What are the biggest IT-related issues facing today’s small to midsized enterprise?

“Power is obviously the first, in two areas—availability and monitoring,” says North. “You can’t control power if you can’t measure it.” Second is cooling. “Cooling concerns are more logistical than anything else, since you now have cabinet loads ranging from 1,200 to 12,000 watts. You can’t use the same strategy to cool them both. And you don’t want to put all the 12kW racks in one place. We see people mix and match, and you need a strategy that accommodates this.”

Third, according to North, is having an overall management scheme. “An SMB won’t have the infrastructure built up to monitor and maintain their network at the level that a large enterprise will,” he says.

What should Processor readers know about your company’s products?

“Our RPS series provides reliable power distribution and control,” says North. “Our RPC series provides remote power control and metering, bringing remote sites and data centers under IT’s control. Both provide real-time power and environmental metering—amp, volt, watt, and temperature level, power off/on down to the receptacle level—for power-rebooting equipment and also the ability to turn off unused receptacles, so you don’t have people plugging things in when there’s not enough capacity on that power strip and causing the circuit breaker to trip.”

Power-cycling (turning the power off and back on) resolves a surprisingly large number of equipment problems. But unless this can be done remotely, problem resolution still requires a “truck roll” (sending somebody to the remote location). “We give IT as many remote hands as possible,” says North.

What makes your company unique?

“We provide power information and control that’s more granular and meaningful than what other vendors offer,” says North. “Most power vendor gear gives a circuit-level look. We give you a snapshot at any level, [for example,] into the cabinet, where you may have multiple circuit breakers, and even down to the outlet level, which is important. If you trip a breaker servicing 10 receptacles, you need to know what went wrong at any and every breaker point. Using our software, you can get a snapshot of the whole data center or monitor and power-cycle at the receptacle or rack level.”

BayTech is the only company currently giving people the watts information at the power-strip level, says North. "Other companies tell you the amperes load going into a power strip. We also tell you what your power is in watts, so you have a better understanding of how much power you’re using. Watts is a true measure; it can be converted to BTUs, for planning your cooling. And we tell you how much power is being consumed down to the receptacle level.”

Additionally, North notes, “BayTech uses a different approach in product design and manufacture. Rather than using wires to distribute the power to the receptacle connections and soldering the wires to the receptacles or using insulation displacement, we use printed-circuit boards. This gives much more reliable connections and eliminates cold solder joints.”

by Daniel P. Dern