A news article recently appeared online after it was discovered that 8-inch floppy disks are still in use within some of the most technologically advanced departments of the US Government – including the US nuclear force! For better or for worse, these legacy systems are here to stay – for now at least.
At Jacarta we regularly work with end-users who are looking to update and improve their legacy data centres so that they can ensure their infrastructure continues to offer efficient and reliable service. The time and cost implications of a new data centre build are often so large that designing a new infrastructure from the ground up is just not a practical solution. Fortunately, it is possible to bring the systems currently in use up-to-date and extend their functional life for years to come by implementing the latest cooling, airflow and monitoring systems, effectively managing power usage and applying the current best practice guidelines.
It has traditionally been difficult to introduce power monitoring into legacy data centres. A new build can make use of smart PDU’s, but installing these into an existing data centre environment can be particularly troublesome. In many cases, removing existing PDU’s – that may still be functioning perfectly – and installing new smart replacements will require a substantial amount of network downtime and will cause disruption within the data centre. However, our brand-new PowerZook power monitoring sensor can bring accurate and scalable power monitoring to legacy data centres with zero downtime. The PowerZook simply clamps around the 16/32A PDU feeds that are currently in place. PowerZook is a PoE network device that provides power usage information to any SNMP-enabled NMS or directly to the Cisco Energy Management Suite.
With the introduction of our unique PowerZook power monitoring sensor, we will be producing more articles delving further in to power usage within the server room and data centre over the coming months – please do check back to read our latest articles.
How to implement data centre power monitoring with zero downtime
