Thread: New Age Data Center Management Tools

One significant trend in data cen¬ters is that of remote manage¬ment. This reduces chances of human error, which is a major cause of downtime in data centers. Plus, remote management also reduces security risks, as fewer people are allowed entry into the data center. Today there are tools that will allow you to manage just about every as¬pect of a data center remotely, from any¬where in the world over the Internet. So for instance, you'll find tools to monitor and manage the power being supplied to all the data center equipment.



There are tools for managing and provisioning servers, tools to manage the network and storage infrastructure like switches, NAS, SAN, etc. Besides these, there are even tools that let you design your data center. A major contributor in many of the remote data center management tools are web 2.0 technologies. In this article, we'll look at some of these tools and how you can use them to manage your data center.

Data Center Design Tool: Design Intent Tool version 1.2 Having a blue print in hand before actually implementing a plan is always a more efficient approach than doing things directly. So, we will start with a planning tool that helps in creating an actual design of a data center. Design intent not only helps in managing the design of a data center, but it also helps in managing its future expansion and renovation. Using this tool one can document all the necessary information about data center development life cycle like maximum energy consumption, fu¬ture server types, and key focus areas.