

Clearer view of power usage

As well as the metering and switching of individual outlets, users can now group outlets together by types of IT equipment so that they can meter and switch equipment with multiple inputs over A and B feeds. This means they can get a clearer view of the power usage of their equipment together with the capacity available within their data center.

Eaton’s new Metered Outlet ePDUs allow energy usage of IT equipment to be monitored locally and remotely, making it easier to determine where energy savings can be made. In addition, since the meters are of billing grade accuracy, the readings can be used by in-house data center operators to apportion costs between company departments and by co-location data center operators to charge customers for energy usage.

The new Switched ePDUs incorporate metering and also allow power to individual servers to be turned on and off remotely. This is an important aid to efficiency, as servers that are not currently needed can easily be turned off, and non-essential equipment can be scheduled to shut down at times when it is not needed.

Intelligent Power Management

All of Eaton’s third generation ePDUs can be viewed and managed through Eaton’s Intelligent Power Manager software that integrates easily with leading virtualization dashboards. Network-connected models enable users of the software to automatically discover, monitor, mass update and mass configure multiple ePDUs. The whole range also offers space-saving 0U construction, patent pending eGrip plug retention and a maximum operating temperature of 60 ºC.