Modius Data Center Blog

What You Really, Really Need: The Mother of all Data Center Monitors!

You may have asked yourself, “Why do I need another monitoring and reporting product if I already have five?”  True, you most likely don’t need another monitoring product, but rather what you really, really need is a system to link these systems together. 

Why?  Because several different monitoring systems operating in their own silos doesn’t help you improve your business.  Instead, what you need to do is build business logic for optimization and capacity expansion strategies, as well as decrease the time spent to repair problems. 

To do this effectively, you need a super system: what we call the “mother of all monitors”.  This is a system that cannot only collect a superset of monitoring data from different point solutions, but also connect directly to other devices that may not currently be monitored (e.g. generators, transfer switches, breaker panels, etc.).  And it needs to do this with the kind of scalability, analytics, and ability to integrate with other management systems that you would expect from an enterprise-class tool. 

Here at Modius, we are already seeing this happen in the field.  There is a current trend among data center managers to link their monitoring platforms together so that they have one common central platform to view and navigate to distributed monitoring systems.  We have designed our application, OpenData, with a  “Monitor of Monitors” architecture in order to provide operators with a single pain of glass into both the facilities infrastructure including power-chain, cooling, and redundancies as well as IT system level information.

The key problems solved are:

1.  System-level metrics - Link system level IT metrics to facilities capacities  
2.  Trouble shooting - Accelerate trouble shooting and fault dependency mapping
3. Alarm management - Reduction in “noise-level” alarms
4. Analytics - Building business-level metrics (BI) for capacity, efficiency, etc.
5. Controls-based integrations – Improved automation based on broad data capture

Here is some more detail on each of these benefit areas …

1)      System-level metrics

Typically, IT system-level metrics are collected by system management tools and will provide logical properties based on MIB-2 or the Host MIB (RFC-1514).  This provides IT managers with data on the operating health of the equipment and capacity related to CPU, Disc, I/O, Memory.  What management systems typically do not provide, however, is how facilities (power, cooling, etc.) impacts the cost of operations and the amount of optimal cooling. 

By linking IT system-level metrics with unified facilities monitoring through a single portal, higher level business and operating metrics can be formulated to reduce the cost of operations by tuning available cooling resources to the actual needs of each server instance or other IT gear.

2)      Trouble shooting

By consolidating event and performance data into a single view, you can quickly determine the cascade of failures with the visibility to determine the impacts of facility equipment.  An example could be a PDU failure and what devices are in the path of the affected circuit.  In redundant environments there will be a fail-over to the second PDU but in most cases the assurances of a successful hand-off are difficult to predict.  By linking both facilities BMS, PDU’s, UPS, Genset with system level IT information the relationships are documented, visualized, correlated and actively monitored.

3)      Reduction in rogue alarms

By linking point solutions and consolidated even level data, a complete historical view may be achieved.  Through this historical view, alarm flows can be optimized and reduced operationally.  An example would be a BMS received alarms at a rate where the alarms become noise as they are not easily tuned.  Also contextually, it is very difficult to look at what a typical operating condition is as there is not enough or broad enough history to proactively set truly meaningful thresholds or deviations.

4)      BI-based business metrics

With a single point of consolidation, you can quickly build reports and dashboards across platforms.  An example would be a stock chart type view when you can visualize a period of time.  This is used to determine deviations from the norm which might cause downtime or affect operational performance.  With several independent systems it becomes impossible to correlate based on time or carry enough history to gain the insight necessary to prevent a potential outage.

5)      Single application launch point

The “Monitor of Monitor” architecture brings a unified structure to gain access to operational and control systems.  An example use case would be to identify cooling requirements based on broad-based data capture (e.g. an array of environmental sensors at the rack level, or real-time server-inlet temperatures taken directly from servers themselves) and then tie the resulting performance metrics into building control systems to tune VFD’s and cooling output.  Integrating the BMS application directly to the monitoring system allows the use the real-time data required and feedback mechanism to optimize cooling and cost without overheating the IT equipment.

Conclusion

If you would like more detail on how Modius can help with any the above topic areas, please reach out directly using info@modius.com, and we will be happy to set up an appointment.

Do Co-los & MSPs need Unified Monitoring & Measurement more than other Data Centers?

Here at Modius, we are seeing an increasing number of requests among Co-locations (Co-los) and Managed Service Providers (MSPs) to help them capture more robust and accurate power measurement data.  In one sense, this trend is nothing new because all data centers—whether captive inside an enterprise or an outsourced service provider—need accurate power measurement, typically for improving:

• Capacity optimization
• Energy efficiency
• Uptime assurance

But we find that Co-lo’s and MSP’s have a special need that takes power reporting to the next level: Providing disaggregated energy consumption and power usage data by customer at a very granular level, often by rack or even a group of servers.  Typically, they need detailed power metering for each customer, principally for:

• More accurate customer billing
• Detailed status reporting to the customer (in real-time) through a customer portal

Customers are now wanting this information not only to be sure their power bills are accurate, but also to try and determine their available power capacity, usage trends, and accurate data to support reporting on PUE and Carbon management.  Or even more of a challenge, they need to unify data across different locations because their customers are spread across several different buildings. 

Theoretically, some of this data can been captured from the servers.  In fact, with distributed systems management tools, reporting on server energy consumption (at the server level) is relatively commonplace.  But this data source is incomplete.  What if you want to factor in cooling and other related energy consumption?  Or what if you also want environmental reporting for bottom/middle/top for each rack?  Now, this is much more challenging …

In general, most Co-Lo’s don’t have access to the server instrumentation data at the chassis level.  And in terms of power and cooling, we’ve found that most co-location providers are still struggling to unify a broad range of equipment into a single monitoring fabric and extend the framework across disparate systems and locations. 

Happily, there are several Co-Lo’s operators taking the initiative by unifying their monitoring of power and cooling equipment with a real-time data center monitoring and measurement system like Modius OpenData.  And many are augmenting power and cooling data by installing new breaker level metering and.  Moreover, many are even using this data to create centralized customer portals to provide their customers with reporting and a real-time view of their power capacity and consumption.  Further, they are adding a layer of analytics and baselines on energy efficiency and reliability. 

As the industry becomes more competitive, service providers cannot continue with business as usual.  Many Co-lo’s and MSP’s have taken this initiative so that they can differentiate themselves, have better visibility on how they can extend their internal resources, and provide PUE and Carbon reporting services to their customers. 

We believe the underlying driver behind this trend is the fact that an increasing number of corporations and enterprises with large IT departments are being tasked by their senior management to provide comprehensive reports on power usage and their relative efficiency, regardless of whether the enterprise owns their own data center facilities or outsource part of their infrastructure. 

Be it end-users, Co-lo’s or MSP’s, everyone is increasingly looking to software providers like Modius to solve the comprehensive measurement and reporting problem, and we believe they are finding that Modius OpenData is the right product at the right time and value.

Want to Try OpenData before you Buy? Modius offers “virtual” POC

Enterprise software Proof-of-Concepts (POCs) are often challenging to administer and implement as they typically require the vendor to train, install and implement the software in the client’s facility.  This process can prove costly and time consuming for both the vendor and the client. 

Modius has solved this challenge by creating a new offering for a “virtual” proof of concept (vPOC).  The vPOC allows customers to try Modius OpenData in a secure sandbox environment without installing any local software. 

The database is pre-populated with a typical Data Center environment including a full range of data center equipment, including typical ‘heavy equipment’ such as UPS, CRAC, Genset, PDU, as well as rack-level equipment such as iPDU’s and wireless temperature sensors from leading equipment providers including HP, IBM, APC, Emerson, RFCODE, and Server Tech.

The vPOC provides a fully-functional instance of the Modius OpenData system that the user can manage and administer.  The Graphical User Interface (GUI) allows the user to drill through to each device and identify which alarm points are being collected, how they are correlated and distributed, their polling rates, and which “real-time” alarms are critical or require immediate action. Typical customers who are signing up for a Modius vPOC are looking to replace several existing monitoring point solutions (e.g. homegrown, ALC or DataTrax).  In addition, they may be looking at Modius OpenData’s “multi-site” capability to consolidate existing infrastructure monitoring across multiple locations with a single repository of easy accessed and reported information for availability, capacity, and performance utilization.

 

The process to get started is as simple as signing up for the 15-Day free trial.  To get started, please see our vPOC registration page for a simple form to have one of our team contact you.

Data Center Economics 101: Cool when it's cheap!

OK, I have been doing a bunch of reading about the highly innovative approaches to energy management being tested in places like Arizona. Phoenix as you can imagine sees temperature extremes like few other places in the country. (I remember stepping off a plane at Sky Harbor Airport in June 1979 and seeing an air temperature of 118-degrees). HEAT is a major topic in Phoenix. And as they say, "It's a dry heat".  That said, it is a great place for people and academia and technology. Lots of land, lots of great people, lots of sunshine.

So it was no wonder that a 'master plan' was created when revitalizing their economy over the past decade. New headquarter locations, businesses, downtown campuses and sprawling Data Centers have all sprung up and are considered some of the best in the nation. (Look at I/O Data Center's North 48th street facility as an example of a BIG new data center, with HALF A MILLION square feet coming online).

For the downtown area, an innovative approach was taken in the 2002 timeframe for cooling which I had not seen at this scale before. The local public utility (APS) created a commercial partnership called Northwind to provide cooling to the new sports stadium being built. Traditional approaches for cooling this size open-air pro sports stadium in 120-degree heat proved to be an interesting challenge, so innovative new ways of doing so were solicited. The challenge: Provide a comfortable environment for tens of thousands of sports fans during a ball game being played in the hot July and August afternoons. Somehow exploit the fact that lots of extra capacity in POWER was widely available during the middle of the night when kilowatt rates were low, and be prepared for massive cooling needs during the next DAY (about 12 hours later). The Opportunity: Figure out how to spend money on energy 12 hours before it was needed? How to STORE energy required for cooling at this scale effectively. They needed a massive 'energy battery'.

So, how did they solve this energy management task? ICE. It occured to their engineers that ICE is a great medium for storing energy. It can be created at any time, and used in the future as demand requires. Ultimately they built a highly efficient ICE plant that each night was able to manufacture 3 MILLION POUNDS of solid ICE when the power rates were the lowest. As each subsequent day progressed and business demands required cooling, the ICE would be used to absorb heat from water with the newly chilled water distributed as needed. The water was recaptured, and used to create ICE the next night in a closed loop system.

This approach worked SO well, that within the first few years, Northwind had sold it's entire energy savings capacity for the downtown plant to other commercial properties in the area. Turns out it really is quite easy to transport this chilled water at a relatively low cost in an area such as downtown Phoenix. Economies of scale play out nicely here.

Who would have thought? Make lots of ICE at midnight when it was cheap, and then use it to cool as needed the next day. And do so on a REALLY GRAND scale to the tune of MILLIONS of pounds each day. Actually there are a number of projects just like this now in operation, including several in New York City and Toronto to name a few.

Energy management innovation is key. Look past the traditional. Investments were made in well thought-out new technologies that could capture savings and return value to customers. Everybody Wins!

 

Why has it been so hard to deploy Data Center Monitoring?

For those of you following my writings, you'll know that I've "been around the block" a few times in the IT world. For 30 years I've seen alot of technologies come and go. Various technologies always seem to sound great at first (to some people), but how those technologies play out over time is a measure of the capabilities, costs, and timing BUT more importantly a bit of 'chance'. Sometimes it just doesn't add up or make any sense, and yet certain solutions thrive while others fail. Data Center Management has always been considered an "ART" rather than a science. Emotions, previous experiences and personal focal points drive investments within the data center. The ART of data center design varies widely from company to company.

That background is a good point of reference when considering the task at hand for today: Explaining just WHY it has been so hard to deploy data center monitoring, and include both IT gear AND facilities equipment in the standard IT planning and performance processes. As it turns out, IT gear vendors have done a fairly good job of standardizing management protocols and access mechanisms, but there have been simply too many incompatible facilities gear management systems over the years. Many are still very proprietary and/or undocumented or poorly documented. Additionally, the equipment manufacturers have been in NO hurry to make their devices communicate any better with anything in the outside world. "Their equipment, their tools" has been the way of life for facilities gear vendors. (I call it "Vendor-Lock").

Ironically, these "facilities" sub-systems (like power and cooling) would likely be considered today as THE most mission critical part of running IT cost-effectively. We need to find any answer....

So, we have two factors to consider:

1. Data Center Design is considered by many to be an ART rather than a science. Depending on the leadership, various differing levels of emphasis is paid in different technology areas.

2. Data Center Monitoring has been historically viewed as difficult to deploy across the field of devices and the resulting limited reports and views to be insignificant and non-impactful to the bigger picture.

Well, times have changed. Senior leadership across corporations are asking the IT organization to behave more like a science. The days of 'art' are drawing to a close. Accountability, effectiveness, ROI, efficiency are all part of the new daily mantra within IT. Management needs repeatable, defendable investments that can withstand any challenge, and yet allow for any change.

Additionally, with the price of energy over 3 years surpassing the initial acquisition price of that same gear, the most innovative Data Center Managers are taking a fresh new look at deploying active, strategic Data Center Monitoring as part of their baseline efforts. How else would a data center manager know where to make new investments in energy efficiency technologies without some means to establish baselines and continuous measurements towards results? How would they know if they succeeded?

Data Center Monitoring can be easily deployed today, accounting for all of any company's geographically distributed sites, leveraging all of their existing instrumentation (shipping in newly purchased IT gear for the past few years), and topping it off with a whole slew of amazing wireless sensor systems to augment it all.

Today, integrated data center monitoring across IT gear and facilities equipment is not only possible, but quite EASY to deploy for any company that chooses to do so.

You just Gotta-Wanna!

Data Center Management must include continuous real-time monitoring.

I spend a great deal of time talking about data center efficiency and the technologies available to assist in driving efficiency up. Additionally a great deal of my time is spent discussing how to determine success in the process(es). What I find is that there is still a fundamental missing appreciation for the need for 'continuous' real-time monitoring to measure success using industry norms such as PUE, DCIE, TCE and SWaP. I can't tell you how many times someone will tell me that their PUE is a given value, and look at me oddly when I ask 'WHEN was that?'. It would be like me saying 'I remember that I was hungry sometime this year'. The first response would clearly be 'WHEN was that?'

Most best practice guidelines and organizations involved here, (such as The Green Grid, and ITIL) are very clear that the improvement process must be continuous, and therefore the monitoring in support of that goal must also be. PUE for instance WILL vary from moment to moment based upon time of day and day of year. It is greatly affected by IT loads AND the weather for example. PUE therefore needs to be a running figure, and ideally monitored regularly enough that the Business IT folks can detremine trending and other impacts of new business applications, infrastructure investments, and operational changes as they affect the bottom line.

Monitoring technologies should be deployed that are installed permanently. In general, 'more is better' for data center monitoring. The more meters, values, sensors and instrumentation you can find and monitor, the more likely you'll have the raw information needed to analyze the data center's performance. Remember, PUE is just ONE KPI that has enough backing to be considered an indicator of success or progress. There surely will be many other KPIs determined internally which will require various sets of raw data points. More *IS* better!

We all get hungry every 4 hours, why would we monitor our precious data centers any less often?

ASHRAE raises (and lowers) the bar for Data Center Cooling!

It's finally here, the ASHRAE Technical Committee 9.9 has released new recommendations for the temperature and humidity most ideal for data centers.

In a nutshell, dry bulb temperature recommendations now extend down to 64.4-degrees F, and UP to 80.6-degrees F and the humidity range is also expanded at both ends.

Both of these are VERY realistic in today's real world. Extending the LOWER limit  down to 64.4F eliminates a great deal of need to mix HOT and COLD previously required to maintain the previous low limit of 68-degrees F. I could never really get a handle on why the recommendation of 68-degree was imposed. It seems to be counter-intuitive that a data center manager that mainly has a heat issue would be required to add heat back into the precious cooling stream... hence with the lower value, the DC manager will have to do this mix LESS often. Nice!

Perhaps more important for the majority of data center operators, is the official sanction to extend the UPPER limit now to 80.6-degree F. Touche'!!!!  We all know that IT gear is spec'd well above these figures, and raising data center temperatures by even a single degree makes a significant impact into cooling costs. Immediately apparent is the ability to use economizer technologies for a much higher percentage of the hours each year.

The TC 9.9 guideline also shows some real thought for Moisture, with the UPPER and LOWER limits tuned to today's conditions and technologies.

The changes to the relative humidity guideline addresses the risks associated with Electro-static discharge (too low) and Conductive Anodic Filament growth (too high). This CAF basically occurs in dense PC board laminate dielectrics when tiny filaments of Copper spring out due to moisture and sometimes cause semiconductor-like connectivity between adjacent routes and vias (holes).

 

(Here is some light reading on CAF:  http://www.parkelectro.com/parkelectro/images/CAF%20Article.pdf)

So what does this all mean to you??? It means that the operation of a data center using 'best practices' as recommended by ASHRAE will be much more manageable and potentially much more economical. We no longer have to 'baby' the IT gear, and treat it will soft kidd gloves. Intel, Seagate, Infineon and a slew of other IT gear component makers have gone to great lengths to design their individual component-level devices to work hard in a wide range of environments, and we have barely even approached the limits by any analysis. We have played it very safe for a very long time...

We can now feel empowered to stretch a bit. push a little faster, a little deeper and with a bit less rigor for the environment. A little common sense goes a long way...

Data Center Monitoring - MUST be Enterprise in Scale!

Over the course of meeting with perhaps 100 customers over the last 6 months, it has become painfully clear to me that there is widescale and growing confusion about Real-Time Data Center Monitoring.

I would suggest that Real-Time monitoring which answers MOST customers' needs MUST have a number of specific capabilities which the vast majority of what's available today do NOT:

1. Scale. Most shipping Data Center Management and Monitoring solutions fail to realize that SCALE is a big deal. Monitoring 100 devices on a trade show floor demo is entirely different that deploying true monitoring across 20 sites, each with thousands of devices. You simply can't use the same ARCHITECTURE, and all the marketing fluff in the world won't solve this fundamental structure issue. The ONLY way to scale this is using a DISTRIBUTED architecture.

2. Device Coverage. These same vendors will tell you that they speak SNMP and that everything you need to monitor speaks SNMP. Nonsense! Firstly, there are many protocols including Mod-Bus, SNMP, BACnet, WMI, Serial, etc, etc. Secondly, just supporting the protocol doesn't get you much closer to the device knowledge. Each device has to be specifically understood to read the required values. In most vendor's proposals, this shows up as "Professional Services" which means 'We'll figure it out on the job, on your dime'.

3. Real-Time Monitoring MUST store observed metrics and KPIs over long periods of time. I would suggest that while there are many reasons why most customers want to see real-time monitoring, the vast majority of these reasons are TIME-BASED. The monitored values or metrics need to be collected, time-stamped, stored, and available openly to run analysis upon. While customers may want to know that the data center is consuming 350kW this instant, what they REALLY want to know is that the data center WAS consuming 275kW 3 months ago, 310kW last month, 350kW today, and then PROJECT the future date of the wall that they will hit of the 500kW feed from the power utility.

The road ahead will continue to be littered with failed deployments of real-time management solutions which do NOT realize the dream of Data Center Monitoring. Customers should challenge their vendors to answer ALL of the tough questions. Consider the old-school 'Get it in Writing' approach, and then be very specific about your expectations, needs, and acceptance criterior...

Let's ALL win this GREEN game!

Going GREEN does NOT mean Going CHEAP!

The IT industry has focused a tremendous amount of attention to the concept of 'GREEN' over the past 5 years. Many of the players, both IT vendors and consumers of IT gear alike have created GREEN Officers or Sustainability Czars, and even whole organizations that focus on 'greening' a company or a product strategy. Green is timely and exciting and viewed as a good corporate citizen thing to do. However, the realities of COSTS are now beginning to materialize.

While it is very exciting to standup in front of your shareholders and articulate all of the GREEN initiatives in progress, there have been a number of recent 'green' projects conceived a few years ago that have been put 'on hold' pending funding. The reality of GREEN is that it COSTS money! It may cost money short term, or it may be long term. Green is not cheap. In some cases an ROI can be calculated to show savings over longer periods of time, in somes cases new technologies must be invented to make any difference in costs.

Consider the grocery store analogy. An organic pear may be 40% higher in cost than a 'generic' pear. Yes, everybody knows that organic is healthier, but how many people are willing to spend 20%-40% MORE for the Organic versions of their groceries? Oh sure, at first you tried a few, but the likelihood is that many of us switched back to regular foods and continue to buy non-Organic groceries due to cost.

Another gem... I priced a 5kW solar system for my house a year or two ago, and with a total cost of over $50K, I calculated the break-even point (after rebates!) to be 9 years! Hummm, so I would have to write a check for $50K, and then over the next 9 years would get my $50K back, and THEN I might start saving money...

In the world of IT, we have the same thing happening today. Many of the biggest companies that jumped into 'GREEN' early because they thought it was a good corporate citizen move while at the same time believing it would somehow save them money, are now finding that 'going green' COSTS money. REAL money! It may be an upfront cost with a 3-5 year payback, or it could be permanent ongoing costs. The fact is TODAY that a kW of power generated by Wind or Solar has a cost of 5-10 TIMES that of fossil fuel generate power. (See the URL: http://greenecon.net/understanding-the-cost-of-solar-energy/energy_economics.html).

Our best bet today is to use advanced monitoring to determine WHERE energy is being used, and how exactly how much by each application. This will set the stage for future investments in green technologies to be deployed. And remember, "Going Green" does NOT mean your energy efficiency is going to be better. You could running your entire data center on renewable power, but do so with a horrible PUE due to process and architecture problems. Wasting a watt is wasting a watt, regardless of where the watt came from.

We have the opportunity to push each other towards data center innovation, the creation of new power and cooling technologies, various regulatory reforms to spur investment even furthar and above all, demand accountability across the board.

Modius Teams with GroundWork for Unified Data Center Monitoring

One project that we have been working on at Modius is teaming with our friends at GroundWork Open Source (GWOS) on unifying their comprehensive IT monitoring with Modius facilities infrastructure monitoring.

Here is our recent webcast on the integration between our two products.  GWOS hosted this webinar from their offices, and many of the people in the audience were IT Operations professionals. 

To watch the webinar, please go here:

Unified Infrastructure Monitoring with Modius & GroundWork