Posted by Brian Brown on Fri, Aug 27, 2010
Accu-Tech would like to congratulate Garry Pazdzior, recipient of General Cable's 2009 North American CEO Award. It's through hard work and dedication which Garry earned this award and we at Accu-Tech appreciate his efforts.
Nice job Garry.
From General Cable's Press Release:
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Garry Pazdzior Receives General Cable North American CEO Award
Garry Pazdzior, Director of Enterprise Sales in the Southeast United States, was been presented with GeneralCable’s 2009 North American CEO Award on August 4, 2010. The award is given to one associate each year for exemplary performance well beyond the normal expectations of their respective duties.
“Garry was chosen for this award due to his outstanding performance during the 2009 calendar year,” said Gregory Lampert, President and Chief Executive Officer of General Cable North America. “Perhaps most impressive was the work he did to significantly grow our business across our vast portfolio of wire and cable products despite a very challenging market."
"I would like to extend my congratulations to Garry for being named as the 2009 recipient of the North American CEO award,” added Bob Kenny, General Cable’s Vice President, Communications Products. “This is a great accomplishment for Garry. He has achieved major share gains in the telecommunications, data communications and electronics products in his region. This accomplishment represents just how far we have come within the communications sector of the wire and cable industry, representing the true spirit of One General Cable.”
“It is an honor to have Garry as a member of our sales team,” said Brian Moriarty, Vice President of U.S. Sales, General Cable. “He truly is customer-centric—focused first on his customers’ needs and how he can work to build customer relationships that are mutually beneficial for both parties. He relies on his internal partners at General Cable—insides sales, product management, manufacturing and supply chain associates—to deliver on his commitments with the right product, at the right time, at a fair price that meets the agreed upon requirements. And in the end, Garry always follows through to ensure everything goes as planned and if there is anything he can improve upon to make the experience even better in the future.”
Pazdzior received the CEO award from Greg Lampert during an associates’ meeting at the Company headquarters in Highland Heights, Kentucky, on August 4, 2010. The award was presented at the conclusion of the meeting at a ceremony in his honor. In presenting the award, Lampert said, “This would not have been achieved without Garry’s persistence and the countless hours he was willing to dedicate not only in 2009, but over the past few years to achieve his goals. Please accept my congratulations on a job well done and for being the 2009 recipient of this prestigious award.”
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Posted by Brian Brown on Fri, Jul 23, 2010
Re-posted from CPI's blog: Cross Connect.
This past Thursday I received an email from ENERGYSTARdatacenters@icfi.com, along with a copy of “Recommendations for Measuring and Reporting Overall Data Center Efficiency: Version 1”, as did, I suspect a million or so of my closest colleagues in the data center and related industries. The note referenced a January meeting of 7x24 Exchange, ASHRAE, The Green Grid, Silicon Valley Leadership Group, U.S. Department of Energy’s Save Energy Now and Federal Energy Management programs, U. S. Environmental Protection Agency’s ENERGY STAR Program, U.S. Green Building Council, Uptime Institute among others that produced the referenced document. Within minutes, I received the first of a steady stream of broadsides and inquiries and “FYI’s”. This first response is pretty much a sign of the times and people’s general confidence in institutions of any kind:
"Would somebody help me out here and explain to this amateur if I understand correctly. These eminent industry leaders got together for 2-3 days and came up with:
- When calculating PUE, IT energy consumption should, at a minimum, be measured at the output of the uninterruptible power supply (UPS). However, the industry should progressively improve measurement capabilities over time so that measurement of IT energy consumption directly at the IT load (i.e. servers) becomes the common practice.
- For a dedicated data center, the total energy in the PUE equation will include all energy sources at the point of utility handoff to the data center owner operator. For a data center in a mixed-use building, the total energy will be all energy required to operate the data center, similar to a dedicated data center, and should include IT energy, cooling, lighting, and support infrastructure for the data center operations.
That’s the earth shattering news? That the IT energy consumption should be measured at the output of the UPS?
That’s why they all had to get together? Probably took one day to come up with this and two days to expand to the final 12 page document."
Granted, it may be a little silly, but at the same time sometimes the simplest little thing can get complicated really fast. For example, if you are aspiring to operate at a tier 3 or tier 4 level, there are going to be most topologies where it really makes sense to have your air handler fans on UPS. That increases your divisor in the PUE equation, resulting in tier 3 and tier 4 data centers not receiving the appropriate penalty for the inherent excesses required to support the higher availability. And, lo and behold, the EPA was surprised by the results of their benchmarking studies that there was not a terribly significant efficiency difference between the different tier levels. Oh gosh!
Now, for the original purpose of PUE – i.e., benchmarking yourself for continuous improvement, it really doesn’t matter in the least. However, as the PUE metric is now the basis for determining who can achieve Energy Star rating status, it starts to have broader implications. For example, a data center that is operating wastefully at a higher tier level than is really mandated by the business purpose of the data center, will not be appropriately penalized for that wastefulness if they can stick it in the divisor rather than the dividend when they are making their calculations. I don’t know anything about the meeting referenced here, but I sat in on most of the EPA conference calls and this was a subject of ongoing debate and we all basically decided to leave the metric at the UPS output to avoid the additional measuring and monitoring complexity that, with today’s technology, would become so unwieldy it would in itself become an inhibitor to businesses’ participation.
So, while on the surface it seems like a pretty basic output from all the time and energy dedicated to it, it really represents a pretty significant compromise for practicality over accuracy. Furthermore, as with the decision to exclude a geographic handicap in the PUE calculations, these compromises probably will not cloud the program in the first year or two because there is so much room for improvement throughout the industry that it is pretty safe to say that the Energy Star ratings earned early on will more or less accurately represent the targeted 75th percentile of the industry.
For additional information visit the
Energy Star Data Center Efficiency Website.
Posted by Brian Brown on Tue, Jul 20, 2010
Due to audio recording issues on my end, Ian's full interview could not be posted in a quality suitable for our site. I have transcribed the first part of our interview to share with our readers.
Ian Seaton (LinkedIn profile here) of Chatsworth Products, Inc is THE expert to consult when it comes to data center thermal management or really anything related to your data center needs.
From chatsworth.com: "Ian Seaton has over thirty years of product development experience in electro-mechanical systems. He serves on the BICSI standards committee responsible for the new data center design manual as editor of the rack and cabinet section and as a thermal consultant to the mechanical working group. He teaches BICSI accredited data center thermal management courses. Ian has written and spoken extensively on data center thermal management over the past 7+ years. He has a masters degree from California Polytechnic State University and is currently the Technology Marketing Manager for Chatsworth Products."
Ian, who is the Technical Applications Development Manager at CPI, was kind enough to sit down with me to discuss a few key techniques for data center operators.
BB: I’d like to start things off by asking the one question I hear most often: taking you typical datacenter operator, what’s the one the thing he can do to improve his datacenter cooling efficiency?
IS: Well, there’s one simple phrase, divide and conquer. Look at the hot aisle / cold aisle data design that was intended to separate the supply airstreams from the return air streams. Now we have solutions that allow you to essentially contain or isolate those two bodies of air from each other. This isolation is really the most important thing which can be done.
BB: With this sort of containment, what sort of benefits can be derived?
IS: The most important is you eliminate all the hot spots. When you remove all the hot air from the datacenter and completely separate that air from the supply airstream, it’s really impossible to create a hotspot for any server in the data center. Secondly, you have the opportunity to support much higher densities in the data center because when you remove that hot air. Finally, you eliminate the need to overproduce air in the datacenter and that gives you access to some of the energy savings on your air handler power. For example, if you have variable air volume fans running at 80 percent airflow, you’re only consuming 50% of the energy required for those air handlers.
In addition to those three opportunities, you also have the opportunity to change you thermal management thermostat, as it were, from the return air path to the supply air path, because you no longer care what the temperature of that return air is because it doesn’t affect anything in the datacenter.
IS: Also, I’d like to remind everybody that the Environmental Protection Agency has recently released an energy star rating for data centers (found here). The kinds of savings that can be achieved by the strategies I’ve mentioned —beyond the economic impact— also have an impact on helping to qualify for energy star ratings.
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Be sure to check out some of Ian's work here CPI White Papers and Case Studies and take a moment to browse CPI's product spec sheets.
Subscribe to our blog via email.
Posted by Brian Brown on Wed, Jul 14, 2010
When your training staff has over 150 years experience, you know you're in good hands.
Belden Announces Mission Critical Network Design Seminar
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RICHMOND, Ind., July 14 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Belden Inc. (NYSE: BDC)—a world leader in designing, manufacturing, and marketing cable, connectivity, and networking products in markets including industrial automation, enterprise, transportation, infrastructure, and consumer electronics—will present the Hirschmann™ 2010 Mission Critical Network Design Seminar, September 19-22, 2010 at the Renaissance Orlando at SeaWorld Hotel in Orlando, FL.
In today's highly competitive markets, training is essential to establish and maintain the technical competencies needed for success and advancement. This seminar provides a multitude of high quality training options to fit specific levels of expertise. Unlike other seminars, the Mission Critical Network Design Seminar is focused on just one particular area of technology: Industrial Ethernet Networking.
Expertise in designing, implementing and maintaining industrial Ethernet networks will be critical as intelligent use of data becomes the difference between market leaders and also rans. This seminar will position attendees at the forefront of industrial Ethernet networking, now and in the future.
The seminar is intended for system integrators; network design engineers (with Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) or Engineering Procurement and Construction (EPC) firms); and anyone involved with the design, implementation and maintenance of mission critical Ethernet networks. During the seminar, attendees will learn how to effectively reduce costs and installation time by implementing a highly resilient network design.
Presenters with a combined experience of over 150 years will speak on technical topics including Isolating Network Traffic, Implementing Redundancy and Network Security. Each presenter has the experience and technical background to address current technology trends for designing state-of-the art mission critical industrial Ethernet networks in a variety of industries including petrochemical; automotive; and power generation, transmission and distribution.
Read more here [...]
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Posted by Brian Brown on Wed, Jul 14, 2010
Fiber-to-the-Home
“Our goal is to experiment with new ways to help make Internet access better and faster for everyone,” says Google’s site built specifically for their Fiber For Communities project.
The internet giant is bringing 1Gbps connections (100 faster) to one lucky community in North America. No word yet as to which community, but an announcement is promised later this year. The results of this initial trial will determine if Google expands the service. Again from Google, “We’ll offer service at a competitive price to at least 50,000 people and potentially up to 500,000 people.”
Opportunities for Voice and Data Contractors
With this massive fiber-to-the-home project on the horizon, it got me wondering what sort of opportunities does this offer voice and data contractors?
Whose fiber do they plan to use?
Whose connectivity?
How many installers are needed for such a large project?
When you think about the scale of this undertaking, it’s clear there’s money to be made. What opportunities to do you see with this project?
Posted by Brian Brown on Fri, Jul 09, 2010
Accu-Tech is always looking for new talent and as we continually expand our nation-wide reach, new opportunities are being created.
We would like to announce the launch of our updated Careers page. Finding your place at Accu-Tech has never been easier. Whether you’re looking for positions in Sales, Purchasing, Operations, Accounting, or Marketing all of it is right at your finger tips. Search by position, geographic location, or relevant keywords to see what’s available.
Check back often as new positions are being added each week.
Connect with Accu-Tech
Posted by Brian Brown on Tue, Jun 08, 2010
Friday June 4th marked the 13th Annual Accu-Tech Golf Tournament
and Trade Show hosted by the Accu-Tech Atlanta branch. Similar to previous years, the outing was held at the beautiful Bear's Best Atlanta golf club.The event, geared towards the local contractor community, featured training and demonstrations from some of the industry's top suppliers and was followed by a golf tournament and prize drawings.
Todd Delavie, Atlanta Branch Manager and host, had this to say "We had just over 150 people for the trade show and 138 stayed to play golf. It was an incredible turn out and a very successful event."
"It was great for me being that is was my first big customer/vendor event here in Atlanta. It gave me some time to spend with all of our vendors that support us on a day to day basis and I was able to meet many valued customers that I have not been able to see as of yet."
Todd leads Accu-Tech Atlanta as branch managers having come from our Ft. Lauderdale branch last year.
Manufacturer Trade Show
Everything got started early with the trade show kicking things off from 8-11am with an extensive collection of manufacturers:
CPI,
General Cable,
Panduit,
CommScope,
Berk-Tek,
Quiktron,
Hubbell, and
STI, just to name a few. The trade show wasn't limited to voice and data manufacturers,
Sony and
Keyscan were also in attendance to show off the latest in camera and access control technology. Although attendance was high, it wasn't like your typical trade show where you could get lost in the crowds. There was never a shortage of things to see, and the manufacturer's reps were great about giving one-on-one demos or training.
From the Show
For more pictures from the trade show, check out our Facebook page here.
Golf
Threats of rain didn't stop the 138 participants from hitting the course and competing in the tournament. The scramble format allowed players of all skill levels to compete and enjoy the day. The groups came out swinging as two teams shot 58 to tie for the lead and the winning team was chosen based on how they played the course's toughest holes.
From the scratch golfer to the weekend warrior, everyone had their eyes on the par 3's. On these holes, a hole-in-one got you a speed boat, a 2010 Camaro, or a check for $10,000 (sadly, no aces this day).
After the tourney, everyone gathered back at the club house for dinner, prize drawings, and to announce the winners of the long drive and closet to the pin contests.
Todd summarizes the day perfectly; "We received a tremendous amount of positive feedback from all sides. We heard from many of the suppliers that year in and year out, our event is the 'best there is in the Atlanta market'. With the demonstrations at trade show and the relationships made out on the course, I believe this was a very worth while event."
Posted by Will Roles on Mon, May 24, 2010
New Product Release: Velocity Cable Management System
From Kim Ream at the CPI Blog-- Cross Connect:
VelocityTM Cable Management: An Economical Solution That is Easy to Ship, Store and Assemble
CPI has long been a leader in cable management solutions for racks and cabinets, offering a variety of styles designed to meet the cabling needs of small and large applications. Our newest addition is VelocityTM Cable Management - an economical solution that is easy to install, easy to transport and offers more capacity and simplified cable management. Available in single and double-sided vertical managers and single-sided horizontal configurations, Velocity creates a complete pathway for premise cabling and patch cords, supplying comprehensive cable management solutions for open two- and four-post Rack Systems.
Watch our three minute video overview
to see how simple Velocity is to assemble!
If you are unable to view this video, please visit our Video Library.
Visit www.chatsworth.com/velocity for complete product information and downloadable documentation. Please contact us for any questions you may have or feel free to leave a comment.
Posted by Brian Brown on Tue, Apr 27, 2010
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) is designed to pump money into our economy. With $787 billion dollars available for job and economic growth, the ARRA represents a driving force within our industry. In his article for Cabling Installation and Maintenance, Robert Carlson noted that while the ARRA focuses heavily on the outside plant indusrty (through broadband programs), the premise cabling industry should take note considering "$53 billion is allocated for education and another $59 billion for health care—both of which aim to cover improving information technology (IT) in these vertical markets."
This amount of fuding is enough to grab anyone's attention, but what we should take note of is the "Buy American" provision which sets specific guidelines for the material to be used on a ARRA project. Basically, all manufactured goods most be produced in the United States, but navigating the language and understanding the specifics of the actual bill can be difficult. Not to mention understanding waivers which may apply to certain projects and material. Thankfully, General Cable is willing to help with this strenuous process and has identified their products which meet these requirements.
From General Cable:
GENERAL CABLE IDENTIFIES ARRA-ELIGIBLE PRODUCTS
General Cable (NYSE: BGC) is pleased to identify that many of its wire and cable products likely qualify for federal stimulus funding under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), which was signed into law on February 17, 2009. General Cable’s products include copper, aluminum and fiber optic wire and cable for the energy, industrial, specialty and communications markets.
Enacted as Public Law 111-5, ARRA was enacted with over $750 billion of appropriated funds to accomplish the following goals: o Preserve and create jobs and promote economic recovery; o Assist those most impacted by the recession;
o Provide investments needed to increase economic efficiency by spurring technological advances in science and health;
o Invest in transportation, environmental protection, and other infrastructure that will provide long-term economic benefits; and
o Stabilize State and local government budgets, in order to minimize and avoid reductions in essential services and counterproductive state and local tax increases. The ARRA also contains, at Section 1605, its own preference for products manufactured in America. Under this “Buy American” provision, with limited exceptions, none of the funds appropriated under the ARRA may be used for the construction, alteration, maintenance, or repair of a public building or public work unless all of the iron, steel, and manufactured goods used in the project are produced in the United States. Although General Cable is a global company, many of its products are manufactured domestically at one of its 13 manufacturing facilities located throughout the United States. These products would likely meet the Buy American requirement of the ARRA. This Act, like all initiatives that may affect wire and cable, will continuously be reviewed by General Cable’s North American Leadership Team to make recommendations to our Corporate Leadership Team so they may develop strategies and product development actions to meet the needs of our customers here in the United States. If you have a specific technical question related to the origin of a wire and cable product you currently buy from General Cable, please provide the product description, part number, end-use application and market details to your General Cable representative. He or she will review it with the appropriate person and provide a response.
Please note: All inquiries and responses on ARRA should be documented and sent to Rick Roling, Inside Sales Technical Support Analyst for General Cable North America. Rick’s e-mail address is rroling@generalcable.com or he may be reached via phone at General Cable’s Corporate Headquarters at 859.572.8704.
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I highly recommend reading Robert Carlson's full article which can be found here. He does a nice job of breaking down this sometimes complex provision. Also, you can download General Cable's above release here.
Posted by Brian Brown on Fri, Apr 16, 2010
Yesterday was our training event at Louisville Slugger Field, home of minor league baseball team the Bats. This was a massive day of training, with a total of 7 BICSI Continuing Education Credits available through three unique classes. When all was said and done, I called in to Stephen Chew (Accu-Tech) and Phong Pham (Corning Cable Systems) to discuss the event and get their thoughts on how these training events help customers.
"We had a successful day of BICSI training with some of our largest suppliers: Corning, CPI and Quiktron. We had a nice turn out of people who received their BICSI credits, learned about product, and, hopefully, learned how to make a little extra money " says Stephen Chew of Accu-Tech.
The Bottomline
Phong Pham, Corning Cable Systems, agreed: "To Stephen's point, the ultimate goal is the bottom line. We're looking at how can we help customers generate revenue and increase their bottom-line. It's about choosing the right equipment which increases productivity."
Courses Offered
The course was an all day event, lead off by
Corning's OTDR & Fusion Splicer Equipment, followed by
Quiktron's A/V Connectivity Basics, and
Chatsworth Products, Inc. wrapped up with their class:
The Cabinet's Place in the Data Center for Thermal Management. Each class was designed to be a hands on and interactive experience rather than a stale lecture.
While a total of
7 BICSI CEC's were available, the training was so much more. "Whether you need BICSI credits or not, if you're in the industry, these classes have information you need to know so you can build your business. We try to make these events as fun as possible. We're taking people out of the field for a few hours and by the end of the classes, we hope we've made them better contractors. Our plans are to take this type of training on the road and offer classes which hook people's attention" said Chew.
What's Next?
As to when and where we can expect another major event like this one, Phong says; "Well, I go wherever Chew sends me; that's where I'm going, east coast, west coast, it doesn't matter. The focus is your network; where it stands today and how to move forward in the future. Many networks aren't ready for the future. We are looking to change that."
These events are about the contractor community. We're looking to provide individuals with an edge that sets them apart from their competition. If you have ideas for a training event in your area or particulars areas of interest you'd like to learn more about, let us know.
photo credit: Michael Martinez