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The recent heatwave that brought record temperatures to the UK caused cooling systems to fail at a London data center resulting in downtime for Google and Oracle.
According to Oracle, “Following unseasonably high temperatures in the UK south (London) region, two cooler units in the data centre experienced a failure when they were required to operate above their design limits. As a result, temperatures in the data centre began to climb, which caused some systems to shut down as a protective measure.”
Similarly, Google reported “there has been a cooling-related failure in one of our buildings,” and in order to prevent damage to equipment that would cause prolonged downtime, they had to shut so...
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Today’s data centers generate a lot of data. Intelligent rack PDUs and other metered power infrastructure, environmental sensors, and the constant change in modern data centers all contribute towards a massive volume and variety of data. But data center professionals don’t have the time to collect all the data from its sources, analyze it, and derive insights from it that improve their data center operations. With legacy management tools like Excel and Visio, it’s a monumental task that takes resources away from more strategic projects.
That’s why modern data center managers deploy second-generation Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) software that provides zero-configuration data c...
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Breaking News: dcTrack® 9.1 is now available with exciting new features including enhanced blade chassis visualization, custom fields for models and locations, and easier status changes. Read all about dcTrack 9.1.
We’re proud to announce the general availability of dcTrack® 8.2, the latest version of Sunbird’s DCIM Operations software. This release includes exciting new features including a ticket connector to drive automation via integration, automatic data network diagrams for remote visualization, and asset audit via barcode scanning.
dcTrack 8.2 Availability
This dcTrack 8.2 update is available worldwide on a subscription or perpetual license basis to all customers with valid maintena...
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Rack diagrams, also known as rack elevations, are visual representations of the IT equipment in a server rack. They are used to track and manage what assets are in each rack and which U position they are in.
Rack diagrams are very useful and commonly used for data center asset management and capacity planning. The information rack diagrams provide allow you to know what equipment you have, where you have space to deploy more, and can improve the troubleshooting process.
However, many data center professionals are wasting time manually maintaining rack diagrams with legacy management tools like Visio and Excel.
These outdated rack diagram tools are:
Time-consuming. Rack diagrams must be ma...
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Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) is the most commonly used metric for measuring data center energy efficiency. It was developed by The Green Grid in 2007 and has been widely popular ever since due to growing concerns of the sustainability of data centers and for being able to represent overall efficiency with one easy-to-understand number.
What is the Formula for PUE?
PUE is the ratio of the amount of power needed to drive and cool the data center compared to the power draw from the IT equipment in the data center.
Expressed as a formula, PUE is calculated as such:
PUE = Total Facility Energy / IT Equipment Energy
How is PUE Useful?
PUE indicates how much of a facility’s total energ...
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As rack densities rise and concern about the sustainability of data centers grows, data center managers need a way to not only cool their equipment but do so as efficiently as possible.
To efficiently cool racks of 20 kW or more, organizations are seriously investigating liquid cooling and immersion cooling.
Since liquid is a better conductor of heat than air and it can target specific server components, these innovative cooling technologies can dramatically reduce energy consumption and operating costs while allowing for more compute capacity in a smaller footprint.
The liquid cooling market is expected to grow at a CAGR of more than 20% over the next several years, becoming a $7 billion in...
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Sunbird’s Models Library release for June is now available: Version 3.153. Download and update to Version 3.153 to get all the most recent model data!
Sunbird’s Models Library simplifies your data center asset management. The library includes detailed information—such as U space, dimensions, weight, power ports, and data ports—for over 40,000 models across over 1,280 manufacturers. Updating the Models Library after you have implemented Sunbird’s DCIM software helps to ensure that you are using the most accurate and up-to-date model information. This information also ensures that your data center change management tickets and reservations are error free.
Can’t find a specific make and model?...
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Tracking and managing data center cabling is one of the most overlooked aspects of data center management. However, when it’s not done properly, it can cause all kinds of problems from costly downtime to inefficient use of capacity.
Don’t settle for cable spaghetti. Keep reading to find out the basics about data center cabling, understand how to track and organize it, and learn how the best data center managers in the industry are dramatically simplifying cable management.
What is Data Center Cabling?
Data center cabling is what connects different pieces of data center infrastructure and equipment to enable network connectivity and power distribution.
Data center cabling can fall into one...
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Sunbird’s Models Library release for May is now available: Version 3.152. Download and update to Version 3.152 to get all the most recent model data!
Sunbird’s Models Library simplifies your data center asset management. The library includes detailed information—such as U space, dimensions, weight, power ports, and data ports—for over 40,000 models across over 1,280 manufacturers. Updating the Models Library after you have implemented Sunbird’s DCIM software helps to ensure that you are using the most accurate and up-to-date model information. This information also ensures that your data center change management tickets and reservations are error free.
Can’t find a specific make and model? C...
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Many organizations perform periodic data center asset audits to report accurate asset information by cabinet and U position. This information is needed to remotely plan moves, adds, and changes and to facilitate corporate reporting.
Data center asset management is often a struggle due to the complex, distributed, and constantly changing environments of modern data centers. They are manual, time-consuming, and human error can result in inaccurate data. It’s estimated that only 80% of asset information is correct on average.
However, new functionality in Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) software dramatically simplifies data center asset audits so they can be performed faster, with...
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Data center automation is expected to rapidly change the data center industry.
Look at any data center industry publication, website, or event and there will be plenty of content predicting what data center automation is going to look like. Data center professionals are curious on how automation is going to change their jobs and data center management.
The truth is that we already know.
Cutting-edge data center managers are already implementing integration and automation in their data centers, and they are getting incredible results.
"What we're trying to do as an organization is to get out of the data world and into the information world," said Raymond Parpart, Director Data Center Strategy...
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Data center energy consumption is on the rise as the demand for computing power and digital services continues to grow.
To reduce data center carbon emissions, many data center managers now have corporate sustainability goals that they must comply with. According to KPMG, 80% of companies now report on their sustainability.
The benefits of increasing data center energy efficiency are vast. A sustainable data center reduces the facility's impact on climate change, reduces operating costs, maximizes the value of existing capacity, complies with regulations and initiatives, and is more attractive to customers.
But many data center managers don't know how to measure their data center energy cons...
-
Sunbird’s Models Library release for April is now available: Version 3.151. Download and update to Version 3.151 to get all the most recent model data!
Sunbird’s Models Library simplifies your data center asset management. The library includes detailed information—such as U space, dimensions, weight, power ports, and data ports—for over 40,000 models across over 1,280 manufacturers. Updating the Models Library after you have implemented Sunbird’s DCIM software helps to ensure that you are using the most accurate and up-to-date model information. This information also ensures that your data center change management tickets and reservations are error free.
Can’t find a specific make and model?...
-
Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) is a ratio of the total amount of power used by a data center to the power delivered to IT equipment. The PUE metric was developed by The Green Grid to measure the overall energy efficiency of data centers, and it has been one of the most popular data center KPIs since its introduction in 2007.
Expressed as a formula, the PUE ratio is calculated as such:
PUE = Total Facility Energy / IT Equipment Energy
With a renewed focus on increasing data center sustainability, many data center professionals must measure and improve their energy efficiency to meet corporate sustainability initiatives. This often leads to the question, “What is the best PUE ratio?”
The best...
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Data center capacity refers to key data center resources (i.e., power, space, cooling, and power/network port connections) that are available to meet the requirements of current and future IT demand.
Accurately planning and managing data center capacity is essential for maintaining uptime and increasing efficiency. Failure to do so can be very expensive and detrimental to the business.
For example, if there is not enough available capacity, data centers can experience downtime and applications and services can be impacted resulting in unhappy customers and a damaged reputation. Or if there is too much available capacity, then the data center is operating inefficiently and wasting money and r...
The recent heatwave that brought record temperatures to the UK caused cooling systems to fail at a London data center resulting in downtime for Google and Oracle. According to Oracle, “Following unseasonably high temperatures in the UK south (London) region, two cooler units in the data centre experienced a failure when they were required to operate above their design limits. As a result, temperatures in the data centre began to climb, which caused some systems to shut down as a protective measure.” Similarly, Google reported “there has been a cooling-related failure in one of our buildings,” and in order to prevent damage to equipment that would cause prolonged downtime, they had to shut so...
Today’s data centers generate a lot of data. Intelligent rack PDUs and other metered power infrastructure, environmental sensors, and the constant change in modern data centers all contribute towards a massive volume and variety of data. But data center professionals don’t have the time to collect all the data from its sources, analyze it, and derive insights from it that improve their data center operations. With legacy management tools like Excel and Visio, it’s a monumental task that takes resources away from more strategic projects. That’s why modern data center managers deploy second-generation Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) software that provides zero-configuration data c...
Breaking News: dcTrack® 9.1 is now available with exciting new features including enhanced blade chassis visualization, custom fields for models and locations, and easier status changes. Read all about dcTrack 9.1. We’re proud to announce the general availability of dcTrack® 8.2, the latest version of Sunbird’s DCIM Operations software. This release includes exciting new features including a ticket connector to drive automation via integration, automatic data network diagrams for remote visualization, and asset audit via barcode scanning. dcTrack 8.2 Availability This dcTrack 8.2 update is available worldwide on a subscription or perpetual license basis to all customers with valid maintena...
Rack diagrams, also known as rack elevations, are visual representations of the IT equipment in a server rack. They are used to track and manage what assets are in each rack and which U position they are in. Rack diagrams are very useful and commonly used for data center asset management and capacity planning. The information rack diagrams provide allow you to know what equipment you have, where you have space to deploy more, and can improve the troubleshooting process. However, many data center professionals are wasting time manually maintaining rack diagrams with legacy management tools like Visio and Excel. These outdated rack diagram tools are: Time-consuming. Rack diagrams must be ma...
Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) is the most commonly used metric for measuring data center energy efficiency. It was developed by The Green Grid in 2007 and has been widely popular ever since due to growing concerns of the sustainability of data centers and for being able to represent overall efficiency with one easy-to-understand number. What is the Formula for PUE? PUE is the ratio of the amount of power needed to drive and cool the data center compared to the power draw from the IT equipment in the data center. Expressed as a formula, PUE is calculated as such: PUE = Total Facility Energy / IT Equipment Energy How is PUE Useful? PUE indicates how much of a facility’s total energ...
As rack densities rise and concern about the sustainability of data centers grows, data center managers need a way to not only cool their equipment but do so as efficiently as possible. To efficiently cool racks of 20 kW or more, organizations are seriously investigating liquid cooling and immersion cooling. Since liquid is a better conductor of heat than air and it can target specific server components, these innovative cooling technologies can dramatically reduce energy consumption and operating costs while allowing for more compute capacity in a smaller footprint. The liquid cooling market is expected to grow at a CAGR of more than 20% over the next several years, becoming a $7 billion in...
Sunbird’s Models Library release for June is now available: Version 3.153. Download and update to Version 3.153 to get all the most recent model data! Sunbird’s Models Library simplifies your data center asset management. The library includes detailed information—such as U space, dimensions, weight, power ports, and data ports—for over 40,000 models across over 1,280 manufacturers. Updating the Models Library after you have implemented Sunbird’s DCIM software helps to ensure that you are using the most accurate and up-to-date model information. This information also ensures that your data center change management tickets and reservations are error free. Can’t find a specific make and model?...
Tracking and managing data center cabling is one of the most overlooked aspects of data center management. However, when it’s not done properly, it can cause all kinds of problems from costly downtime to inefficient use of capacity. Don’t settle for cable spaghetti. Keep reading to find out the basics about data center cabling, understand how to track and organize it, and learn how the best data center managers in the industry are dramatically simplifying cable management. What is Data Center Cabling? Data center cabling is what connects different pieces of data center infrastructure and equipment to enable network connectivity and power distribution. Data center cabling can fall into one...
Sunbird’s Models Library release for May is now available: Version 3.152. Download and update to Version 3.152 to get all the most recent model data! Sunbird’s Models Library simplifies your data center asset management. The library includes detailed information—such as U space, dimensions, weight, power ports, and data ports—for over 40,000 models across over 1,280 manufacturers. Updating the Models Library after you have implemented Sunbird’s DCIM software helps to ensure that you are using the most accurate and up-to-date model information. This information also ensures that your data center change management tickets and reservations are error free. Can’t find a specific make and model? C...
Many organizations perform periodic data center asset audits to report accurate asset information by cabinet and U position. This information is needed to remotely plan moves, adds, and changes and to facilitate corporate reporting. Data center asset management is often a struggle due to the complex, distributed, and constantly changing environments of modern data centers. They are manual, time-consuming, and human error can result in inaccurate data. It’s estimated that only 80% of asset information is correct on average. However, new functionality in Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) software dramatically simplifies data center asset audits so they can be performed faster, with...
Data center automation is expected to rapidly change the data center industry. Look at any data center industry publication, website, or event and there will be plenty of content predicting what data center automation is going to look like. Data center professionals are curious on how automation is going to change their jobs and data center management. The truth is that we already know. Cutting-edge data center managers are already implementing integration and automation in their data centers, and they are getting incredible results. "What we're trying to do as an organization is to get out of the data world and into the information world," said Raymond Parpart, Director Data Center Strategy...
Data center energy consumption is on the rise as the demand for computing power and digital services continues to grow. To reduce data center carbon emissions, many data center managers now have corporate sustainability goals that they must comply with. According to KPMG, 80% of companies now report on their sustainability. The benefits of increasing data center energy efficiency are vast. A sustainable data center reduces the facility's impact on climate change, reduces operating costs, maximizes the value of existing capacity, complies with regulations and initiatives, and is more attractive to customers. But many data center managers don't know how to measure their data center energy cons...
Sunbird’s Models Library release for April is now available: Version 3.151. Download and update to Version 3.151 to get all the most recent model data! Sunbird’s Models Library simplifies your data center asset management. The library includes detailed information—such as U space, dimensions, weight, power ports, and data ports—for over 40,000 models across over 1,280 manufacturers. Updating the Models Library after you have implemented Sunbird’s DCIM software helps to ensure that you are using the most accurate and up-to-date model information. This information also ensures that your data center change management tickets and reservations are error free. Can’t find a specific make and model?...
Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) is a ratio of the total amount of power used by a data center to the power delivered to IT equipment. The PUE metric was developed by The Green Grid to measure the overall energy efficiency of data centers, and it has been one of the most popular data center KPIs since its introduction in 2007. Expressed as a formula, the PUE ratio is calculated as such: PUE = Total Facility Energy / IT Equipment Energy With a renewed focus on increasing data center sustainability, many data center professionals must measure and improve their energy efficiency to meet corporate sustainability initiatives. This often leads to the question, “What is the best PUE ratio?” The best...
Data center capacity refers to key data center resources (i.e., power, space, cooling, and power/network port connections) that are available to meet the requirements of current and future IT demand. Accurately planning and managing data center capacity is essential for maintaining uptime and increasing efficiency. Failure to do so can be very expensive and detrimental to the business. For example, if there is not enough available capacity, data centers can experience downtime and applications and services can be impacted resulting in unhappy customers and a damaged reputation. Or if there is too much available capacity, then the data center is operating inefficiently and wasting money and r...