The Latest APC News
Product and Solution Information, Press Releases, Announcements
| APC’s New InfraStruxure Management Software Provide View of IT Physical Infrastructure | |
| Posted: Fri Dec 11, 2009 02:34:00 PM | |
|
APC by Schneider Electric, a global leader in integrated critical power and cooling services, today announced new products and enhancements to its InfraStruxure® Management Software that identifies opportunities for savings such as right-sizing data center physical infrastructure equipment, which alone can save up to 38 percent in electrical costs [1]. The APC InfraStruxure Management Software portfolio helps companies improve energy and cost efficiencies and support short- and long-term planning, forecasting and budgeting. With the new portfolio, data center managers and IT executives have the ability to take a holistic view of data center physical infrastructure service quality, end-to-end energy use, and the various costs associated with it. The vendor-neutral software provides the industry’s first and broadest integrations with critical IT support systems, including Schneider Electric PowerLogic ION-Enterprise power management, building management and enterprise management, enabling the monitoring, controlling and resolving of issues in a user-friendly environment. “Businesses are continually looking to make smart decisions across every part of their organization and data centers should be no different. A broad, comprehensive view and analysis of complex IT physical infrastructure enables greater efficiency and an entirely new level of business insight for our customers,” said Dave Guidette, senior vice president, Enterprise Systems, Services & Software, APC. “In addition, the continued integration to Schneider Electric’s Power and Building control systems and the introduction of the InfraStuxure Energy Efficiency application demonstrate definitive steps in our company’s delivery of the newly announced EcoStruxure™ architecture, providing customers with solutions that create an intelligent energy management system across all application areas.” The new APC InfraStruxure Management Software portfolio moves beyond traditional monitoring and control of power, cooling, security and environment, to bring data centers the information needed to run as a business, such as predictive simulation and stranded capacity, equipment age and health, current and historic power usage effectiveness (PUE), energy use and costs. The software suite reduces multiple log-ins, simplifies training for day-to-day operations, and brings a new visual experience to the workings of the data center, including pre-set and customizable map views, trending reports, physical views and location-based drill-downs. The vendor-neutral portfolio, which includes the introduction of InfraStruxure Energy Efficiency, InfraStruxure Operations, InfraStruxure Central 6.0, InfraStruxure Capacity 6.0 and InfraStruxure Mobile 6.0, integrates and communicates with leading building, enterprise and network management systems through open-standards and includes a full SDK (Software Developers Kit) to custom integrate with other systems. “With energy costs rising for most organizations, it is vital for executives to employ the appropriate tools and techniques to help manage the energy cost curve,” said Rakesh Kumar, Research Vice President, Gartner. “Having access to analytics and metrics into areas including current and historical power usage values and which subsystem draws the most costs, organizations are able to fully understanding how to improve energy efficiency and control costs across the board.” With InfraStruxure Energy Efficiency, IT organizations have insight into current and historical PUE data and can identify efficiency losses, enabling a fact-based understanding of how much power is devoted to driving the installed IT-equipment compared with the total facility consumption. In addition, through a web-based dashboard, data center executives have the ability to view detailed insight into how effectively energy is utilized down to the subsystem level, as well as an understanding of how to improve energy efficiency. As subsystem data can either be measured or estimated, customers with few power meters will also benefit from the application. InfraStruxure Operations enables vendor-agnostic inventory management with real-time device failures, presents data shown within the data center physical layout and provides recommendations on how to resolve issues. Additionally, a location-based drill-down view provides a structured overview of data center locations from a global to local view down to single assets, and the PUE calculator supplies information on daily utilization of energy. InfraStruxure Central 6.0 monitors and manages all networked physical infrastructure devices and integrates them with other management systems for a complete, end-to-end view of the data center. The new version of the software enables two-way communication with critical power and building infrastructure such as generators and air handlers, manages power quality from the utility through interaction with any building power meter, and provides click-of-a-button power utilization data via integration with PowerLogic ION-Enterprise. For the first time, summary reports are available to bring new insight into data center health, planning and budgeting, and suppressed notification and maintenance mode capabilities ensure fast and accurate notifications to the right people at the right time. Rounding out the portfolio are InfraStruxure Capacity 6.0 and InfraStruxure Mobile 6.0. The InfraStruxure Capacity 6.0 application helps plan and optimize utilization of the actual physical infrastructure capacities, enabling efficient equipment provisioning and right-sizing of the data center. Additionally, the new version bridges another application layer by identifying and simulating which servers are impacted by failures in the physical infrastructure and linking the physical layer with business processes further up the chain. Based on Motorola (Symbol) MC70 hardware, InfraStruxure Mobile 6.0 provides wireless operation of the data center and automatically synchronizes server locations, ensuring data integrity and improving operational efficiency. |