Patent ID: 8328026

Claim:
A chassis, comprising: a housing having plural mechanically inter-connected sides that collectively enclose a volume in which at least one card module can be arranged, the sides including a first lateral side and a second lateral side opposite the first lateral side and having a plurality of vents therein, the housing also having a plurality of slots at least one of which houses at least one fan disposed adjacent the first lateral side, the chassis being arrangeable in one of a horizontally-disposed orientation in a first rack having a first opening width, and a vertically-disposed orientation in a second rack having a second opening width, the first opening width being greater than the second opening width, the chassis having a predetermined chassis width of a size such that the second opening width is an integer multiple of the predetermined chassis width, the chassis width being sized to provide cooling for housed components when the chassis is disposed horizontally in the first rack and vertically in the second rack by accommodating forced movement of air pulled by the at least one fan along a direction from the second lateral side towards and exhausted by the at least one fan through the plurality of vents in the first lateral side, without requiring the forced movement of air to reverse direction; and at least one mounting mechanism to facilitate coupling of the chassis to at least one of the first and second racks, the at least one mounting mechanism having at least one ventilation aperture through which the air passes.