Challenge

NC State University, a major land-grant institution with over 36,000 students and 9,000 faculty and staff, manages a sprawling 2,100-acre campus equipped with advanced AV technology. Like many higher education institutions, NC State’s tech team faces significant staffing challenges—particularly a shortage of student workers who traditionally support AV troubleshooting and maintenance. This shortage, combined with the sheer size of the campus, makes it difficult to provide timely support and maintain seamless AV operations.

Adding to these challenges are frequent planned and unplanned power outages. Planned outages, necessary for campus-wide infrastructure upgrades, require staff to manually unplug sensitive AV equipment—often in hard-to-access locations—to prevent damage. “We have regular scheduled power outages on campus,” said Brennan Watson, Class Tech Design Engineer. “We wanted to be able to quickly and easily power down or power up systems.” Unplanned outages, sometimes caused by unpredictable events like animals interfering with power lines, further threaten equipment safety and disrupt classroom technology. These power interruptions demand rapid responses to protect equipment and restore services, placing additional strain on an already lean team.

Physically responding to frozen AV equipment or powering down devices during outages is time-consuming and inefficient, pulling valuable staff away from strategic projects and increasing downtime that disrupts teaching momentum. After installing new Vaddio PTZ cameras the prior year, they were well aware of the benefits of remote management and were looking to similarly update their AV systems' power solutions.

Solution

To overcome these operational challenges, NC State deployed Middle Atlantic’s Premium+ Power Distribution Units (PDUs) with RackLink™ remote power management technology. This solution was chosen for its ability to empower a lean tech team to remotely monitor and control power to AV devices across campus.

Key features include:

• Remote Outlet Control: When AV devices in the classroom freeze, the most common solution is a hard power reset. Now the tech team can remotely turn an outlet off and on from a computer, mobile device, control system or cloud service instead of physically going to the unit.
• AutoPing Automatic Reboot: constantly proactively monitor the network status of connected devices and reboot them automatically if the devices no longer respond – allowing the IT team to work on other projects with a greater return on the time investment.
• Environmental Monitoring: external temperature and humidity sensors that can trigger responses like turning on fans within the rack. Not a lot of rooms have adequate airflow into the equipment cabinet, said Kevin Ficker, Class Tech Programmer, adding it’s a nice feature to have in his back pocket if they run into an issue where they think temperatures are causing equipment failure.

Results

With over 200 rooms equipped to date, NC State has standardized RackLink PDUs as their campus-wide solution. This standardization streamlines support workflows and sets clear expectations for faculty and staff, ensuring every classroom supports lecture capture and remote power cycling capabilities.

“We’re fortunate to have standardized across campus,” said Kevin Ficker, Class Tech Programmer. “RackLink lets us manage power remotely, which is a game-changer for a lean team facing staffing shortages and the unpredictability of power outages. It helps us maintain uptime and focus on higher-value projects.”