All About HPE PDUs (Power Distribution Units) and UPSs (Uninterruptible Power Systems)

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Hewlett Packard Enterprise offers many easy to use solutions for all of your power needs including: distribution, protection, extended runtime, management, and monitoring. Today we will look at two different HPE families, the HPE Power Distribution Unit (PDU) family, and the Uninterruptible Power System (UPS) family to see how they can help with your rack's power needs.

In this session of Coffee Coaching, Darrel Gaston, Servers Engineering at Hewlett Packard Enterprise, tells you a bit about the PDU and UPS portfolios.

HPE Power Distribution Units (PDUs)

Rack PDUs for servers, storage, and networking are an effective way to deliver the required power and gain visibility into the power conditions at any time. HPE supports two form factors with their PDU portfolio: monolithic or modular.

Modular PDUs (pictured here) can be mounted either in the rack with other IT gear or in the zero U space of the rack between the front and rear RETMA rails while Monolithic PDUs are mounted in the rear of the rack.

HPE PDUs fall into four categories:

• Basic PDUs: provide simple, convenient power outlets where they are needed in the rack
• Monitored PDUs: measure the power at the input cord
• Managed PDUs: provide input and output metering and outlet control with billing grade accuracy
• Intelligent PDUs: provide the same features as the managed PDUs but also include out of band serial communication with HPE’s server management layer, iLO.

Of course, all HPE PDUs are designed to work seamlessly with the HPE Rack family and are designed to allow complete access to the installed equipment.

HPE Uninterruptible Power Systems (UPSs)

HPE UPS products are designed to protect critical equipment from power disturbances and ensure system reliability and data integrity.

According to Darrel Gaston, Servers Engineering at Hewlett Packard Enterprise,

“A HPE UPS is the single most cost-effective measure you can take to assure system availability and uptime.”

The HPE DirectFlow UPS provides industry-leading energy density and efficiency, which enables DirectFlow to have a smaller rack footprint than any competitive product. This UPS has two batter options: traditional Valve Regulated Lead Acid, or Lithium Ion.

In addition to the DirectFlow product, HPE has a complete line of rack mount and tower UPS Products from 750VA to 12kVA. The portfolio includes both single phase and three phase products and are designed to work in every region of the world.

HPE UPS products are generally used to provide backup at the rack level, but what if you need battery backup at the individual server level? You're not out of luck! HPE offers a battery backup unit, or BBU, that is in a server power supply form factor. This product is used in conjunction with a traditional power supply to provide hold up time to an individual server in the event of a power outage. The BBU can be daisy chained to an adjacent server providing power and BBU redundancy and the server management tools can be configured to provide a graceful shutdown option. This design allows for UPS like performance with no rack penalty and is an HPE ProLiant exclusive technology.

Together HPE PDU and UPS solutions ensure optimal power distribution within the rack along with protection against power fluctuations or outages giving you the confidence that your IT equipment will always be available and your workloads running whether you manage a small to mid-sized business or a larger enterprise datacenter.

For more information on HPE UPSs and PDUs, please visit: www.HPE.com/us/en/integrated-systems/rack-power-cooling.

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