Emerson Network Power unveils comprehensive datacenter infrastructure management strategy

href="http://dqchannels.ciol.com/content/reselleralert/110100703.asp">Emerson
Network Power introduced
Trellis, the first integrated, single-information-source datacenter
infrastructure management (DCIM) platform to bridge the critical gap
between a datacenter's IT equipment and facilities infrastructure. The
Trellis dynamic infrastructure
optimization platform is a family of hardware, software and services
designed to manage the dynamic nature and requirements of the
infrastructure holistically from a central 'source of truth',
enabling datacenter managers to make smarter decisions on the
interplay between efficiency, availability and capacity utilization.

“Virtualization has brought greater
flexibility and efficiency to datacenter management, but has
introduced new complexities and pressures to the static physical
infrastructure,” said Steve Hassell, President-Avocent Business,
Emerson Network Power. Hassell was CIO at Emerson when the company
built its new 35,000 square-foot, LEED gold datacenter, an initiative
that gave him first-hand experience with the challenges facing even a
state-of-the-art data center. “Organizations today lack visibility
into the impact of virtualization and the deployment of high-density
servers on the physical infrastructure, and that keeps them from
utilizing the full capacity of their equipment. We intend to provide
that visibility along with the tools to manage and optimize changes
to the physical infrastructure,” added Hassell.

Currently, datacenter managers
typically reserve 20 percent or more of their power system capacity
as a buffer against overload. This has become a standard practice
because they lack a single, real-time view of operating conditions
within the IT equipment and the power and cooling systems that
support them, instead relying on the face-plate specifications rather
than real-time performance indicators. Virtualization has added to
the uncertainty and increased the size of the buffer in some cases,
as it creates a dynamically shifting operating environment on a
static physical layer. According to Emerson calculations, if every US
datacenter could utilize 10 percent more of its available capacity,
US businesses stand to save more than $10 billion through improved
datacenter infrastructure management. The Trellis platform will
increase
capacity utilization by providing visibility into and control over
integration and collaboration between the physical and IT
infrastructure layers, what Emerson Network Power calls dynamic
infrastructure optimization, eliminating the need for guesswork that
necessitates a power system capacity 'buffer'.

The Trellis platform brings together
the functionalities of Emerson's existing Aperture, Avocent and
Liebert DCIM solutions and enhances them by creating one seamless
solution that draws information into one source of truth. Emerson
Network Power expects the core Trellis modules to be available by Q4
2011 with subsequent modules rolling out over the following 12 to 18
months. To begin achieving the benefits of an optimized datacenter
infrastructure, customers can implement any of Emerson Network
Power's existing hardware or software solutions. Current solutions
will either migrate or integrate, as appropriate, with the new
Trellis platform and bring the customer dynamic infrastructure
optimization, a level of DCIM that no one else can provide.