Power Advice; Considerations - IBM x3850 X6 Planning And Implementation Manual

4.5 Power advice

In this section, we provide power planning considerations, explanations of the power
subsystem in the x3850 X6 and x3950 X6 servers and examples of best practices for
configuring power connections and power distribution. We also describe advice for adequate
cooling for racks containing these systems.
This section covers the following topics:
4.5.1, "Considerations" on page 113
4.5.2, "Power supply redundancy" on page 114
4.5.3, "Rules for achieving redundancy" on page 115
4.5.4, "Power supply installation order" on page 116
4.5.5, "Power policy" on page 117
4.5.6, "Additional power settings in the IMM2" on page 119
4.5.7, "Examples of power connections" on page 121

4.5.1 Considerations

When planning your power source for an x3850 X6 or an x3950 X6 system rack installation,
you should consider a number of variables, including these:
Input voltage range: 100-120 VAC or 200-240 VAC
Power distribution unit (PDU) input: single-phase or three-phase
Power redundancies: AC source feed (power feed) N+N, power supply N+1, or power
supply N (no redundancy)
PDU control: switched and monitored, monitored, or non-monitored
Hardware: Quantity of components and component power draw
The following information and examples will provide guidance on selecting PDUs, power
input line cords, and PDU to server power jumper cord connections.
There are two approaches to provisioning power:
Provision to the label rating of the power supplies so that any configuration can be
supported; this covers all hot-swap components that can be added later.
Provision to the maximum, calculated, or observed power that the systems can draw.
The official power planning tool is the IBM Power Configurator. You can determine the total
power draw of your server configuration with this tool. See the following website:
http://ibm.com/systems/bladecenter/resources/powerconfig.html
For assistance with selecting appropriate PDUs to configure, see one of the following guides:
For North America and Japan, see this website:
http://www.ibm.com/support/techdocs/atsmastr.nsf/WebIndex/WP101526
For other countries and regions, see this website:
http://www.ibm.com/support/techdocs/atsmastr.nsf/WebIndex/WP101615
Chapter 4. Infrastructure planning
113