Redefining Data Center Physical Realities In A Software-Defined Virtualised Era

Here are multiple tools that help the data center managers to manage the servers remotely. These remote management tools ensure cost-effective, secure and centralized server management with dynamic power management capabilities

We are rapidly progressing towards a reality where IT infrastructure would be soon governed by ‘Cloud’ and servers would resonate with what is called as ‘Virtual’ and networks would become more software defined. In fact, the irony of virtualization is that it makes the physical realities of IT infrastructure even more important by dramatically increasing the density and scale of workloads in the data center—along with the consequences of physical infrastructure failures.

Companies today are significantly investing on agile infrastructure, big data, and relevant disciplines to accelerate digital customer engagement and have a more analytic insight into them. However, the ability to successfully use these software and data in either form depends on healthy, efficient underlying physical infrastructure. And these select physical realities will determine the business performance at any point of time:

Accurate Delivery of the Right Power to the Right Device

Appropriate Temperatures and other Environmental Conditions

Access for Maintenance and Troubleshooting

DATA CENTER CAPABILITIES CANNOT BE COMPROMISED IN A VIRTUALISED WORLD

Industry experts have identified Five Key Aspects of IT concerning computing’s physical realities, as it becomes more virtualized, software-defined, and cloud-based, And these cannot be compromised.

TECHNOLOGY ECONOMIES

Technology economies encompass the costs that help drive the physical infrastructure through workloads - consumption of server, storage, and network capacity, which definitely includes Electricity Costs, Labour Costs and Floorspace Costs. Data centers and IT labs everywhere are approaching operational capacity limits. Power resources are increasingly constrained and the cost of energy is spiralling out of control. Increasing density to the racks, real time monitoring of power consumption, remote management & monitoring softwares can bring significant economies and higher profitability.

Industries are increasingly adopting intelligent PDUS and inline meters that offer accurate information with billing-grade, real-time kWh data, voltage, active power

and apparent power. Three-phase power to the cabinet is trending in data centers worldwide because of its success in reducing costs by eliminating unnecessary voltage transformations and line transmission loss. Available environment sensors can ensure uptime by monitoring racks for potential hot spots; able to make strategic decisions on cooling design and containment are saving up to 4% in energy costs for every set point.

BUSINESS RISK

Extreme weather conditions, errors by grid operators and the cloud/internet connectivity disruption represent major risks to the smooth functioning resulting in power failures, connectivity issue and device blindness.

There are multiple tools that help the data center managers to manage the servers remotely. These remote management tools ensure cost-effective, secure and centralized server management with dynamic power management capabilities. They create real time actionable insights that help the DC managers to mitigate business risks. Perhaps, there are unique solutions that combined with tight security, power and environmental control can operate in private and in hybrid clouds endowing IT administrators to visualize assets, troubleshoot issues, restore operations and provide the actual picture anytime and anywhere.

OPERATION SCALE

Operational scalability is closely tied to physical factors like Floor or Rack Density, Power Distribution & Monitoring and intensified Cooling Requirements. Data Centers can upscale capacity by implementing the right physical infrastructure that supports high-density computing, scalable solutions for cost efficient long-term capacity planning thereby improving power efficiencies. Deployment of 3phase PDU’s at the rack level – which then provide single phase power to the IT equipment – is the most cost efficient way to achieve higher compute densities / rack. Importantly, maximum utilisation of space is inevitable to accommodate the rapidly increasing big data storage needs.

The use of environment sensors will let the data center managers monitor temperature in real-time and calculate potential savings. Optimizing the data center ecosystem will help in reducing operational costs, and improving your power usage effectiveness (PUE).

AGILITY & INNOVATION

Traditional spinning disks, specialized security appliances and converged systems that provide tight integration between purpose-configured compute, storage, and network components are passé since they tend to accentuate data center density.

Converged infrastructure tends to accentuate data center density and business agility can include both scaling up and down. It is highly important for IT managers to detect periods of lower infrastructure utilization and be able to consolidate VMs, power down devices, etc. to recover operational costs. And this is not possible without real-time monitoring that can provide the slightest insights about every nook and corner of your data center infrastructure. Besides, businesses today include solidstate storage systems that can considerably improve performances.

SECURITY & COMPLIANCE

Security pose to be the most integral part of a data center environment with increasing number of breaches across sectors. It can halt operations, interrupt sales, cause irreplaceable data loss and create CRM issues. Adoption of contact closure sensors can help safeguard your cabinet racks. They are designed to trigger an event so that a webcam snaps a picture whenever it detects that the cabinet door has been opened. Dry contact closure sensors have provisions for third-party devices like smoke detectors that will alert the data center manager about possible fire, unusual electronic door opening and locking. Deploying these will ensure equipment changes are executed securely.

CONCLUSION

It is inevitable that Data center managers can serve their organizations more effectively by addressing these physical factors while pursuing the advantages of a virtualized infrastructure. The more we leap towards digitalization and cloud, the tendency to ignore basic physical infrastructure necessities of data-center will keep rising. Accurate delivery of the right power to the right device, appropriate temperatures and other environmental conditions and access for maintenance and troubleshooting are integral of any data center environment. It would be a prudent move to consider these aspects before tracking other tech-centric issue, which might pose a risk to the business performance. And like Satya Nadela, CEO Microsoft, rightly worded it “Everything is going to be connected to cloud and data. All of this will be mediated by software”