We hope you enjoy this issue of SmartIT, and as always, we look forward to hearing from you.

Help Your Data Center Reduce Energy Consumption With Our New Energy Management Software

Raritan has added significant enhancements to our Power IQ™ data center energy management software to help you better track and analyze your energy usage down to the individual IT device level, and implement energy-saving actions anywhere in the enterprise from a central power console.

This new, expanded release of Power IQ can serve as the single central console for energy management and complete rack PDU (power distribution unit) management in your data center. In addition to gathering information from IT equipment plugged into Raritan's award-winning Dominion® PX™ PDUs, Power IQ now also collects energy data from and provides remote power control of the following Ethernet-enabled rack PDUs: APC®, Avocent®, Cyber Switching®, Geist, HP, MRV and Server Technology®.

Other energy-management activities enabled by Power IQ include:

• Increasing a server room's ambient temperature gradually.
• Creating energy cost bill-back reports to drive behavior.
• Forecasting potential energy savings before decommissioning servers.
• Scheduling power usage at optimal times to qualify for energy rebates.

Visualizing and Reporting Energy Usage
Enterprise-wide data collection allows Power IQ's analytics to calculate and chart active power, energy consumption, cost and carbon footprint for servers and other IT devices. Power information is then presented in configurable graphs and reports that can be accessed from anywhere with Power IQ's Web-based dashboard. Graphs can easily depict which devices are consuming the most energy, whether power conservation efforts are working, and if there are hot spots or over-cooled areas.

Reports can be easily tailored to look at power over any user-defined time periods. In addition, trending reports and cumulative totals can be displayed at the data center, floor, room, rack, customer and IT device level.

Through a single Web interface, Power IQ aggregates power-utilization data for use in power usage trend analysis and reporting. Today’s new class of network-connected PDUs provide granular “IT device-level” or outlet-level metering, and provide power intelligence on each piece of equipment – such as real-time current and voltage – and rack temperature and humidity. They also enable secure power on and off and power cycle capabilities with connected devices from remote locations.

Comprehensive Remote Power Control
Power IQ also provides easy and comprehensive device grouping and permission management. With a simple right-click command, you can control all outlets associated with a rack, IT device, or group of IT devices.

Power IQ's secure remote power control capabilities can be used to schedule power usage, such as automatically powering on or off certain device groups by day and time and providing detailed reports on the energy savings. Device group power control can also help a data center manager extend battery life in the event of commercial power failure by turning off a non-critical device group. You can even program to turn on all IT devices required for a specific Web service -- in configured order and with the required delays between devices.

Learn how you can download a free version of Power IQ and start gathering the data you need to run your data center more efficiently.

To learn more and download FREE Power IQ software, visit Data Center Energy Management.

Introducing Intelligent Rack PDUs for Blade Servers

With the addition of the Dominion® PX™-4000 Series intelligent rack power distribution units (PDU), we’ve expanded our ability to monitor the energy usage of blade servers and other high-density networking equipment. The PX-4000 Series also is designed without remote outlet power switching to prevent blade servers from being switched off accidentally.

What does this mean to you? Detailed power information on individual blades plugged into the PX intelligent power strip, as well as inlet temperatures at blade racks, can be monitored and measured. PX intelligent power strips also allow you to gather more useful and more accurate information from blades -- including apparent and active power for devices with multiple power supplies, and kilowatt-hour metering for energy cost and charge-back applications.

Designed for high-density environments, the PX-4000 models are rated to work at temperatures as high as 140 degrees Fahrenheit (60 degrees Celsius).

Along with the launch of the PX-4000 Series, Raritan launched PX firmware release v1.3.5. This firmware is included with all PX models and is a free download upgrade at Raritan.com for existing PX users.

The initial 11 models will be three-phase models with 208V or 400V input, 30 to 60 amp input plug options, 6, 12 or 24 IEC C13 and C19 outlets, and UL489 circuit breakers for branch circuit protection.

What’s more, PX PDUs work with Raritan's Power IQ™ Energy Management software to track power consumption and generate energy usage reports based on all types of granular power information gathered at the IT device level. This information helps IT and Operations managers with “what if” analysis, tracking energy changes, finding rack capacity and billing back energy costs to internal departments.

Download a FREE trial version of Raritan's Power IQ analytics software.

Manage your data center more efficiently with a solution that helps you visualize every rack, device and cable in real time

We’ve just introduced a major software upgrade to our dcTrack™ data center infrastructure management solution that helps you visualize and automate the tracking and management of your IT and facility systems.

Ideal for today's dynamic data centers where IT equipment is added and moved regularly, dcTrack maintains accurate, real-time views and granular details of every element and their connections across your entire data center -- including servers, networking and facilities elements. It also provides up-to-the-minute views of a data center's power consumption, heat dissipation, raised floor space and rack elevations.

And now, through the use of new built-in wizards, dcTrack can import existing spreadsheets containing IT assets and connectivity details without the need to modify your spreadsheets' structure or format. These time-saving wizards will help guide you in mapping your spreadsheet headings and data to the appropriate dcTrack fields. Our wizards are designed to import all data center IT and facility assets, including rack servers, chassis and blade servers, virtual machines, network and SAN infrastructure, rack PDUs, UPS, and CRAC units. Also included in this release are specialized wizards for importing structured cabling, power distribution panel boards, and cable connectivity and cross-connect schedules.

These wizards, coupled with dcTrack's ability to link dynamically to existing AutoCAD® and Visio® floor plan drawings, greatly simplify the implementation process. The initial deployment and configuration of dcTrack for a mid-size data center can now be successfully completed in days, instead of weeks or months that are required for competitive solutions.

Learn more about Raritan's newest dcTrack release.

Enjoy Secure and Flexible Access to Your Data Center Servers with Our New Smart Card Solution

Raritan now offers you an added level of security for accessing and managing your equipment over IP. In addition to providing smart card-authentication security, the new Dominion® KX II Smart Card Reader Solution enables card readers to be placed where they are most convenient to IT administrators -- including outside the data center.

This new solution works with smart card readers that support widely deployed smart cards, including the U.S. government's Common Access Cards (CAC) and Personal Identity Verification (PIV) cards.

Whether working from a remote location or in the data center, authorized users are authenticated by inserting cards into the Smart Card/CAC Reader connected to their remote workstation or the Dominion KX II switch in the data center. A single card reader can authenticate access to multiple target servers. Once authenticated, users are given BIOS-level access and keyboard, video and mouse control of servers from any Web browser. Remote IT administrators can securely manage and view servers as if they were sitting in front of the rack, enabling them to perform software uploads, assess equipment health, repair operating systems, power cycle servers and perform other server management operations.

For additional security, the Dominion KX II solution does not store or cache smart card data, and requires re-authentication when switching between servers. Smart card sessions are in private mode, allowing only one user at a time to access a given server. In addition, all data traffic -- including keyboard, mouse, video, and virtual media -- are encrypted with 256-bit Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) or 128-bit RC4 encryption.

Customers with existing Dominion KX II switches can also add the smart-card security capability through a free firmware upgrade. (The Dominion KX II dual virtual media CIM (D2CIM-DVUSB) that supports BIOS-level virtual media and Absolute Mouse Synchronization™ is required.)

More on Raritan's Smart Card Reader solution.

Explore the Enhanced Flexibility of Our Centralized Management Device, Including a New Web Services Application Programming Interface Feature

CommandCenter® Secure Gateway is a comprehensive and robust infrastructure management system that helps you control access and power devices and activities. It provides secure management through AES encryption and flexible authentication options. And now, we’ve added some great new features that make it even more flexible.

Our new Web services application programming interface (WS-API) feature, for example, now allows you to access CommandCenter Secure Gateway, its connected nodes and other CommandCenter Secure Gateway functions from your own client application.

Raritan offers the WS-API license as a one-time purchase per CommandCenter Secure Gateway unit. The initial license purchase includes six hours of support. After the first six hours of support have elapsed, additional support is available in six-hour increments and is sold on a per-CommandCenter Secure Gateway basis.

Other new features:

• Sign On / Single Sign On enables logging in to CommandCenter Secure Gateway and authenticating either with the CommandCenter Secure Gateway user database or an external database.
• Sign Off (Log Out) logs a specific user out of CommandCenter Secure Gateway.
• Node Access permits node access based on preconfigured user access rights.
• Access Method defines the access method for a device type.
• Interface URL retrieves the URL required to connect to an interface.
• Get CommandCenter Secure Gateway Applet retrieves the URL to the CC-SG applet in order to launch the main CommandCenter Secure Gateway screen.
• Get Nodes retrieves all available nodes for a particular user, by user name.
• Node Renaming changes the name of a specified node.

Learn more about Raritan's Centralized Management Device system.

Easier Server Management Now Available With KVM Switches That Integrate 17-inch LCD Displays and Unique “Cat5 Simplicity” Cables

We’ve added two new cost-effective KVM (keyboard, video, mouse) switches to our server management line targeted at small and midsize server rooms and data centers.

Featuring an easy-to-view, built-in 17-inch industrial display, the new TMCAT17 LCD KVM switch controls multiple servers from a single console -- giving administrators like you added flexibility on where and how you work to set up, administer and maintain rack-mounted servers.

Two users can conduct simultaneous and independent KVM sessions with the new TMCAT17 LCD KVM switch. One user can access and troubleshoot multiple servers using the TMCAT17's LCD console that is integrated in the 1U rack-mounted switch. The second user can be located further away using an optional workstation connected to the TMCAT17 using Cat5 cable. This second workstation can be placed up to 650 feet (195m) from the KVM switch without degrading video quality.

For fast and easy connections to servers, TMCAT17 LCD KVM also provides Cat5 Simplicity™ cables -- which are fixed-length Cat5 UTP cable with CIMs (Computer Interface Modules) for connecting servers within 20 feet (6m) of the switch.

Two Available Models
The two-user TMCAT1728 model supports up to eight servers simultaneously and the two-user TMCAT17216 supports up to 16 servers. Both units can scale to support up to 256 servers by using the cascading capabilities of Raritan's MasterConsole® CAT series.

More information about Raritan's LCD KVM Consoles.

Take Advantage of Free and Reduced Prices on Some of Our Best-Selling Products and Services.

There’s still time to increase productivity while you save some money. But these promotions will end soon, so hurry! 

FREE Power IQ™ Ten-Device License Offer -- From April 1, 2009 until September 30, 2009, purchase 10 PXs and receive a free Power IQ ten-device license (a $1,295 value).

“At-the-Rack” Savings Event -- From April 1, 2009 until September 30, 2009, buy any four- or eight-user Dominion® KX II KVM-over-IP switch and you’ll receive a FREE 19” LCD KVM drawer (a $1,895 value).

CommandCenter® Secure Gateway 20% Discount Offer -- From April 1, 2009 until September 30, 2009, buy three or more Dominion KX II KVM-over-IP switches and get 20% off CommandCenter Secure Gateway.

FREE Extended Warranty Offer -- From April 1, 2009 until September 30, 2009, buy a Guardian® Support Gold 1-year Extended Warranty and get a free upgrade to a Guardian Support Platinum 2-year Extended Warranty.

KVM and Serial Trade-In Program -- Trade in your KVM and serial switches (whether they're Raritan’s or our competitors’) and migrate to Raritan’s next generation of products.