Create a Row of racks

What it is

A Row is a line of identical racks created in a single step — the way racks are lined up in a data center / CPD. Instead of drawing a floor plan, you tell CreaRack how many racks the row has and how tall they are, and it creates them all at once, grouped together on the dashboard. (The floor plan view comes later, with Rooms.)

You need the admin or operator role to create or delete a Row.

How to create a Row

1. On the My Racks dashboard, click New Row.
2. Fill in the dialog:
   • Row name — for example, “Row A”.
   • Rack name prefix — for example, “A”. The racks are named A01, A02, A03…
   • How many racks.
   • Height (U) — applied to every rack in the row (default 42).
   • Group (optional) — assigns all the racks to a group at once.
   • Power per rack (W) (optional) — a planned power figure for each rack.
   • Common note (optional) — added to every rack.
3. Click Create Row.

CreaRack creates the row and all of its racks in one go. Each rack gets an automatic location such as Row A-1, Row A-2… numbered left to right. Everything is editable afterwards — open any rack to change its name, devices, power or notes.

How a Row looks on the dashboard

The row appears as its own group with a Row badge. Click any rack card to open it in the Rack Editor; close it to return to the dashboard. The group header shows a roll-up of the row’s total power (kW) and space used (% U) — see below.

The Row page (elevation view)

Click the Row name in its group header to open the Row page — an elevation view that shows every rack of the row side by side, drawn to scale, with each device in its unit (and the 0U side PDUs shown with their A/B feed colour). The page header shows the row’s own roll-ups (racks · kW · % U · kg). Use the mouse wheel — or the floating − / + / Fit zoom control in the top-right corner — to zoom, and drag the empty canvas to pan.

Choose how devices are drawn (Stencils / Descriptions)

The Rack view toggle in the top-left corner of the canvas switches how devices are rendered:

• Stencils (default) — each device is drawn with its stencil image, the same front image you see in the Rack Editor, so the row looks like the real thing.
• Descriptions — each device is a plain box with its name, handy when you care about labels rather than looks.

Your choice is remembered on this browser. A device with no stencil image is always shown as a named box, in either mode. Dragging devices and clicking through to the Rack Editor work the same in both views.

Move devices between racks

On the Row page you can drag a device to a different unit of the same rack, or to another rack of the row. It snaps to the unit; if you drop it on an occupied unit or outside the rack, it springs back to its original place. The device keeps its identity when it moves — its discovery profile, configuration backups, cabling and monitoring all travel with it, so nothing starts from scratch. To open a rack in the Rack Editor, click a device or the rack (without dragging).

For now you can drag normal rack-unit devices (full and half width, front side). Vertical 0U side PDUs and rear-side equipment can’t be dragged yet.

Add, move, clone and remove racks

From the Row page you can manage the row’s racks without leaving it:

• Add Rack (top bar) adds a rack at the end of the row, inheriting the row’s pattern: the height, power and group of the last rack, and a name that continues the numbering (A03 → A04).
• Under each rack there are four controls: Left / Right move the rack within the row (reorder it), Clone creates a copy of the rack with all of its devices and places it at the end of the row (named A02 (Copy) — rename it afterwards if you like), and Delete sends it to the trash (you’re asked to confirm; it’s recoverable — see [[crearack—racks—trash-and-restore]]). Left/Right are disabled at the ends of the row.

Manage the Row

Click Manage Row in the page header to administer the whole row at once, instead of editing rack by rack:

• Rename the row. Choose the scope:
  • Row only — changes just the row’s name.
  • Row and racks — also renames every rack. A Rack prefix field appears: the racks are renamed to prefix + number (e.g. B → B01, B02, B03…), the same way as when you create the row. Leave the prefix empty to name them after the row (Row B 1, Row B 2…). Each rack’s location is re-numbered to match too.
• Common height (U) and common power (W) — applied to every rack in the row. Leave a field empty to leave each rack as it is; the dialog pre-fills the common value when all racks already match (or shows Mixed when they differ).
• Add to group — adds the chosen group to every rack of the row. Existing groups on each rack are kept.

If you lower the common height below a device already mounted in one of the racks, CreaRack won’t change anything — it tells you which rack blocks the change so nothing falls off the rack. (Vertical 0U PDUs don’t count toward the height.) You need the admin or operator role to manage a Row.

Power and space roll-up

Every group header on the dashboard — Rows, maps and the No Map section — shows two figures under the rack count:

• kW — total power of the group. For each rack it takes the higher of two figures: the sum of the real wattage of its devices (the Power (W) you set per device in the Rack Editor) and the planned Power Cons. you gave the rack. So a rack whose devices are only partly filled in never shows less than its planned draw, and a rack whose devices add up to more than planned shows the real total.
• % U — how much rack space is occupied: the U used by devices (excluding 0U side PDUs) out of the total capacity of the group.

This gives you the capacity of each row or map at a glance, without opening anything.

How to delete a Row

In the row’s header, click Delete Row and confirm. The row and all its racks move to the trash — they are not destroyed, and you can restore them later. See [[crearack—racks—trash-and-restore]].

Related

• [[crearack—racks—crear-rack]] — create and organize individual racks
• [[crearack—racks—dispositivos]] — place devices (and set their power) inside a rack
• [[crearack—racks—trash-and-restore]] — restore deleted racks

Véase también

• [[crearack—racks—crear-rack]]
• [[crearack—racks—dispositivos]]
• [[crearack—racks—trash-and-restore]]