Movable server cabinets are used by information technology companies to store computers, servers, monitors, network equipment and other electronics. Server farms contain many hundreds or even thousands of such movable server cabinets. Once in place, cabinets must be immobilized to prevent unintended shifting or rolling, as well as damage that may occur in the event of earthquakes or tremors. In certain installations, the server cabinets roll along an upper floor spaced apart from a sub-floor by a plenum where cabling and cooling means are stowed. Because of this arrangement, it is difficult to secure the cabinet to the sub-floor. Cabinets are usually only indirectly attached to the sub-floor through some indirect coupling between cross-bars.
Customarily, securing a server cabinet is a time consuming process. The server cabinet is first rolled or moved into place. Then, each of the four legs of the cabinet are bolted through the upper floor by a long threaded rod into an anchor in the subfloor. This approach is time consuming and difficult. In particular, securing the cabinet to the subfloor typically requires access to the subfloor after the cabinet is positioned on the upper floor, thereby necessitating removal of the upper floor panels. The installer must then manually guide a threaded rod through a mount on the cabinet base, through the upper floor and into an anchor on the subfloor, repeating this procedure four times (once for each corner of the cabinet). This approach is both laborious and costly, with the installation process taking about 30 minutes to 1 hour per server cabinet. A large server installation may have hundreds of such cabinets in just a single server room. As such, the current methods retard the rapid mobilization of server installations and impose architectural constraints on the localization of the server cabinets.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds