The agreement also promises to move Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) one step closer to a new efficiency metric that transcends the limitations of power-centric measurements such as PUE. Efficiency in how physical infrastructure delivers value to the business—in the context of quantifiable business specific output—is rapidly becoming the new standard.
The two companies have joined forces to extend the visibility, reach, and analytics capabilities of iTRACS PowerEye™, a best-practices strategy that offers end-to-end visualization and management of the entire power chain inclusive of all interdependencies, across IT, facilities, and building management systems. Under the agreement, the Intel Data Center Manager software suite will be integrated with iTRACS Converged Physical Infrastructure Management (CPIM), broadening the iTRACS PowerEye strategy through the collection, management, and analysis of power, temperature, and environmental information at the device level (CPU). This combined capability will enable rich knowledge-based decisions as joint customers manage real-time events, assess utilization, plan capacity, commission equipment, perform technology upgrades, and conduct other vital management tasks across the whole of the enterprise infrastructure.
"Energy efficiency is an established corporate mandate, yet management strategies have lacked a meaningful efficiency metric," said Elizabeth Given, president and CEO of iTRACS. "We're excited to work with Intel, a true innovator, to aggressively address this challenge. We're combining iTRACS' interactive 3D visualization, single-pane view of the IT ecosystem, Future View, and "What If?" analysis capabilities with Intel's deep expertise and unparalleled granularity in CPU data collection and aggregation, monitoring, trending, and analysis. It's a compelling alliance for customers seeking a strategy to quantitatively visualize, manage, and reduce energy usage across their enterprise infrastructure."
Extending iTRACS PowerEye with Intel's robust capabilities will enhance decision-making across a range of initiatives, such as: improving capacity planning and increasing rack densities using actual CPU power and temperature readings; identifying and consolidating energy-guzzling assets; identifying and eliminating under- or over-cooling issues; accelerating the commissioning of new equipment using actual energy usage; and preventing outages from occurring by identifying and resolving power circuit outages and overloads, data center hot spots, and cooling failures. With the resultant analytics, users will have deeper insight into all physical infrastructure-related operational metrics.
"Intel is delighted to collaborate with a leading-edge solutions provider such as iTRACS and to continue to extend our value more deeply into data center infrastructure management," said Jeff Klaus, dDirector, Data Center Solutions, Intel.
One more step in the roadmap to a new DCIM efficiency metric
In addition, the iTRACS and Intel partnership will bring DCIM one step closer to a new paradigm in the measurement of efficiency, one that transcends limited targeted operational metrics like PUE. This promises to set a new standard in how the efficiency of physical infrastructure is identified, managed, and optimized.
"Power metrics like PUE, while helpful, cannot measure the efficiency of a data center," explained Ms. Given. "Efficiency isn't just about power. It's about the interrelated costs of power, space, storage, networking, and how efficiently those resources are managed to deliver substantive, continuous value to the business. What are the positive business specific outcomes delivered by the physical layer – and what are the power, space, and IT services required to achieve those outcomes? That is the true measure of efficiency. We just took an important step closer to it with our Intel partnership."
The companies will demonstrate the initial integration capabilities of their partnership at the Gartner Data Center Conference (December 5-8) in Las Vegas.
