Description
Management of assets in the data center is incomplete, inaccurate, and difficult to maintain with today’s technology
A data center can contain thousands of assets, from servers, storage and network devices to infrastructure support equipment such as Computer Room Air Conditioners, PDUs and UPSs. Keeping track of these assets is an ongoing task faced by data center managers around the world. A Digital Realty Trust survey found that only 26% of data center managers could locate a server that had gone down within minutes. Only 58% could locate the server within 4 hours and 20% required more than a day. The inability to locate equipment in the data center increases the mean time to repair (MTTR) for the equipment and decreases the overall availability.
The ability to manage the IT assets is only part of the solution, however. There are three primary resources which must be considered when trying to determine where to place the next rack asset:
- Space – is there enough contiguous space to house the asset?
- Power – is there sufficient redundant power for the asset?
- Cooling – is there enough cooling to remove the heat generated by the asset?
Comprehensive management of IT equipment at the rack level must consider space, power and cooling. This white paper addresses the state of the systems and related technology currently being used to address rack level management and provides criteria to use in the search for an optimal solution.
