Posted on August 11, 2009
—New visualization, tracking and management tools help data centers improve operations and energy use—
SOMERSET, N.J. (August 11, 2009) - Raritan today announced a major software upgrade to its dcTrack™ data center infrastructure management solution that helps data centers visualize and automate the tracking and management of IT and facility systems.
Ideal for today’s dynamic data centers where IT equipment is added and moved regularly, dcTrack maintains accurate, real-time views and granular details of every element and their connections across the entire data center—including servers, networking and facilities elements. It also provides up-to-the-minute views of a data center’s power consumption, heat dissipation, raised floor space and rack elevations.
dcTrack’s workflow and change management capabilities support the daily operations of managing data centers and reduce significant costs associated with decentralized and manual tracking of key data center assets.
“With today’s software release, data center managers can greatly accelerate and simplify the implementation process of the dcTrack solution in existing and new data centers,” said Khaled Nassoura, General Manager, Green Data Center Initiative at Raritan. “The new enhancements are designed to improve capacity planning and utilization, support change management, and drive costs out of data center operations.”
Through the use of new built-in wizards, dcTrack can import existing spreadsheets containing IT assets and connectivity details without the need to modify the spreadsheets’ structure or format. The time-saving wizards will guide the users in mapping their spreadsheet headings and data to the appropriate dcTrack fields. The wizards are designed to import all data center IT and facility assets, including rack servers, chassis and blade servers, virtual machines, network and SAN infrastructure, rack PDUs, UPS, and CRAC units. Also included in this release are specialized wizards for importing structured cabling, power distribution panel boards, and cable connectivity and cross connect schedules.
These wizards coupled with dcTrack’s ability to link dynamically to existing AutoCAD® and Visio® floor plan drawings greatly simplify the implementation process. The initial deployment and configuration of dcTrack for a mid-size data center can now be successfully completed in days, instead of weeks or months that are required for competitive solutions.
Once deployed, data center managers can use the built-in SNMP auto-discovery features to maintain accurate records of their IT systems, MAC and IP addressing, as well as the software applications in use in the data center.
These new features add to dcTrack’s capabilities in automating many of the laborious tasks that data center managers are faced with today. “By deploying dcTrack, data center managers are now able to streamline their operations and shift their resources towards proactive forward-looking projects and tasks that are designed to reduce costs and improve response times to customers,” adds Nassoura.
End-to-end views of power and data circuits
With dcTrack, end-to-end power and data circuits can be visually and accurately traced - while identifying all intermediate circuit points. dcTrack can monitor in real-time the power and environmental readings from SNMP-enabled power and environmental devices, such as UPS, PDU, rack PDU, power supplies, CRAC units, and temperature and humidity probes. dcTrack can update these readings down to one-second intervals.
dcTrack’s complements Raritan’s power management capabilities of gathering, measuring, monitoring and analyzing power usage at the device level, as well as Raritan’s remote server access and control technologies. dcTrack is capable of monitoring and measuring the Raritan Dominion® PX intelligent rack PDU down to the socket level, as well as the temperature and humidity probes attached to the PX—all the while storing the data in the dcTrack database for reporting and trending. Customers, with this real-time visibility into the power consumption at the device level, can now better plan their data center power capacity and be better prepared for growth.
About Raritan
Raritan is a proven innovator of power management, infrastructure management, KVM and serial solutions for data centers of all sizes. In more than 50,000 locations worldwide, Raritan’s award-winning hardware and software solutions—including intelligent PDUs, energy management software, KVM-over-IP and Serial-over-IP access products—provide IT and facility directors, managers and administrators with the control they need to increase power management efficiency, improve data center productivity and enhance branch office operations. Based in Somerset, N.J., Raritan has offices worldwide serving 76 countries. For more information, visit Raritan.com
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