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Thomas Weisel Partners is comprised of several areas offering value-added research, institutional sales, trading and investment-banking groups focused on servicing the nation’s top institutional investors and emerging growth companies. The firm’s entrepreneurial mindset pushes staff to go the extra mile and offer creative solutions for clients, and Kevin Fiore’s server department is right there every step of the way.

With its main offices in San Francisco, New York and Boston, some of the firm’s data centers underwent a recent technology upgrade and facelift. “We had a need to change our power distribution, rack setup and KVM infrastructure,” says Fiore, director of server engineering.

“Our systems need to be up 7x24. Investment banking is round-the-clock, people are in the office at all times, and financial deals and research just seem to be ongoing,” he adds of the demands on his server department.

“We have over 100 servers, and technology has really changed in the past few years. Initially, it was data center real estate that we were lacking. More recently, it’s been how to power servers that are now only 1U or 2U. The power and cooling requirements for these are quite different.”

With people needing servers up all the time, upgrading the infrastructure was quite an undertaking. For the rack enclosures, the upgrade included the HP 10000 Series Rack to ensure that a variety of equipment could be installed rapidly with good cable-management options. This enterprise-class rack cabinet system combines next-generation structural integrity and ease-of-use capabilities. The deeper, 1M form factor maximizes the use of space to accommodate the increasing depth of next-generation servers and storage products. The large cable egresses with felt in the rack top, the removable access panel on the rear door, cable straps, and split rear doors help to cope with tricky cable-management issues.

In addition, the racks’ fully perforated front and rear doors provide efficient convection cooling and improved visibility and ventilation. “To deal with the increased heat from the computing equipment, we went with alternating hot and cold aisles. That arrangement and the perforated doors help us meet our cooling objective,” says Fiore.

Inside the rack, Fiore went with HP’s modular power distribution units (PDUs) to distribute power as the data center migrated from low-line power to high-line power. Modular PDUs consist of two essential building blocks–the control unit and the extension bars. The control unit is 1U or 0U mountable, and the extension bars mount directly to the frame of the rack in nearly any desired location. With both high-line and low-line models, Thomas Weisel Partners gained more outlets (increasing the number of outlets up to 32 per modular PDU), simplified cable management and rack space savings with the 0U mounting.

Installation of the PDUs was a bit of trial and error. “Originally, we mounted the PDUs in the center. Then we realized that we could gain quite a bit of space and retain the accessibility by taking advantage of the zero U mounting option,” Fiore explains.

No infrastructure setup would be complete without a monitor and keyboard setup. The HP KVM (keyboard/video/mouse) solutions allow IT administrators to manage data centers of all sizes through local or network access at speeds comparable to direct console control. The HP IP console switches provide both local rack console access and network accessibility to KVM functions of attached servers.

Users can access applications and screens as if they were standing directly in front of the servers and rack enclosures, according to Fiore. Security for servers is controlled with a database that is configured and saved on the switch.

“At Thomas Weisel, we have the flat screen monitor and keyboard along with the HP server and IP console switches,” says Fiore. “We’re capitalizing on the benefits of remote monitoring with the IP console, as several IT team members are now able to provide instant support from remote locations.”

Whether asset management, equity trading or research, the Thomas Weisel system manages valuable data and information stores. As with many businesses, some reports run during the wee hours of the night in preparation for the next business day. It was during one of the recent overnight batch jobs that remote management saved the day.

“When an application hangs up or needs to be rebooted, anyone who has a computer connection and the proper security rights can use the IP console to remotely get the system up and going again,” Fiore offers. “A few weeks ago, we had one of those middle-of-the-night emergencies, and the remote capability saved us about an hour. That might not seem like much at first glance, but it keeps the users of the system satisfied and productive.”

With the upgrades to the system, Fiore says Thomas Weisel Partners now has a more efficient distribution of its high- and low-line power with the modular PDUs, has maximum expansion and deployment flexibility with its racks, and ease of remote management with the IP consoles. That is a system you can bank on.

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