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In a similar pickle, but we’re building our first ones. My approach is to

1. Increase my understanding on the subject matter. To do that I ordered and just received this: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1118436636/ref=ya_aw_od_pi?ie=UTF8&psc=1
   It looks pretty good content-wise but not that much in the market understanding side. Thus:
   
   
2. Increase my understanding on the market space. To do that I’ve bought technical architecture consultation from a DC vendor, DC procurement consultation from a company recommended by a DC design company and a bunch of gartner analysis’ and reviews of the DC market. Oh and a few trade conventions.

Go to amazon and search for "kill-a-watt" meter - if you run one of these on a load for say 12 hours, you can then just use a spreadsheet to calculate usage over time, since the usage should be consistent over a period of like 12 hours.

Edit: heres an inline one: http://www.amazon.com/Reliance-Controls-THP103-Generator-Appliance/dp/B000G7TKCG/, but it's an instant read meter. The Kill-a-way meters will calculate usage over time and thus give a better picture of a load that may vary, like when disks spin up, etc

Fun read. 1.04W for 1W of computing power is astounding.

I couldn't help but cringe a little inside when "Frank Frankovsky, Facebook’s vice president of hardware design and supply chain operations" said "People run their data centers at 60 or 65 degrees."

That's a bit of embellishment. A cold DC these days is maybe 65º.

And "most servers are expected to keel over at 75F" is a stretch too. Some room UPS units don't operate optimally above 75º because it shortens the life of the lead-acid batteries, but the EMC VNX array that we just put in our DC is listed as fine up to 95º (35ºC) ("Continuous Allowable Range"), the Dell PE 720 servers that go into our DC operate just fine up to 95º, and the Cisco 4500 chassis works fine up to 104º

Even the ASHRAE book recommends an upper limit of 80.6ºF (27ºC).

I believe most any will work. You will need to source the power cord yourself. I use these for "around the house" switches, it supports 100-240V.

There’s a couple reference books that I’ve found helpful for general info:


Data Center Handbook https://www.amazon.com/dp/1118436636/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_t6DODb7ZJSH24


Maintaining Mission Critical Systems in a 24/7 Environment https://www.amazon.com/dp/0470650427/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_W6DODbJ3HR1XM