5/16/2012 2:33:07 PM
Today through Saturday, Chatsworth Products, Inc. (CPI) will exhibit for the first time ever at the American Institute of Architects (AIA) National Convention and Design Exposition at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in our nation’s capital, Washington, D.C.
With a membership of more than 80,000 licensed architects, the AIA represents a key constituency within the overall ACE community (architects, consultants, engineers) – a community those of us in IT infrastructure know well for its instrumental role in the pre-planning of data center design and construction/upgrade.
In fact, it was just in July of last year that CPI first announced becoming an approved AIA Continuing Education Systems (CES) Provider, now offering up to six Learning Units (LUs) for those AIA members attending CPI’s on-going Data Center Power and Cooling Efficiency Seminar: 2012 (click here to register for an upcoming event in your area).
Better still, premiering at this week’s AIA Convention and available for an entire year is a special online article entitled “Passive Cooling in Data Centers – Collaboratively designing economical air flow management,” written by Peter J. Arsenault, FAIA, NCARB, LEED-AP, with support from CPI and Green Source Construction.
During the show, over at CPI booth 3911, we’ll be handing out a special invitation to this online course (see below), which offers one Green Building Certification Institute (GBCI) CE hour for LEED Credential Maintenance. Not a bad trade-off for some online reading!
Even if you’re not at this week’s show, you can read the article and take the credit-earning course here.
And for even more architectural resources for the planning of new data center or IT equipment room spaces, be sure to check out CPI’s entire library of Design Tools and Downloads, which feature everything from Visio Shapes and CAD Blocks to our most recently added database of 3D drawings for Building Information Modeling (BIM). Access to these tools simply requires a CPI website account, which you can create here. Jeff Cihocki, Global eContent Specialist
5/14/2012 9:34:24 AM
This week, it’s all about the stars and stripes for Chatsworth Products, Inc. (CPI). We start with a salute to government and military IT at the General Services Administration (GSA) Training and Expo in San Antonio (today through May 17) and end up in our nation’s capital for the American Institute of Architects (AIA) Convention in Washington, D.C. (May 17 – May 19).
In the here and now, the CPI campaign gets going at booth 3341 of the Henry B. Gonzalez Convention Center in San Antonio (only an hour south from CPI’s Research, Development and Training Center in Georgetown, TX), where we’re displaying the GF-Series GlobalFrame® Cabinet, our forthcoming eConnect™ Power Distribution Units (PDUs), and Evolution™ Cable Management for federal, state and local government and military employees from around the country.
CPI has long been proud to serve the specialized IT infrastructure needs of the government sector, most recently helping the State of Montana build a state-of-the-art and highly energy efficient data center in its capital city of Helena.
Over at our Government Solutions webpage, you’ll see how CPI addresses the high premium placed on safely and securely outfitting these kinds of mission-critical facilities, not to mention our ability to help provide Zone 4 seismic rating compliant racks and cabinets.
Did you know that CPI is also registered as a Small Business (SB) with the GSA under Federal Supply Schedule 70 for General Purpose Commercial Information Technology Equipment, Software and Services? A mouthful for sure, but an important designation for any government entity looking to buy American – we have you covered.
Visit our special Government Business webpage for details on how to buy.
After our stump speech in San Antonio, stay tuned for our report from Washington, D.C. at the AIA Convention later this week. Jeff Cihocki, Global eContent Specialist
5/9/2012 1:22:04 PM
As one look at the 2012 Chatsworth Products, Inc. (CPI) events calendar would suggest, we make every effort possible to see customers face-to-face at tradeshows, conferences and seminars all over the world. And while there’s nothing quite like seeing the engineered quality or convenience of a CPI product in person, we know tight budgets and hectic schedules can sometimes limit your time away from the desk or data center.
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That’s why we’re excited to take part in a special virtual tradeshow and seminar event hosted by our distributor partner, Anixter, taking place next Thursday, May 17 at 10:30AM CDT.
They’ve assembled a top notch team of panelists, including TIA-942A contributor Jonathan Jew and Cabling Installation & Maintenance magazine Chief Editor, Patrick McLaughlin, to take part in candid online discussions about today’s most pressing data center topics. With Jason Norton (Director of Operations & Telecommunications at Scripps Networks) and Andy Jimenez (VP of Technology at Anixter) rounding out the group, you can be sure a wide variety of questions will be answered and enticing new developments explored.
You too can get in on the action by registering for this complimentary online event. Once you’re signed up, make yourself familiar with the schedule, which includes:
- 10:30AM CDT – online venue opens for attendee open forum
- 11AM CDT – video presentation on infrastructure reliability in data centers
- 11:20AM CDT – live, streaming panel discussion begins
- 11:40AM CDT – partner pavilion opens
You can catch CPI in the partner pavilion, where our virtual tradeshow booth comes complete with a scrolling ticker of our latest data center solutions, links to select CPI online resources, and real-time customer support.
No need for a car, plane ticket or hotel room, this is one event you won’t want (or have to) miss!
Register today. Jeff Cihocki, Global eContent Specialist
5/7/2012 7:23:12 AM
The Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) recently approved TIA-942A, an updated version of the Telecommunications Infrastructure Standard for Data Centers.
Not only does the revised standard include new considerations towards energy efficiency, more cohesion with internationally-recognized standards and support for larger and more modular data centers, it touches upon a variety of important developments in structured cabling systems in particular.
According to Jonathan Jew, President of J&M Consultants and a primary contributor for TIA-942A, the top five changes noted in the newly revised standards are:
- Making Category 6 the minimum requirement for horizontal cabling in the data center (along with recommendations to use Cat6a when possible)
- For multi-mode fiber, OM3 optical fiber is now the minimum requirement (along with recommendations to use OM4 optical fiber when possible)
- For connectors, synchronizing with international and European standards to use the LC connector for 1 or 2 fibers and the MPO connector when terminating more than 2 fibers.
- Eliminated the 100 meter channel length restriction for horizontal cabling using optical fiber cable (now determined on a per-application basis)
- For more flexibility in data center design, added a new distribution and cross-connect space to the intermediate distribution area and the intermediate cross-connect, which allows support of large data centers much more easily.
With 40 and 100 Gigabit Ethernet also on the horizon, such changes indicate how structured cabling systems are dealing with big data - go high density or go home. Jeff Cihocki, Global eContent Specialist
5/2/2012 8:34:17 AM
After great turnout and positive feedback in St. Louis and Houston just a few weeks back, the Chatsworth Products, Inc. (CPI) Data Center Power and Cooling Efficiency Seminar: 2012 is rolling north to visit three Canadian cities in the span of a week, including:
- Toronto – June 5
- Ottawa – June 7
- Calgary – June 12
These free seminar events offer professional accreditation with BICSI Continuing Education Credits (CECs) and American Institute of Architects (AIA) Learning Units (LUs). Toronto and Ottawa include five BICSI CECs and two AIA LUs. Calgary offers six BICSI CECs and one AIA LU.
Each stop will feature a mix of presentations and discussions on everything from the economics of airflow management, the benefits of overhead power distribution and cabling high port-count switches in the data center, with a contingent of experts led by CPI and featuring some of the most well-respected names in the industry, including:
- Corning Cable Systems
- Universal Electric – Starline
- Interstitial Systems
- TileFlow
- Cool IT Systems
- Logicalis
To get complete details on presentations, location info and registration, visit our Canada Data Center Power and Cooling Efficiency Seminar: 2012 webpage today.
You can also check out a pair of photo albums from this week’s 2012 BICSI Canadian Conference and Exhibition in Niagara Falls, Ontario. In the exhibit hall, we displayed CPI’s new Cold Aisle Containment at our CPI booth, while Monday night, April 30, we co-hosted a special evening of entertainment with Anixter and Corning Cable Systems entitled the “EDGE® of an Evolution® World Tour Party” that featured CPI's own band, Bent Metal. Jeff Cihocki, Global eContent Specialist
4/26/2012 6:37:08 AM
As a valued Chatsworth Products, Inc. (CPI) distributor partner, Communications Supply Corporation (CSC) offers a great mix of online resources and in-person events to better educate customers. An important task given today's ever-changing IT infrastructure technologies, these efforts go a long way towards helping customers make the right selections when it comes to products and solutions used in data centers.
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Starting with a May 9th Data Center Seminar in Nashville, TN and continuing through October with a series of CSC Open House events, Chatsworth Products, Inc. is proud to sponsor and take part in all six of the open house events, and in the case of Nashville, lead a half-daylong seminar discussion on the latest innovations in data center budgeting, best practices and the critical elements of grounding and bonding.
CPI Field Applications Engineer, Fernando Reyna, will be the featured presenter in Nashville, which offers up to three BICSI Continuing Education Credits and a complimentary lunch. Contact CSC's Brian Merrill via email or phone (615-742-9901) to reserve your spot.
As mentioned, CPI representatives will also be on hand for a series of open house events at the following locations/dates:
- Houston, TX - May 10
- Washington D.C. - June 1
- San Antonio, TX - July 20
- Atlanta, GA - August 10
- Rochester, NY - September 7
- Little Rock, AR - October 5
Featuring free food and drink, local entertainment, a silent auction and raffle prizes at each stop, these events offer a casual, relaxed atmosphere in which to get to know CSC and its most preferred suppliers, including CPI. To register for one of these events,
click here.
And as we mentioned in the introduction, CSC also offers online resources such as a general services blog and another dedicated specifically to the data center industry, which features the dynamic cartoon duo of "Kip & Gary," with comical artwork from CSC's Diane Alber. Here's an idea of their humorous take on the use of white cabinets in the data center.
Notice the similarity those cabinets have to CPI's glacier white F-Series TeraFrame®
Be sure to check us out and stop on by the next time CPI joins forces with CSC. Jeff Cihocki, Global eContent Specialist
4/23/2012 1:06:29 PM
It’s a good thing that Chatsworth Products, Inc. (CPI) is skilled at handling high density situations – but we’re not talking fully populated cabinets or racks, we’re navigating an events calendar that’s jam-packed with seminars, office openings, and in this case, the Interop Las Vegas 2012 IT Conference and Expo.
This May 8-10 at Mandalay Bay, we’ll be displaying a new benchmark in data center efficiency at booth 1667, that of CPI’s Aisle Containment Solutions, featuring a neon-lit Hot Aisle Containment configuration complete with four CPI F-Series TeraFrame® Cabinets and a nifty self-closing and sliding door for maximum seal, security and support.
A look at the CPI booth that will be on display this May 8-10 at Interop
Hailed as one of the industry’s best annual events, Interop consistently pushes the envelope on cutting-edge technologies such as the cloud, virtualization and mobility, all areas that could see significant operational savings from the use of well-engineered aisle containment.
Ian Seaton, CPI’s Global Technology Manager, points out that “energy required to cool the data center has traditionally constituted 30-50% of the entire data center energy budget… now that data centers are included in ASHRAE 90.1, Energy Standard for Buildings Except Low-Rise Residential Buildings, state energy and building codes will begin prescribing economizers for new data centers or major expansions and upgrades. These major capital expenses can be recouped much more quickly with an intelligent white space design for effective air flow management.”
When you consider that CPI’s Aisle Containment Solutions can increase cooling efficiency by 3x, while broadening the air temperature envelope with 4x higher heat and power densities, the question of implementation becomes when, not if.
With a variety of CPI sales, engineering and technical support on hand during this event, you’ll have no trouble finding the answer. And with this special discount coupon from CPI, you can register today and earn 25 percent off a conference pass or get an expo pass completely free! See you there. Jeff Cihocki, Global eContent Specialist