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Monitoring Framework Needed?
To steer and control power usage successfully a power usage monitoring system should be in place to get this done.
It is nice that we have the PUE metric but at the end it is only a formulae. To have proper energy measurements, in my opinion, we must have a Power Usage Monitoring Framework. For designing an efficient power usage monitoring framework, it is important to assemble a coherent system of functional building blocks or service components. In that way you can enforce standard measurements.
Any thoughts to share about this?
P.S. In my blog http://infrarati.wordpress.com I made a post, Energy usage, Monitoring and Green IT, where a sketch for such a framework is made.
Replies to This Post
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Permalink Reply by Michiel van Blommestein on -
Would be great, but all those vendors and all those different metrics.. every single one of them wants 'his' standard to be THE standard. Not to mention that we would be looking at a whole set here.
What would be your preferred combination for this?
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Permalink Reply by Rien Dijkstra on -
With PUE there seems to be an emerging standard metric for power usage of a data center. The calculation of the PUE is a problem.
This is from my perspective due to (with all respect to involved parties) the immature market; bottom-up design, stove pipe solutions and proprietary interfaces.
The market has to change to become more mature just as it all ready happened, all though not perfect I know, in other parts of the IT industry (software, hardware).
There must be more focus on standard and open interfaces/api's based on an integral approach of power usage monitoring: an architectural framework (see my rough sketch).
To make a step ahead, ideas and inspiration can be found from the regular software industry where Service Oriented software building and exchange of information based on a
Service Bus is becoming the new way of building flexible information systems. In this way all vendors can still prove they are the best, not by delivering closed systems but by delivering the best value.
It is not a matter of choice, we must change. Presently there is limited legislation and regulation around power consumption and carbon-emission. But regulations about consumption and emission move closer toward becoming a reality. As time passes and energy and carbon-emission monitoring is determined, formalized and enforced, regular reporting may be expected. Then your power usage monitoring must be in place.
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Permalink Reply by Robert Schmidt on -
I would suggest taking a look at what we have at Modius. http://www.modius.com/index
Modius
Modius provides software for Availability and Performance Monitoring that protects business continuity, lowers OPEX, and increases capacity and efficiency. The solution covers all mission-critical infrastructure across the enterprise, including all data centers, call centers, and server rooms. The solutions works across multiple sites from a single instance.
For IT & Facilities
Modius connects IT and Facilities by providing the real-time intelligence necessary to meet the demands of today’s dynamic mission-critical infrastructure. Because the solution is completely vendor and device neutral, Modius captures ‘all the data, all the time’ and stores all performance history for reporting and trend analysis.
Availability Management
The system provides unified alarming of mission critical infrastructure by actively monitoring all power, cooling and environmental devices from a single console. The solution also allows the user to create more intelligent alarms based on computed points, which prevents ‘event storms’ and constant data overload.
Performance Management
Modius provides robust capacity and efficiency reporting to generate an ‘as is’ view of performance across all mission critical infrastructure. The solution allows the user to measure key performance metrics in real-time, generate historic analysis, and create metrics-based dashboards to drive key optimization initiatives across the infrastructure.
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Permalink Reply by David Cuthbertson on -
Agree with you. I would expand the word "framework" to cover not just monitoring, but also planning. In practice you design using various criteria, experience, risk, availabel data to decide on placement and limits. Monitoring various parameters such as current, power, temperature gives more confidence in the planning and highlights changes in usage or process.
So the monitoring framework should identify what types of data is required and the level of detail - just as you propose. It will be different for the many types of organisations and environments, but that is not a reason not to have one.
Tools are not normally the issue - there are often existing sources of data that are never used.
David
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Permalink Reply by Richard Sebastian on -
We are looking at building a new data center, and I couldn't agree more. The only way to ensure you are using your resources efficiently and effectively as possible, is to monitor them at all times!!
Having said that... I'd be interested in getting your collective opinions on the various monitoring "options" that are currently out there.
We are leaning towards the APC suite of apps; InfrastruXure Central, Capacity Planner, etc.
Does anyone use the APC suite now? If so what do you like / dislike about it? What would you recommend if you had to do it over again?
Thanks in advance for your input!
Rick
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Permalink Reply by Rien Dijkstra on
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Maybe APC suite is fine for you but what do you want to achieve?
When we are talking about energy efficiency and optimal usage of energy, what do we mean exactly with efficiency and optimal? What is the perception and what are the goals that goes behind this terminology?
Energy savings; emphasize on (absolute) reducing energy consumption because of the need to reduce consumption of primary energy resources (oil and gas) because of rising energy costs.
Energy conservation; emphasize on (absolute) reducing energy consumption because of the need to reduce consumption of primary energy resources (oil and gas) because they were regarded as in danger of exhaustion.
Energy efficiency; emphasize on becoming increasingly efficient in the usage of energy whilst economic growth can cause continuing use of more energy.
Energy productivity; emphasize on sustainable development because of the scarcity of energy resources and the interest and concern of the climate change and the carbon dioxide emissions.
You have to define your goals, then to define your measurements and then choose your tools.
For a more general approach of measuring data center efficiency see also the Open Data Center Measure of Efficiency (OpenDCME) initiative(http://www.opendcme.org/). In this model 16 KPIs that span the data center are used to measure data center efficiency.
Regards Rien
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Permalink Reply by Robert Schmidt on
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Here is a new article that dives into all of this: http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2010/06/08/bridging-the...
Bridging the Gap Between IT and Facilities
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