Keeping eye on environment; software, hardware tools monitoring data centers - Field Report

Software Magazine, July, 1991 by Elizabeth U. Harding

Computer software and hardware are fast becoming reliable enough for the operation of unstaffed data centers. As this phenomenon mounts, the most likely problems will be environmental--that is, overheating, freezing and loss of power.

Today, much of that work is done by proprietary hardware offerings, which some observers say do not have the capabilities of managing automated data centers.

In an effort to quickly improve capabilities, many environmental hardware vendorws are looking hard at establishing alliances with top software houses. These hardware and software vendors offer a variety of systems that monitor different parameters, primarily generators, water chillers and air conditioning units.

"Now that we've cleaned up the hardware and software, users are expecting 100% availability," said Arnold Farber of Farber/La Chance, Inc., a Richmond, Va.-based consulting firm. Therefore, MIS organizations must look closely at products aimed at avoiding such emergencies.

"We have a slogan," said Bill Wirth, data center market manager at Anatel Corp., Boulder, Colo. "If you can't measure it, you can't manage it." Anatel markets DataTrax, an infrastructure monitoring system incorporating both hardware and software.

Anatel is one hardware vendor that has linked up with an automated operations software vendor. The company has signed a development agreement with Legent Corp., Vienna, Va., to link DataTrax with AutoMate/XC, a PC-based Legent product that can automate and manage operations in heterogeneous environments.

"The trend you see is that people have three or four remote data centers attended by few or no humans," said Susan Nicastro, senior product manager for automated operations at Legent. Therefore, she said, "You need to monitor the infrastructure of the data center along with the computers. It doesn't matter that the computers are running if the building is on fire."

Liebert Corp., Columbus, Ohio, a maker of environmental hardware systems, also developed SiteScan, a software package for monitoring the company's other offerings, which include a computer room air conditioning system, power distribution units, power conditioning modules and uninterruptible power systems.

In addition, said Michael Orlich, technical marketing manager for the Liebert Site Products Group, the company's products can be linked to the data center software products of Candle Corp., Los Angeles. "Even though SiteScan provides all the information you need about problems, people sometimes find it more convenient for the alarm message to appear right on the operator's console," he said.

Violet Hom, product manager at Candle for automated facilities products, said the firm's products have only been tested with the Liebert offerings.

When AF/Remote gets information from Liebert's SiteScan, it can send it from a PC to the host to the AF/Operator automated operations software, which sends a message to Omegaview, which posts the status, Hom said. "If necessary, AF/Operator can start an orderly shutdown of your system."

Many observes still question whether an automated operations package can adequately discriminate and pass judgment on whether a message is a warning or a serious problem. "It can be done if we program the knowledge into the system," contended Hom. "It then goes through the same thought process as human, except it does it much faster."

Other mainframe systems software vendors say the time is not right for plunging into the environmental controls market.

WAIT-AND-SEE ATTITUDES

"We don't offer a specific system that interfaces with an environmental control system," said Rick Anderson, product manager of Computer Associates International, Inc., Garden City, N.Y. "There are a variety of [products] today. We'll wait until the industry shakes out a bit and a standard control system has been developed."

"I don't think that's a big priority at our site," said Jim Johnson, director of data center operations, Hallmark Cards, Kansas City, Mo. "We have guards that monitor the room when no one is around. I can see that this would be an advantage with multiple sites and unmanned data centers."

Meanwhile, "Europeans tend to be more conscious of environmental problems that we are," said Wirth of Anatel. "Europeans put a lot of money into environmental control," agreed John Connor, product manager, automation products, of Boole & Babbage Inc., Sunnyvale, Calif. European users drove B&B to add environmental control features to AutoOperator, Connor said.