Holistic management of infrastructure across business segments

Schneider Electric has introduced StruxureWare for Data Centers v2.0, an integrated suite of Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) software engineered to manage data centers across multiple domains, providing businesses with actionable intelligence for an ideal balance of high availability and peak efficiency throughout the entire data center lifecycle. Designed to integrate data center performance with business goals and provide new levels of insight to c-suite executives, updates to the solution include: the addition of specialized applications for enhanced monitoring and management support for facility managers, additional power capping capabilities for further control of power consumption at the server level for improved IT management, and a new StruxureWare Portal for increased visibility into business and data center key performance indicators (KPIs) with customizable views across the various company stakeholders.

“Data center environments traditionally rely on siloed IT and facility management tools that alienated the executive team and made it difficult to optimize physical infrastructure while balancing efficiency and financial demands,” said Soeren Brogaard Jensen, Vice President, Solution Software, Schneider Electric. “With StruxureWare for Data Centers v2.0, Schneider Electric is providing a holistic approach to managing the data center by integrating IT, facilities and now the executive suite through the use of DCIM, allowing businesses to make the right decisions based on shared data – helping them make the most of their energy.”

Bridging the gap between IT, facilities and the c-suite executive, StruxureWare for Data Centers v2.0 is an open, modular, fully scalable and integrated DCIM solution that breaks down the typically siloed information that often prevents a holistic and intelligent view of the mechanical, electrical and IT aspects of center operation.

According to a recent Gartner Market Trends report, the challenge is for companies to find funding for (DCIM) for an existing data center. The reasons revolve around tight budgets and budget ownership. The facilities team has its budget, and so does the IT department. Both would benefit from DCIM, but neither has prebudgeted for it, and therefore neither wants to take money away from another project to pay for it. Therefore, the impetus often has to come from the executive level to get this done.

Application programming interfaces (APIs) and EcoStruxure™ web services allow for data-sharing between applications and enhance data accuracy and availability. These components seamlessly integrate with third-party applications, other StruxureWare software suites and EcoStruxure physical infrastructure components, enabling businesses to manage their data centers across multiple domains. Asset alignment functionality that complies with regulatory requirements delivers an audit system for monitoring and management and provides input into the financial management of the business. Service assurance capabilities help data center managers easily resolve issues related to system availability through cross-department integration and automated impact analysis.

The StruxureWare for Data Centers suite has been extended with several applications aimed at providing facility managers with in-depth support through building management systems, utility, power and power distribution monitoring and management, reinforcing the balance between IT and facilities, and enabling the business to make informed decisions based on shared data.

The StruxureWare for Data Centers suite consists of:
??? Resource Advisor for tracking and managing enterprise energy and carbon costs.
??? Data Center Operation for managing data center assets, and operational and capital costs; incorporates multi-tenant, space and cage management as well as integrated tenant billing.
??? Data Center Expert for monitoring and controlling data center power, cooling and security.
??? Power Monitoring Expert for advanced power monitoring, analysis and power quality.
??? Cooling Monitoring Expert for advanced cooling monitoring and automation.

StruxureWare for Data Centers has also been strengthened on the IT side by enabling Data Center Operators to further control power consumption at the server level through power capping capabilities provided through Intel DCM technology – resulting in reduced OpEx, optimized utilization of existing servers and delayed equipment investment.

An end-to-end DCIM software suite, StruxureWare for Data Centers v2.0 enables IT and facility managers to monitor, operate, analyze and optimize the power, cooling, security and energy usage from building through IT systems – from floor, to cage, to rack, to server and virtual machine. The addition of StruxureWare Portal aggregates information from all applications across the StruxureWare framework for a customizable and easily-sharable single-screen view of a wide range of information, offering increased visibility into business and data center KPIs. The StruxureWare Portal facilitates communication with external resources, can easily be adapted to corporate branding guidelines and can be accessed via laptops, tablets and smartphones.

StruxureWare for Data Centers serves as one facet of Schneider Electric’s global StruxureWare initiative. The complete line of StruxureWare solutions are designed to provide an integrated software platform intended to simplify energy management and optimize energy usage in all types of buildings, data centers and industrial facilities.

Currently available through Schneider Electric or its partners, all new offerings and updates within the StruxureWare for Data Centers suite continue to be compatible with existing components of the InfraStruxure Management Software portfolio.