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Rackwise Data Center Manager (DCM)

DCM Rack View

Analysis
DCM Analysis provides instant access to critical information and facilitates decision making on key data center issues.  The system provides accurate and organized information such as space, power, heat, cooling, port availability and weight capacity on racks. This information is generated from customer-specific data and RACKWISE’s proprietary component database.  The data can be easily manipulated to conduct various analyses to address customers’ needs.  The Company productizes more sophisticated analyses, such as Advanced Power Management (“APM”), and sells them to its customers as optional modules.  

Management
DCM Management provides users with the tools to effectively track and manage data center assets. Coupled with simple operational procedures, changes to the infrastructure (such as decommissioned servers or new deployments) are tracked within DCM to ensure the ongoing accuracy of the data in the system.  Custom properties can be used to map applications or other key information to components, providing a clear view of the business processes that are likely to be affected by a shutdown or failure of a device.  
We are currently developing an Integration Service feature that is expected to integrate with a customer’s Configuration Management Database (“CMDB”) to provide a wealth of live data feeds within our dashboard.  Along with managing the physical infrastructure of the data center, a user should be able to “open the server” with a simple click of the mouse at our GUI-based dashboard.  For example, it is expected that a user will be able to click on a server that is running virtualization software to directly access live server performance and monitoring data.  

Optional Modules
In addition to the five primary components of our DCM solution, we currently provide customers with the opportunity to add additional functionality through two optional modules: Advance Power Management, and Trend and Historical Reporting.  These modules allow customers to add value as follows:

• Advance Power Management – APM is an advanced power module that introduces additional layers of detail and functionality specifically designed to manage the power infrastructure of data centers.  Full detail of the power system of a data center is captured down to the UPS, PDU and circuit levels.  This additional layer of information is fully utilized within all components of the DCM solution including Visualization, Documentation, Modeling, Analysis and Management.

• Trend and Historical Reporting – Trend and Historical Reporting is an advanced documentation tool that provides sets of advanced reports for the management of data centers. Drawn from the best practices of our customer base, these reports are relevant, well presented and utilize the rich data that is housed in the DCM solution. Customer-specific historical trends are clearly presented and powerful collateral material is provided for forecasting and budgeting.  These reports contribute to substantial cost savings in many areas such as power capacity planning.  In most cases, power companies do not charge data centers for power usage but for power capacity reserved.  As such, many companies oversubscribe for electrical capacity due to a lack of understanding of their true electricity consumption requirements

Rackwise DCM delivers powerful, yet easy to use features which allow IT Managers to effectively manage and optimise the physical elements of Data Centres including Servers, racks, cabling, power and cooling. DCM provides enterprises with superior visibility of their Data Centre assets, powerful reporting tools and sophisticated analytics to improve performance and drive cost savings through more efficient resource utilisation and power consumption. The major components of the DCM solution are Visualisation, Documentation, Modeling, Analysis and Management:

Visualisation
DCM Visualisation graphically renders an enterprise’s data center assets into an easy-to¬use, multi-layered, GUI-based user dashboard. Users can drill through the various layers of the dashboard from a top down data center view, to a rack view, server view and even a blade or component view.  Additional layers of critical data that can be accessed with a single mouse click include power consumption, heat generation, current usage and power availability/current availability across a group of blades, servers, racks or an entire data center. Further layers of information include the display of hot-cold aisles, display door swings, location and density of perforated tiles and customizable datasets to fit the specific needs of individual customer data center layouts.

We have compiled a propriety graphical, component database of over 10,000 items that represent the preponderance of IT components produced by all of the major networking and storage component vendors that are typically found in data centers today.  Based on well known Visio graphical standards, we are currently adding approximately 200 items to the database on a monthly basis as new products or modifications are introduced into the marketplace.  Each item is tagged with detailed manufacturer specifications that serve as a key source of data to facilitate the functionality of the DCM solution.

Documentation
DCM Documentation is a reporting engine that renders customer-specific data coupled with RACKWISE’s proprietary component database into simple yet detailed reports for IT managers.  We provide our customers with a significant number of standard reports that cover areas such as power consumption, connectivity, environmental impact, asset management and step-by-step assembly.  For example, to produce a power consumption report on a specific area of a data center, the DCM documentation module is expected to automatically combine customer-specific unit, configuration and utilization data of the components in the targeted area with manufacturer specifications to produce a highly accurate and relevant report which can be replicated with ease across all data centers, racks or components.  The standard reports are customizable to meet each customer’s specific needs and an unlimited variety of custom reports can also be built from scratch within the DCM system. 
Our reports allow customers to benefit from the “green” movement that is growing in the global community.  Many power companies currently provide their customers with subsidies on IT purchases that result in measurable reductions in electricity consumption. For example, Pacific Gas & Electric provides 50% rebates on project expenses for companies that can prove that they have reduced their power consumption by specific thresholds. DCM enables the reduction in energy consumption and provides the documentation to take full advantage of these types of programs.  

Modeling
DCM Modeling allows users to examine “what if” scenarios and the impact that these scenarios have on the operations of data centers.  The impact of proposed equipment upgrades or changes to power requirements, heat production and other environmental concerns are automatically calculated and presented to IT managers.  These results can be compared with readings from the active environment to help managers make sound business decisions. In addition, users are able to examine various power schemes to determine which scenarios yield the most optimal results without having to test them in real world environments.  The modeling tool allows users to determine the impact of emergencies such as a sudden shutdown of a portion of the data center.  With the results of these emergency scenarios, contingency plans can be put into place to mitigate the potential damage that may result from these hypothetical but realistic events.  DCM Modeling is also utilized in “greenfield” scenarios where the planning of a new data center or an expansion or consolidation of an existing data center can be planned out step-by-step with greater clarity into how the independent components affect the performance of the entire data center.  

 

 

 

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