FOCUS DCIM
Issue 17, August/September
example, in the event that a rack is overheating, the physical management offered through StruxureWare will talk directly with the compute management such as VMware Vsphere and System Center from Microsoft. In the event of a power issue within a rack being identified, an alert is send to the virtualization manager which moves the VMs to a location named by the suite as being available and capable of handling them.
POWER MANAGEMENT
Soeren Brogaard Jensen, VP at Schneider Electric’s Software arm, says the firm’s background has put it in an good position for DCIM. He also says that often the facilities management side is missed by analysts.
“DCFM (see box, below) is being missed by most analysts: the cooling systems, the mechanical systems, power quality, the opening and closing of power valves, are being managed today. But if you are not collecting that data, and you have never designed 2N power systems from when the power entered the building down to the rack, you don’t understand the complexity of what is required,” Jensen says.
What Jensen is getting at is that DCIM is not simply about optimizing IT performance or utilization but that electrical subsystem design is such an established and specialist area that understanding power is fundamental to any DCIM development.
He is not dismissing the attempts of IT suppliers to push systems management suites as DCIM solutions but highlights the issue they must address because, he says, they simply don’t
STRUXUREWARE FOR DATA CENTERS
StruxureWare for Data Centers combines Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) and Data Center Facility Management (DCFM) software tools to provide data gathering, monitoring and automation, as well as planning and implementation functionality enabling an integrated and multifaceted view of all the mission critical physical system of the data center.
StruxureWare for Data Centers: Operations Suite StruxureWare Operations Suite is a framework for asset and capacity control over a variety of management dashboards. These range from very detailed, domain-specific dashboards for electrical power and cooling to higher level perspectives relevant to overall data center and single site energy management. Additionally, the dashboards offer multi-site options to support comparisons and corporate energy governance activities.
It addresses planning and implementation activities related to the data center’s physical infrastructure as well as close integration with other IT management systems for improved IT workflow and automation.
understand power and its management.
UNLOCKING CAPACITY Henrik Leerberg, product line director, Enterprise Software, at the company, says many many data center managers today exist in data silos. He says people are still using Microsoft Excel to manage their data centers. “This can’t continue in an environment where they are under constant pressure to do more with less, drive efficiency and lower costs around power, thermal management, integration with building management systems, gathering more server data and managing virtualization deployments. And do it in real time.”
And according to Leerberg it goes beyond simple measuring. “This is producing a huge amount of data. Once I have that data I can begin analysing it. By analyzing it I can use it to make predictions on the impact of my plans. This will tell me how I can utilize the capacity I have in IT, network, power and cooling and how I can convert and use stranded capacity.”
Leerberg says the clever bit is to analyze what the data means, for example if the load on the UPS is 75%. What does it mean if the temperature is up by one degree? Is it trending? What impact does this have on operations?
START UP
What is equally interesting is the nature of the DCIM business within Schneider Electric. Jensen says that the business has a software start-up mentality within the context of an established corporate. Partner alliances are in place and being negotiated with global players.
It is developing its own route to market through a reseller partner network. It will allow ISVs to develop plug-ins for the suite.
In the DCIM market Jensen understands that established companies within the IT stack — IBM, HP, CA Technologies and BMC Software — have products which will do some of what StruxureWare promises.
This is where the alliances count. IBM’s Powerexec and Maximo can talk to StruxureWare Central without any customization. Interfaces with HP Openview are in the pipeline and advanced talks with software firms such as BMC are underway. Discussions with Capgemini are also in progress.
Like other players in this nascent market, Schneider Electric can give examples of companies which undertook data center management and derived benefits. It cites the Dutch police and an unnamed German manufacturer as having deployed its systems which could now be classed as DCIM solutions, and from which tangible benefits were derived as return on investments within months rather than years and 20% reduction in operating costs.
Mid-sized data centers are the initial target with scale-up plans already in place. It does not expect all companies will want to deploy all StruxureWare for Data Center modules. This is accepted by Jensen, who says: “You can derive huge benefits by investing in the whole stack.” n
StruxureWare for Data Centers: Monitoring Suite, StruxureWare Central StruxureWare Central (formerly InfraStruxure Central) provides a unified view and analysis of complex IT physical infrastructure that communicates with building, power, cooling, enterprise IT, security and network management systems.
StruxureWare Power and StruxureWare Cooling Built on existing power monitoring (formerly ION Enterprise) and cooling automation (formerly Continuum).
StruxureWare Power Core Functions include the ability to profile power and energy consumption and trends, characterize power quality events and visually drill down from the overall view of the electrical network to the equipment level.
StruxureWare Cooling Monitors thermal energy plant with specialized monitoring of the data center chilled water sub-system, including cooling towers, chillers, pumps, and computer room and rack air handler
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www.datacenterdynamics.com
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