Video: Advanced Cooling for Data Centers

In the video below, learn about today’s biggest data center challenges and find out how to cut cooling and power costs by up to 50%. This presentation discusses current options for data center cooling and how passive liquid cooling installs easily with no downtime, is scalable, and saves on energy bills and space requirements.

Passive liquid cooling:
•  Doesn’t require raised floors or hot aisle/cold aisle configurations.
•  Installs easily right on existing cabinets with no downtime to your data center.
•  Is scalable—add it as you add computing power. Don’t pay for infrastructure you don’t need.
•  Saves on energy bills and space requirements.

 

 

Presenter:
Kevin Jackson, Infrastructure Sales Manager, has more than 15 years experience in data center design and installation. He has presented at many industry events, including BICSI conferences, and to numerous Fortune 500 companies.

Consumer Products Safety Commission recalls 11 million feet of riser cable

It seems as if every month we are hearing about another cable recall or another cable with unauthorized UL® and/or ETL marks.

Here’s the latest.

The U.S. Consumer Products Safety Commission (CPSC) has issued a recall for 1000-foot boxes of CE Tech CAT6 riser cable sold at The Home Depot between January and February 2013. In its recall notice, the CPSC stated that the “cable does not meet fire resistance standards for riser cable, posing a fire hazard.”

The recall notice can be seen here.

The CPSC explains that the “cable is intended to run between floors of a building as data cable. This type of cable must self-extinguish in a fire. The cable is gray and marked (UL) E316395. The cable’s box is blue and black and is marked CE Tech 1,000 ft. riser cable, Cat 6 23-4.”

If you or anyone else purchased this cable, the CPSC is advising that you remove the cable and return it to Home Depot for a full refund.

The cable sold for $100 a box, which is incredibly inexpensive for CAT6 riser cable. If you see cable being sold at a price that seems too good to be true, put up a red flag. Tested and verified cable from Black Box (or other name manufacturers) does not come cheap. You get what you pay for.

To learn six ways to spot Counterfeit Cable, read this informational flyer. Or watch this video by Andy Schmeltzer, our cable guy. For more in-depth information, download our white paper.

You know you’re in AV if…

Think you’ve got a funnier or more original answer than these?

You know you’re in AV if…
…when you hear the word “visa”, you immediately think of screen mounts.
…your father-in-law is always asking you to reprogram his remote.
…you’re forever saying to people: “Yes, I know it says it supports 1080p, but…”

Enter our contest for a chance to win great prizes, including:

Plus t-shirts with the top 10 winning answers. Hurry! Contest ends May 7, 2013.

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5 Things to consider when choosing a video display

Should you go for the LCD or plasma video display? It depends. Here are a few tips to help you choose.

Picture quality
Plasma displays reproduce color more accurately with deeper blacks and display moving images with remarkable clarity. They provide excellent performance with their high-contrast levels and color saturation, and have the edge when it comes to viewing angles. In fact, plasma screen have as much as 160° viewing angle, whereas LCDs display at 130-140° angles. However, they also carry the risk of image burn-in (the permanent disfiguring of a screen image caused by the continuous display of a high-contrast object).

LCD displays, on the other hand, don’t have quite the color accuracy of plasmas, but they’re brighter and have a sharpness advantage with a higher number of pixels per square inch. These additional pixels make LCD technology better at displaying static images from computers or VGA sources in full-color detail. Applications with large amounts of data and written material display particular well on LCDs. What’s more, there’s no risk of image burn-in.

Durability
With LCD screens, there are essentially no parts to wear out. They last as long as their backlights do, with displays lasting, on average, 50,000-75,000 hours. That’s why LCD screens are especially good for applications such as digital signage or displays that require around-the-clock use.

Plasma screens, however, use a combination of electric currents and noble gases (argon, neon, and xenon) to produce a glow, which in turn yields brilliant color. The half-life of these gases, however, is only around 25,000 hours. The glow they produce grows dimmer over time. They’re also prone to burn-in or ghosting of images, although this is less of a problem with newer models.

Buyer beware: Increase in counterfeit cable alerts

There’s a lot at risk if you install non-compliant cable, either knowingly or unknowingly. In addition to low network performance from counterfeit and low-grade cable, installing non-compliant cable can result in violations of state and local building codes and fire regulations. If a contractor installs non-compliant cable and it causes damage, such as a fire, the contractor can face civil liabilities and monetary damages stemming from negligence, fraud, and breach of contract and warranty. In addition, contractors can face criminal liabilities stemming from building code violations. Enforcement can include halting the installation and removing and replacing the cable, which can be extremely costly. Other criminal penalties can include fines and imprisonment. The costs of using counterfeit or non-compliant cable can be very high indeed.

Over the past few months there has been an increase in Intertek Testing Services (ETL) and Underwriters Laboratories (UL) warnings concerning unauthorized, hazardous, and/or counterfeit cable. The following alerts have been issued this year:

January 15th, 2013: UL warns of potentially hazardous communications cable

January 28th, 2013: Intertek Testing Services Warns Consumers of Counterfeit ETL Verified Mark

January 31st, 2013: UL warns of potentially hazardous communications cable