2003 American Power Conversion. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be used, reproduced, photocopied, transmitted, or
stored in any retrieval system of any nature, without the written permission of the copyright owner. www.apc.com Rev 2003-1
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Introduction
In the late 70's companies began installing computers in rack enclosures; however, without multi-vendor
compatibility installations were difficult. In 1984 the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC)
approved the IEC 297-3 standard as a means to standardize the mechanical dimensions of 19-inch (482.6-
mm) enclosures. Other standards such as the EIA 310 (Electronic Industries Alliance) provided further
standardization to rack mounting telecommunications and IT equipment. Despite these standards, the
dynamic pace of the computer industry combined with its convergence with the telecom industry has
caused problems that these standards are slow to address. In this paper, a systematic approach of
identifying and classifying user problems provides insight regarding the nature and characteristics of next-
generation rack systems.
This paper focuses on the problems associated with rack mounting telecommunications equipment and IT
equipment in today's data centers. A related APC white paper #4: "Powering Imperatives for Data Centers
and Network Rooms" addresses the related problems of providing power. APC white paper #5: "Cooling
Imperatives for Data Centers and Network Rooms" focuses on the problem of removing power in the form
of heat.
Survey
A survey of management personnel relating to data centers and network rooms was conducted,
interviewing corporate CIO's, Facility Managers, and IT Managers. Over 150 people were interviewed from
over 90 different organizations including Fortune 1000 companies, Government and Education, and Service
Providers. Approximately 50% of customers interviewed were from North America, 20% from Europe, and
30% from Japan, Pacific, Australia, and Asia (JPAA) region.
The one year survey utilized "Voice of the Customer" techniques, which relies on data collection of verbal
and/or written responses to open-ended questions. This provides extremely unstructured responses, with
the advantage that the responses are not limited or constricted by preconceptions within the question.
During the course of the survey, some of the questions were expanded and/or changed in order to clarify
ambiguous responses.
Results: Data Center and Network Room Rack
Imperatives
Survey responses were grouped according to common concepts, and for each group a summary need,
corresponding to an imperative for next generation data center and network room design, was derived.
This process identified 18 core imperatives. These core imperatives were then further grouped according to
theme into the following 5 key theme areas:
