Notes from the people who build this hardware
Five write-ups on the questions that come back to us most: how to size a battery backup, what a joule rating is actually spending, when copper stops being the right answer, and why a closet runs hot.
Sizing a battery backup to the gear you actually own
Watts, volt-amps and headroom, explained with the numbers printed on our own units. How to add up a bench and land on a model that is not running at its limit.
How the hardware worksStandby, line interactive or online: what the three topologies do differently
Why one unit clicks over to battery during a brownout and another does not, what automatic voltage regulation is for, and where a pure sine wave output starts to matter.
Surge and power stripsWhat a joule rating on a surge protector actually tells you
Joules are a budget that gets spent, not a wall that stays up. How our surge line is rated, why the metal housing is on the spec sheet, and when a strip has quietly stopped working.
CablingCopper or fiber: choosing what to run between the closets
Where Cat6a stops being worth it, when a run should be glass instead, and what the OM and OS numbers on our fiber jackets mean in practice.
Racks and closetsThe wiring closet that runs hot, and what to do about it
Airflow in a packed enclosure, why cable management is a thermal job before it is a tidy one, and how a switched PDU saves the trip across the site.