Introduction
Cable operator networks are large expansive networks that involve hundreds if not thousands of miles of coaxial or fiber cable powered by power supplies in the plant and connecting customers to critical infrastructure facilities such as hubs, headends, data centers, and regional and national distribution datacenters. In these facilities is a vast array of equipment responsible for the production and support of the cable products – voice, video and data as well as newer products such as home automation, security, and Wi-Fi. The importance of powering all of these devices in critical facilities is ever increasing as the customer expectation of 100% availability of service is growing due to expansion of business services and residential competition.
Scope
This standard enables a cable operator to determine how well a piece of rack or shelf equipment performs in terms of minimizing the power required to do a particular job. It provides the means to quantify the amount of useful work the equipment provides per physical space. This standard focuses on the data transport critical facility equipment.
These energy efficiency and functional density metrics apply to all indoor equipment used in critical spaces. These include the following data center, headend, and hub data transport equipment including:
- Server blades, storage devices, enterprise switching and routing, devices.
- Routing and switching equipment for interface to the IP backbone and nationwide network, such as metro and core routing equipment and network management equipment.
This standard does NOT apply to the following equipment classes: customer premise equipment; outside plant equipment; and building support devices such as generators, air conditioning units, and other items mentioned in SCTE 184.
Benefits
The objective of this standard is to solve the problem of gauging − in a standard methodology − the density of hardware to meet the needs of optimizing critical space, as well as gauging energy consumption for data transport equipment.
By leveraging this standard, cable operators can improve their overall energy footprint by enabling engineering-driven decisions that reduce energy consumption for data transport equipment. This document also addresses the foundation of the energy supply chain by providing metrics that define measurable energy performance in terms of useful work/activity.
Intended Audience
Cable operator critical facility engineers and procurement teams.