asset management
CLOSE CONTROL
Adrian Barker of RF Code discusses the importance of
accurate, real time asset management in the data centre.
D
ata centres underpin
the digital world in
which we live. They
are the engines of
commerce and the
demands put upon them means it
is essential facilities are constantly
available. The majority of data centre
managers who are responsible
for multi-million pound facilities
recognise the value of monitoring
and management to ensure
availability for their customers – after
all, no one wants to risk an outage.
But how can managers ensure
adequate protection against that
risk? With a combination of best
practice and the use of precise
management initiatives to protect
critical assets.
Most organisations monitor
power and environmental conditions
within the facility due to the
relationship between increased
availability and efficiency. Thermal
monitoring can lead to considerable
cost savings and delivers details of
the relationship between compute
demand and power to enable
decisions to be made about exactly
how much power is needed in
relation to capacity.
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Despite the value asset
management presents to operational
teams, asset management has
seen slower adoption. The reason
typically offered is that many
operators don’t consider their
data centres to be highly dynamic
environments. However, a data
centre is not as static as the
majority of people think, and total
asset lifecycles don’t begin and
end with asset deployment. Take a
server’s lifespan as an example assets change location a significant
number of times. Delivery bays,
storage rooms, maintenance areas,
in the rack, in decommissioning
sites and eventually out of the
facility for safe disposal.
A life of its own
During their lifespan, assets will
be moved from location to location
and in some instances data centre
managers would have nothing more
than a spreadsheet detailing an
asset’s last shown whereabouts.
Manual methods are prone to
human error and to have a detailed,
up to date audit of all assets would
be near impossible and labour
intensive. Thankfully, there are now
solutions that offer continuous,
real time asset data on equipment
location, specification and historical
interactions with employees.
What this means is data centre
managers can identify each
device and its location with power
paths, network connections and
dependencie s clearly mapped out.
In addition, real time environmental
monitoring data can be correlated
with asset management information
to detect stranded capacity, identify
overprovisioning and reduce
operational costs.
Where capacity does exist, the
system will provide details, which is
vital when you consider the expense
involved in building extra capacity.
With Total Cost of Ownership (TCO)
now a major objective for data
centre operators, gaining visibility
over assets and capacity will
become a key factor in achieving
this aim.
Assets working together
Real time monitoring, asset
management and capacity planning
offer substantial benefits, but the
true potential of these technologies
lies in the insight that can be