APC Journal

WEST KINGSTON, R.I., Oct. 27 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- American Power Conversion (APC), a leading global provider of high availability systems for network-critical physical infrastructure (NCPI), today announced its new Blade Readiness Assessment Service that provides IT professionals with an assessment of the feasibility of successfully deploying blade servers in their current data center installations. The Blade Readiness Assessment Service provides evaluations of essential data center NCPI components including power, cooling, facility and rack capabilities, as well as management systems. For each assessment, APC's Global Services staff conducts site surveys and provide a report that includes identifying constraints, as well as offering power and cooling enhancement options, and optimal blade deployment strategies. The assessment service also benchmarks the power and cooling performance of the facility against typical and best-in- class deployments.

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IT industry research and analysis firm Gartner predicts that blade servers will account for 20 percent of all server shipments worldwide by 2010.* This would make blades the fastest growing server by a wide margin. To successfully deploy these high-density processors, however, managers must avoid costly mistakes that can lead to overheated equipment, data loss and premature equipment failure.

"Deploying blade servers provides tremendous benefits, but, at the same time, these powerful devices introduce critical challenges in the data center such as new power and cooling requirements," said Dwight Sperry, APC's vice president, Enterprise Systems and Business Networks. "The Blade Readiness Assessment Service is one of APC's services that helps IT professionals determine if their data centers are capable of deploying this new technology, as well as allow them to optimize their NCPI over the complete data center life cycle."

A typical customer for this type of assessment survey is a facilities or IT manager of a small to medium data center (under 5000 sq. ft.) who plans to consolidate using blade servers or implement technology upgrades. The assessment includes analysis of a data center's current power and cooling constraints. APC Global Services staff provide an analysis of the current installation's ability to support blades and determine how many blades can be installed, and where. In addition, APC will measure the current power and cooling capacity at the room level and at the row level to determine the actual as-installed power and cooling capabilities, which are typically not the same as the nameplate values of the equipment. Similarly, APC also measures existing temperature conditions using thermal imaging, which indicates where unacceptable or marginal overheating conditions currently exist and will likely represent failure locations in any blade server deployment.

The Blade Readiness Assessment Service is currently available in North America and the United Kingdom. The cost of a Blade Readiness Assessment begins at $6,000 USD. Please call your local APC sales representative or APC at 800-877-4080 to schedule an assessment. For more information about APC's products, please visit http://www.apc.com/ or call 800-877-4080.

About American Power Conversion

Founded in 1981, American Power Conversion (APC) is a leading provider of global, end-to-end solutions for real-time infrastructure. APC's comprehensive products and services for home and corporate environments improve the availability, manageability and performance of sensitive electronic, network, communication and industrial equipment of all sizes. Headquartered in West Kingston, Rhode Island, APC reported sales of $1.7 billion for the year ended December 31, 2004, and is a Fortune 1000, Nasdaq 100 and S&P 500 Company. All trademarks are the property of their owners. Additional information about APC and its global end-to-end solutions is available at http://www.apc.com/ or by calling 800-877-4080.

* Gartner report G00128143, "Capitalizing on the Blade Server Opportunity," June 29, 2005.

For more information contact: Media:

Chet Lasell, APC director, public relations-North America, 800-788-2208 ext. 2693, chet.lasell@apcc.com

Investors:

Debbie Hancock, APC director, investor relations, 401-789-5735, ext. 2994, debbie.hancock@apcc.com

CONTACT: Chet Lasell, director, public relations-North America,
+1-800-788-2208, ext. 2693, chet.lasell@apcc.com, or Debbie Hancock, director,
investor relations, 401-789-5735, ext. 2994, debbie.hancock@apcc.com, both of
APC

Web site: http://www.apc.com/

Company News On-Call: http://www.prnewswire.com/comp/046187.html

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