THE EDGE

requirements changed over the last year and how has the company responded ?

The last year has been challenging . Many workforces are now operating remotely , so that ’ s put a tremendous demand on networks , systems and , ultimately , data centres . For us , it ’ s resulted in an even higher recognition of the need for uptime and the ability to keep the network on and moving so everybody can do their jobs .

We ’ ve recognised that and recently released our latest data centre cabinet product that will hopefully keep data centres up and running as efficiently as possible .

How has cabinet density changed and what is the impact of this on weight loads ?

We ’ ve noticed in the past five or six years an ongoing increase in density . If you think of cabinets or data centre racks as real estate – which , in a lot of ways , they are – real estate is expensive .

The more area that you consume , the more expensive it is to maintain and it ’ s also generally cheaper to go up than out . We ’ ve seen an increase in average cabinet height . Even eight to 10 years ago , 42U was commonplace and it still is but , fast forward a few years and we ’ re seeing 45U as the most common with customers even utilising 48U and up to 52U just to increase the density within that footprint .

As a result of all that additional compute in that same area , you have much higher , heavier cabinet loads that you have to address . And there ’ s a lot of safety elements that go into that .

These cabinets are not cheap . All the compute that goes into them are very expensive . So , ensuring that they can be safely accommodated and transported and do what they are there to do is something that kind of lands on the cabinet to support .

Can you tell us about your new ZetaFrame product and the challenges this is aiming to address ?

One challenge it looks to address is the increased load rating in the market .

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