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Data center capacity planning is one of the biggest challenges for today’s data center professionals. According to a recent survey by Sunbird Software, 72% of respondents said that capacity planning was one of their top objectives.
Proper capacity planning results in the right-sized data centers, efficient utilization of resources, and reduced costs, but it is easier said than done. The reality is that many data center professionals struggle to accurately plan capacity and instead have rampant stranded capacity.
What Is Stranded Capacity?
Stranded capacity refers to data center resources that are not known to be available for use. Most of the time, you don’t even know if you have stranded...
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The world depends on data centers in all aspects of daily life. To meet all-time high levels of demand that continue to grow with no end in sight, downtime is unacceptable for most organizations.
The cost of downtime is rising and 40% of businesses report that just one hour of downtime can cost anywhere from $1 million to $5 million, not including the other associated fees. Large companies report that an interruption during peak business hours can cost almost $1 million per minute.
To mitigate the risk of such financial setbacks, data centers deploy redundant components of their critical infrastructure.
What is Data Center Redundancy?
Data center redundancy is a system used to address down...
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Data center tiers are the Uptime Institute’s classification system of data center performance. Created over 25 years ago, there are four data center tiers that are the established standards in categorizing the performance level of a data center.
To be classified as a specific tier, there is a set of criteria that data centers must meet, and the key values of those tier standards are service availability, redundancy level, power and cooling infrastructure, operational sustainability, security, and carrier neutrality. Data centers are ranked from one to four, with one being the lowest-performing and four being the highest. The tiers are progressive, meaning that each new tier must meet the req...
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As the costs of managing and maintaining owner-operated data centers rise, enterprises are reconsidering their infrastructure and attempting to minimize on-premises data center space. Colocation data center providers are an attractive and cost-effective solution, offering physical space as well as power, cooling, network, and security services for their customers.
According to 451 Research, over 40 percent of enterprise end users are already renting space in a colocation facility and that number is expected to continue rising. If you are considering using a colocation provider, choosing the right vendor for your data center needs can be a complicated decision with many factors that must be w...
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Sustainability is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, topic in the data center industry today. A sustainable data center is a facility that can maintain operations at a high level of efficiency over time. It is important for data centers to be as sustainable as possible because they use a lot of resources which makes reducing their environmental impact and carbon footprint top priorities. It is also important because these facilities need to comply with sustainability initiatives such as the EU Code of Conduct for Energy Efficiency in Data Centres.
Being able to measure your data center sustainability is critical because to gauge where you need to be, you need to know where you are. This...
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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...
Data center capacity planning is one of the biggest challenges for today’s data center professionals. According to a recent survey by Sunbird Software, 72% of respondents said that capacity planning was one of their top objectives. Proper capacity planning results in the right-sized data centers, efficient utilization of resources, and reduced costs, but it is easier said than done. The reality is that many data center professionals struggle to accurately plan capacity and instead have rampant stranded capacity. What Is Stranded Capacity? Stranded capacity refers to data center resources that are not known to be available for use. Most of the time, you don’t even know if you have stranded...
The world depends on data centers in all aspects of daily life. To meet all-time high levels of demand that continue to grow with no end in sight, downtime is unacceptable for most organizations. The cost of downtime is rising and 40% of businesses report that just one hour of downtime can cost anywhere from $1 million to $5 million, not including the other associated fees. Large companies report that an interruption during peak business hours can cost almost $1 million per minute. To mitigate the risk of such financial setbacks, data centers deploy redundant components of their critical infrastructure. What is Data Center Redundancy? Data center redundancy is a system used to address down...
Data center tiers are the Uptime Institute’s classification system of data center performance. Created over 25 years ago, there are four data center tiers that are the established standards in categorizing the performance level of a data center. To be classified as a specific tier, there is a set of criteria that data centers must meet, and the key values of those tier standards are service availability, redundancy level, power and cooling infrastructure, operational sustainability, security, and carrier neutrality. Data centers are ranked from one to four, with one being the lowest-performing and four being the highest. The tiers are progressive, meaning that each new tier must meet the req...
As the costs of managing and maintaining owner-operated data centers rise, enterprises are reconsidering their infrastructure and attempting to minimize on-premises data center space. Colocation data center providers are an attractive and cost-effective solution, offering physical space as well as power, cooling, network, and security services for their customers. According to 451 Research, over 40 percent of enterprise end users are already renting space in a colocation facility and that number is expected to continue rising. If you are considering using a colocation provider, choosing the right vendor for your data center needs can be a complicated decision with many factors that must be w...
Sustainability is one of the biggest, if not the biggest, topic in the data center industry today. A sustainable data center is a facility that can maintain operations at a high level of efficiency over time. It is important for data centers to be as sustainable as possible because they use a lot of resources which makes reducing their environmental impact and carbon footprint top priorities. It is also important because these facilities need to comply with sustainability initiatives such as the EU Code of Conduct for Energy Efficiency in Data Centres. Being able to measure your data center sustainability is critical because to gauge where you need to be, you need to know where you are. This...
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...