Real-Time Monitoring in Complex Data Centers
Do you want to know and learn more about how real-time monitoring in complex data centers works? Surely Yes! Then you’re at the right place. Here, we’ll give you pointers on how to establish real-time monitoring in complex data centers. It may or may not be a surprise to you, but real-time monitoring is not quite as simple as we think. However, applying the process intelligently makes it easy. For data center operations, it is often difficult to identify critical data. Another vital aspect here is to understand background noise. As a result, data center managers should be able to quickly identify urgent alerts, which in turn can help to figure out a realistic picture of their infrastructure. In other words, the ability to distill data is of great necessity.
The crucial nature of Real-Time Monitoring in Complex Data Centers
Andrew Graham, director of data center solutions at Critical Environments Group, together with Cam Rogers, director of international and Western sales at RLE Technologies, outlined the following framework during their presentation on Real-time Environmental monitoring at the World Data Center in 2020. The aim of the presentation is to help organizations set up real-time monitoring across a hybrid setup to effectively manage and expand infrastructure. Use the table of content below to navigate through the guide.
Now that you are aware of the crucial nature of real-time monitoring in complex data centers, it is time for you to go through the six essential steps proposed by Graham and Rogers for implementing real-time monitoring across hybrid IT data centers. For a successful implementation, IT teams should examine the five W's which are notably; who, what, when, where and why as explained in the following paragraph.
Find out why Complex Data Centers need Real-Time Monitoring
Before investing in any type of real-time monitoring, an IT team should first find out its relevance to the data center. Common reasons include improvement in productivity, streamlined management, cost reduction and eventually reducing unforeseen and downtime. These reasons are particularly compelling as organizations plan to expand infrastructure outside an on-premises data center. As mentioned by Graham, when hybrid IT evolved, capacity management was a major problem for businesses that ran their own data center. The main aim of technology was to provide snapshots of data center infrastructure. For this reason, IT teams should be assisted to manage data centers more efficiently and effectively.
For example, the quotation from Rajan Battish, principal at RSP Architects, adds more flesh to the bone; "Real-time monitoring has advanced so much; it has always been there. What we've seen over the years, they were taking the information at the rack level and trying to optimize that with the infrastructure. Monitoring systems started to get the health of the data center, and it became a way to automate and optimize."
Identify who should participate in the Monitoring Process
Secondly, after identifying the need for real-time monitoring in complex data centers, the next step is to find out a team that will monitor the process. At this level, the IT team should build a business case and decide who should integrate the real-time monitoring process. That is to say, decide; who is informed when problems arise, who is responsible for facility conditions, and to whom the system transmits information within a reasonable time frame. Moreover, decide which personnel addresses new application rollouts, and which team is responsible for process improvements and effectiveness.
Identifying members for Real-Time Monitoring process
For instance, in organizations with off-premises infrastructure, admins must account for any outside parties, such as colocation and cloud providers, manage service providers, partners, and vendors that might require reporting. Therefore, identifying and choosing key stakeholders is very important for IT staffs. This can affect reporting structure, software alerts and reduce reporting redundancies. Notice from Rogers's quotation that; "Every stakeholder has different priorities, and IT managers may have different needs than a facility manager. They [are the ones] to decide what's critical and what's not critical."
According to Roger, organizations can start with localized alarms that aren't necessarily connected to everything. Rogers supports this point with the following quotation; "Unless you staff 24/7, when you don't have visibility into alarms, then things can go south very quickly.?You need to look at the facility and get the alarms to the right people," Visualizing metrics from your data center is equally a vital aspect of this framework. For more details on the visualization of metrics, stay connected to the next paragraph.
Visualize the most useful metrics from your Data Center
There are a lot of data to track when it comes to data center infrastructure. With a real-time monitoring setup, managers should decide which metrics are useful to them and can provide them with information rapidly. According to Rogers, this really comes down to what assets you're looking to manage and cover. Most organizations rely on common metrics. Some of them include; Energy Reduction, IT Equipment Utilization, Data Center Infrastructure Efficiency (DCIE), and Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE).
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Visualizing useful metrics from Data Centers
It is important for admins to handle these metrics with caution. In fact, PUE is a widely used metric. It is based on general estimates of IT facility power and total equipment power. For this reason, by performing IT upgrades, the PUE could increase. Consequently, Graham recommends that PUE should not be compared to other data centers outside an organization. PUE should instead be used as an internal measurement.
In the same vein, as mentioned by Graham and Rogers, there are other metrics apart from DCIE and PUE that managers can use. Among them includes for example cooling metrics which in turn require more data and analysis, leading to low adoption.?Another question arises at this point, which is when to implement monitoring or expand capacity. The next paragraph gives an answer to this question.
Determine when to implement Monitoring or expand capacity
It can be tricky to determine the right time to increase capacity or system applications, due to the constant evolution of IT. Your IT staff should check whether your management and monitoring tools can help in planning, scheduling, and performing internal development and improvements. Graham sheds more light on this point with the following quotation; "You can't just think about when you need to have equipment available and running to have an application. You need to work back from your go-live date to cover all resources needed through each step through the implementation."
In addition, real-time monitoring is useful on a daily basis with metrics for specific incidents; For example, when an incident occurs, when it is reported, and when it is resolved. The identification of these specific points in real-time helps organizations to react more proactively to incidents, especially when such situations show patterns over time or occur regularly at specific intervals. Another vital aspect of this framework is the localization of the infrastructure for real-time monitoring. The next paragraph gives you more details on this point.
Decide where to locate the infrastructure for Real-Time Monitoring
After determining when to implement monitoring or expand capacity, organizations should consider where to place monitoring software and hardware. For instance, Whether on-premises data center, off-site at edge nodes, or colocation. There should be a continuous process to track capacity and connected devices from an internal standpoint. Since information is equally provided by cloud providers, IT teams should not hesitate to ask if data can be tracked and traced within the cloud, and establish any compliance needs for documentation or specialized applications.
With a more precise idea of the location of all the hardware and data within an IT set- up, organizations can figure out which real-time monitoring offering is most suited for their needs and can support all the types of technologies required. This ensures effective capacity management?and consistent performance once real-time monitoring is in place. The last step in this framework is to determine how to monitor the infrastructure.
Find out how to monitor the infrastructure
When the IT staff, stakeholders, and managers have tackled issues concerning; when, where, and what to monitor, it is now the time for admins to determine how the organization should implement real-time monitoring and increase infrastructure capacity. This requires an understanding of factors capable of influencing growth in infrastructure, such as hot spots, outages/Failures, lack of cooling resources, running out of floor space, and water events. Based on Rajan Battish′s research, most organizations face difficulties during the implementation phase, especially in situations where the hardware and software must communicate with each other.
How to monitor the infrastructure in real-time
Since most organizations use different vendors to build up data center infrastructure, it is important to have a convergence protocol. Protocol converters and sensors can help collect data and thus increase real-time monitoring capabilities. Rogers's quotation sheds more light on this point as follows; "There are numerous options when it comes to sensors, so make sure to do your homework and not lock yourself into something that's proprietary and doesn't have the needed functionality for today, tomorrow, and in the future."
Moreover, organizations can either purchase host software off the shelf or customize it for internal needs. This combination of software and sensors helps managers and admins to reduce the number of daily remedial tasks. Graham equally stipulates that: "When people are constantly fixing the same issues, it's not good for morale. We're not saying that everyone needs a single pane of glass, but they should reduce redundancy, get consolidated, and address the right issues. Transformation in monitoring and management allows people to be more effective and lead in our industry and focus on more optimization."
Now that you are aware of the crucial nature and the implementation process of Real-Time Monitoring in Complex Data Centers, it's time for you to implement it or expand capacity in your organization.