Rack – Matching Rails to a Server and Rack

Some things I have learned looking after a smallish machine room of 6 cages:

• I have had good luck with the APC netshelter, 42U unit.

• Make sure it's long enough to accommodate your rackmount equipment

• Make sure you have the rails for your equipment - they are often mated to your case

• Account for space eaten by UPS unit(s), I put mine in the bottom of the rack as they are heavy

• Take into account power cable lengths; typical server power cables are usually not long enough to reach servers in the top 8 or so of U the rack, you may need to get a power strip to distribute power

• Make sure there is enough room behind the unit so that you can get in behind to cable, power down and generally fiddle with stuff

• Make sure there is reasonable ventilation in back as all the heat is going to be concentrated to some degree

• Most folks don't leave spaces in the rack between units as the only airflow that matters is what can actually be sucked in the front of the rack to cool the parts inside

• Never rackmount new gear alone. This stuff is heavy and bulky. Have at least an extra set hands to help: no need to lose toes, hands etc or damage equipment especially when racking in the upper portion of the cage. Get a lift unit or scissor table to help if you can

• Make sure you have the right kind of power plugs at the installation - rackmount equipment doesn't always have the nema office power plugs, especially the 30+ amp rackmount ups gear - no bigger bummer than putting it all together and have no way to power up :(

Hope this helps.

Sounds like quite the argument for not using a shared server room facility, but what you can/should do to fairly easily avoid this problem is:

1. Physical access controls on the server room.
   • Could be as simple as a good lock and a key, an RFID badge, or even biometric scanners, but make it something.
   • If you prevent who has access to the room with a good door, decent lock(s), and control over who has the key/badge/biometric clearance to get in, you drastically limit who'll even be in a position to be able to steal your gear.
2. Audio/video surveillance (AKA security cameras).
   • People are much less likely to try to steal something when there's a camera staring them down the whole time.
3. A monitoring system.
   • Get a monitoring system for your gear, so if someone unplugs everything, all the alarms and alerts go off, and everyone starts looking for what's wrong.
     • Couple with a remotely viewable security camera or cameras, and if such a thing happens, you'll be able to know what's going on nearly instantly.
     • Something fairly easy to do, that you should be doing for other reasons anyway, honestly.
4. Physical access controls on the rack and gear in it.
   • Generally, the locks that come on server racks or are used to lock servers into a rack aren't going to stop a determined attacker, but if you're doing the other things right, someone will notice and stop a stranger taking a crowbar to your rack to steal what's inside.
5. Physically secure the rack.
   • Assuming you're in an actual server room or data-center environment you can get cable locks (or even use a long chain and a padlock) you attach to the rack, and run under the raised flooring to prevent the rack from being wheeled away.
     • (EDIT): If you're not in a "real" server room/data-center environment, then yes, this would mean chaining the rack to some piece of infrastructure. It's what you're effectively doing with a chain or cable lock under the floor anyhow (securing the rack to the sub-floor infrastructure your tiles sit on).