Popular Data Center Cooling Solutions webinar now on demand

“Outstanding presentation. First time I’ve been able to write/say this in years. Bravo! And thank you.” -Toni Rosen, President, TRG Networking

Our Data Center Cooling Solutions webinar is now available on demand!

The webinar, presented by Infrastructure Sales Manager Kevin Jackson, covers current trends in data centers, including higher densities and energy consumption, as well as passive liquid cooling, hot aisle/cold aisle, climate-controlled cabinets, best practices, and more.

Jackson discusses five case studies that illustrate various data center configurations, their cooling challenges, and innovative solutions that address these issues. The webinar is designed for IT professionals and data center managers who want to explore current data center cooling options and find out which solution may be best for their situation.

“The average operating cost of data centers has grown three times faster than capital investment in new IT equipment. We’ll talk about how can you address this issue through intelligent cooling,“ Jackson said.

For more information on our data center cooling solutions, to watch the webinar, or to download the cooling brochure, visit www.blackbox.com/go/Cooling.

Proactive defense – learn and use the “secret” formulas

2012 was jam-packed with network breaches and 2013 will be no different. It’s important to learn and understand new attack methodologies and take a proactive approach to defuse these threats. In this blog post we’ll share a few simple formulas to reduce risk, comply with regulations, and harden your systems against cybercrime.

The first formula is based on U.S. military basic war tactics and is called the four Ds. They are:
1. Detect – awareness of a threat
2. Deter – preempting exploitation
3. Defend – fighting in real-time
4. Defeat – winning the battle!

The second formula is well known in network security circles and is called the “Risk Formula”:
R = T x V x A
(R)isk = (T)hreats x (V)ulnerabilities x (A)ssets

Three tips for managing network changes

Every business depends on its network to run efficiently at all times. No one can afford network outages or degradations due to poorly planned infrastructure changes. The following three steps help mitigate risks when managing network change, while also ensuring faster and more cost-effective implementations. If any one step is skipped or done incorrectly, costlier problems can potentially develop later.

The methodology
Discovery and baselining
Network professionals must first know what they’re dealing with. Discovery means asking: What kind of equipment exists? What is the traffic today? Who are the users? It should include hardware inventory, applications, router configurations, switch configurations, network cabling and protocol usage. Engineers should evaluate current network performance, including traffic patterns, bandwidth optimization, Internet connectivity, and network vulnerabilities.

Baselining means creating documentation of the current state so there is something to work from to plan changes and measure against to validate them.

Design assistance
The next step is designing the plan for making the changes using the documentation as a guide. What is the end goal and how will you get there? This is the stage at which the IT team makes decisions about reconnecting, the addressing scheme, server location changes, etc., then creates a design to facilitate those decisions.

Fluke Networks DTX-1800 Cable Analyzer

Validation
The third step is validating the design after implementation. Are all the devices configured correctly? Did a user get moved? Did the switch get changed? Network professionals verify that changes were made, then document, report and baseline the network again for future reference.

There is a way to speed up the process without sacrificing precision. A network analyzer makes following the process outlined above easier, particularly if the device includes all of the following capabilities:

SFP, SFP+, and XFP transceivers

SFP, SFP+, and XFP are all terms for a type of transceiver that plugs into a special port on a switch or other network device to convert to a copper or fiber interface. These compact transceivers replace the older, bulkier GBIC interface.

Although these devices are available in copper, their most common use is to add fiber ports. Fiber options include multimode and single-mode fiber in a variety of wavelengths covering distances of up to 120 kilometers (about 75 miles), as well as WDM fiber, which uses two separate wavelengths to both send and receive data on a single fiber strand.

Small Form-Factor Pluggable (SFP) Optical Transceiver

SFPs support speeds up to 4.25 Gbps and are generally used for Fast Ethernet or Gigabit Ethernet applications. The expanded SFP standard, SFP+, supports speeds of 10 Gbps or higher over fiber. XFP is a separate standard that also supports 10-Gbps speeds. The primary difference between SFP+ and the slightly older XFP standard is that the SFP+ moves the chip for clock and data recovery into a line card on the host device. This makes an SFP+ smaller than an XFP, enabling greater port density.

Because all these compact transceivers are hot-swappable, there’s no need to shut down a switch to swap out a module –it’s easy to change interfaces on the fly for upgrades and maintenance.

About our Reseller programs

When you team with us, you reap the benefits of our extensive line of products, multiple pricing programs, and unrivaled support services that focus on you—and your customers. We’re committed to working with you, the Reseller, and have an extensive program designed for your success. It starts with products and profits and extends to our dedicated Reseller Support Team and free Tech Support experts. Our goal is simple: We want you to consider us an important part of your business.

We offer steep Reseller discounts with five discount levels and many sale programs to fit your exact needs. Learn more about the advantages of being a Black Box reseller. Download the Black Box Reseller Program brochure.

And, you can now access the most current information, pricing, and inventory on our entire product line. We’ve set up daily data feeds so you can easily integrate our products into your database, back-end system, and even your Web site.

• Receive the latest product information on more than 25,000 networking and infrastructure products.
• Get daily pricing, inventory, and product information updates.
• Integrate Black Box products into your back-end quoting and ordering system.
• Simplify your quoting and purchasing process—all the info you need is right at your fingertips.
• Upload the entire Black Box product line to your Web site.