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Six plus data center software defined management dashboards tools

Software defined data infrastructure management insight tools

server storage I/O trends

Updated 1/17/2018

Managing data infrastructures involves using software defined management dashboards tools. Recently I found in my inbox a link to a piece 6 Dashboards for Managing Every Modern Data Center that caught my attention. I was hoping to see who the six different datacenter technologies, dashboard solutions tools were instead of finding list of dashboard considerations for modern data centers and data infrastructures.

Turns out the piece was nothing more than a list of six items featured as part of the vendors (Sunbird) piece about what to look for in a dashboard (e.g. their product). Sure there were some of the usual key performance indicator (KPI) associated with or related to IT Service Management (ITSM), Data Center Infrastructure (Insight/Information) Management (DCIM), Configuration and Change management databases (CMDB), availability, capacity and Performance Management Databases (PMDB) among others.

  • Space
  • Inventory
  • Connectivity
  • Change
  • Environment
  • Power

Dashboard Discussions

Keep in mind however that there are many different types of dashboards (and consoles), some are active along with analytics including correlation, others are passive simply displaying. The focus area also various from physical data center facilities, to applications, to data infrastructures or components such as servers, storage, I/O networks, clouds, virtual, containers among others modern data centers.

Data Infrastructures and SDDI, SDDC, SDI
Data Infrastructures (hardware, software, services, servers, storage, I/O and networks)

This is where some context comes into play as there are different types of dashboards for various audience, technology and focus areas (e.g. domains) across data infrastructure (and other entities). For example do a google search of “dashboard” and see what appears, or “IT dashboard”, “data center dashboard” vs. “datacenter dashboard” among others.

Additional KPIs include:

  • Performance, availability, Capacity and Economic (PACE) attributes
  • Service Level Objectives (SLO), Service Level Agreements (SLAs)
  • Recovery Time Objectives (RTO), Recovery Point Objectives (SLO)
  • IT Service Management (ITSM) and Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM)
  • Configuration and Change Management (e.g. things part of CMDB)
  • Performance, availability and capacity (e.g. things part of PMDB)
  • Various focus and layers, cross domain functionality views
  • Costs management including subscriptions, licenses and others

IT Data Center and Data Infrastructure Dashboard Options

For those of you who have made it this far, while not a comprehensive list, the following are some examples of vendors, services or solutions that either are, or have an association with data center, as well as data infrastructure management. Some dashboards or tools are homogenous in that they only work within a given area of focus such as particular cloud, service provider, vendor or solution set. Others are heterogeneous or federated working across different services, solutions, vendors and domain focus areas. Think of these as software defined management (SDM), or, software defined data infrastructure (SDDI) management, software defined data center (SDDC) management among other variations for the modern information factory.

There is a mix of tools that run on site (e.g. on premise) or via cloud services (e.g. manager your on site from the cloud). Likewise, some are for fee, others subscription and some are open source. In addition some of the tools are turnkey while others are do it yourself (DiY) or allow you to customize. Also keep in mind that depending on what your tradecraft (skills, experience, expertise) interest area is, these may or may not be applicable to you, while relevant to others. For example some such as Spiceworks tend to be more helpdesk focused while others on other data center or data infrastructure areas.

There are dashboards for or from AWS, Canonical (Ubuntu), Dell including EMC, Google, HPE, IBM, Microsoft System Center and Azure, NetApp, OpenStack, Oracle, Rackspace, Redhat, Rightscale, Servicenow, Softlayer, Suse and VMware among others.

Blue Medora (various data infrastructure monitoring)
Cloudkitty (open source cloud rating and chargeback)
Collectd (data infrastructure collection and monitoring)
cPanel and whm (web and hosting dashboards)
data infrastructure sddi cpanel

Dashbuilder (customize your dashboard)
Datadog (super easy to get access, download, install, configure and use)
Domo (various data infrastructure monitoring tools)
Extrahop (still waiting to be able to download and try their bits vs. watching a demo)
Firescope (data infrastructure insight and awareness)
Freezer (open source dashboard tools)
Komprise (interesting solution, would like try, however lots of gated material)
Nagios (data infrastructure monitoring)
Openit (data infrastructure tracking, report, monitoring)
Opvizor (data infrastructure monitoring and reporting)

storageio datadog dashboard

Panorama9 (various data infrastructure monitoring and reporting)
Quest (various tools)
Redhat Cloudforms (openstack and cloud management)
Rrdtools (data collection, logging and display)
Sisense (insight and awareness tools)
Solarwinds Server Application Monitor (SAM) among other tools
Teamquest (various monitoring, management, capacity planning tools)
Turbomomic (software defined data infrastructure insight tools)
Virtual Instruments (various monitoring and insight awareness along with analytics)

In addition to the above, there are tools such as Splunk among others that also provide insight and awareness to help avoid flying blind while managing your data center or data infrastructure.

Where to learn more

Learn more via the following links.

  • Data Infrastructure Primer and Overview (Its Whats Inside The Data Center)
  • E2E Awareness and insight for IT environments
  • Server and Storage I/O Benchmarking and Performance Resources
  • Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) and IRM
  • The Value of Infrastructure Insight – Enabling Informed Decision Making
  • More storage and IO metrics that matter
  • Whats a data infrastructure?

    • Additional learning experiences along with common questions (and answers), as well as tips can be found in Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials book.

    Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials Book SDDC

    What this all means

    Without insight and awareness you are flying blind, how can you make informed decisions about your information factory, data infrastructures, data center along with applications. There are different focus areas for various audiences up and down the stack layers in data infrastructures and data centers. Key is having insight and awareness including knowing what are some different tool options.

    Ok, nuff said, for now.

    Gs

    Greg Schulz – Microsoft MVP Cloud and Data Center Management, VMware vExpert 2010-2017 (vSAN and vCloud). Author of Software Defined Data Infrastructure Essentials (CRC Press), as well as Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press), Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier) and twitter @storageio. Courteous comments are welcome for consideration. First published on https://storageioblog.com any reproduction in whole, in part, with changes to content, without source attribution under title or without permission is forbidden.

    All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO. All Rights Reserved. StorageIO is a registered Trade Mark (TM) of Server StorageIO.

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    Server and Storage I/O Benchmarking 101 for Smarties

    Server Storage I/O Benchmarking 101 for Smarties or dummies ;)

    server storage I/O trends

    This is the first of a series of posts and links to resources on server storage I/O performance and benchmarking (view more and follow-up posts here).

    The best I/O is the I/O that you do not have to do, the second best is the one with the least impact as well as low overhead.

    server storage I/O performance

    Drew Robb (@robbdrew) has a Data Storage Benchmarking Guide article over at Enterprise Storage Forum that provides a good framework and summary quick guide to server storage I/O benchmarking.

    Via Drew:

    Data storage benchmarking can be quite esoteric in that vast complexity awaits anyone attempting to get to the heart of a particular benchmark.

    Case in point: The Storage Networking Industry Association (SNIA) has developed the Emerald benchmark to measure power consumption. This invaluable benchmark has a vast amount of supporting literature. That so much could be written about one benchmark test tells you just how technical a subject this is. And in SNIA’s defense, it is creating a Quick Reference Guide for Emerald (coming soon).

    But rather than getting into the nitty-gritty nuances of the tests, the purpose of this article is to provide a high-level overview of a few basic storage benchmarks, what value they might have and where you can find out more. 

    Read more here including some of my comments, tips and recommendations.

    Drew’s provides a good summary and overview in his article which is a great opener for this first post in a series on server storage I/O benchmarking and related resources.

    You can think of this series (along with Drew’s article) as server storage I/O benchmarking fundamentals (e.g. 101) for smarties (e.g. non-dummies ;) ).

    Note that even if you are not a server, storage or I/O expert, you can still be considered a smarty vs. a dummy if you found the need or interest to read as well as learn more about benchmarking, metrics that matter, tools, technology and related topics.

    Server and Storage I/O benchmarking 101

    There are different reasons for benchmarking, such as, you might be asked or want to know how many IOPs per disk, Solid State Device (SSD), device or storage system such as for a 15K RPM (revolutions per minute) 146GB SAS Hard Disk Drive (HDD). Sure you can go to a manufactures website and look at the speeds and feeds (technical performance numbers) however are those metrics applicable to your environments applications or workload?

    You might get higher IOPs with smaller IO size on sequential reads vs. random writes which will also depend on what the HDD is attached to. For example are you going to attach the HDD to a storage system or appliance with RAID and caching? Are you going to attach the HDD to a PCIe RAID card or will it be part of a server or storage system. Or are you simply going to put the HDD into a server or workstation and use as a drive without any RAID or performance acceleration.

    What this all means is understanding what it is that you want to benchmark test to learn what the system, solution, service or specific device can do under different workload conditions.

    Some benchmark and related topics include

    • What are you trying to benchmark
    • Why do you need to benchmark something
    • What are some server storage I/O benchmark tools
    • What is the best benchmark tool
    • What to benchmark, how to use tools
    • What are the metrics that matter
    • What is benchmark context why does it matter
    • What are marketing hero benchmark results
    • What to do with your benchmark results

      • server storage I/O benchmark step test
      Example of a step test results with various workers and workload

    • What do the various metrics mean (can we get a side of context with them metrics?)
    • Why look at server CPU if doing storage and I/O networking tests
    • Where and how to profile your application workloads
    • What about physical vs. virtual vs. cloud and software defined benchmarking
    • How to benchmark block DAS or SAN, file NAS, object, cloud, databases and other things
    • Avoiding common benchmark mistakes
    • Tips, recommendations, things to watch out for
    • What to do next

    server storage I/O trends

    Where to learn more

    The following are related links to read more about server (cloud, virtual and physical) storage I/O benchmarking tools, technologies and techniques.

    Drew Robb’s benchmarking quick reference guide
    Server storage I/O benchmarking tools, technologies and techniques resource page
    Server and Storage I/O Benchmarking 101 for Smarties.
    Microsoft Diskspd download and Microsoft Diskspd overview (via Technet)
    I/O, I/O how well do you know about good or bad server and storage I/Os?
    Server and Storage I/O Benchmark Tools: Microsoft Diskspd (Part I and Part II)

    Wrap up and summary

    We have just scratched the surface when it comes to benchmarking cloud, virtual and physical server storage I/O and networking hardware, software along with associated tools, techniques and technologies. However hopefully this and the links for more reading mentioned above give a basis for connecting the dots of what you already know or enable learning more about workloads, synthetic generation and real-world workloads, benchmarks and associated topics. Needless to say there are many more things that we will cover in future posts (e.g. keep an eye on and bookmark the server storage I/O benchmark tools and resources page here).

    Ok, nuff said, for now…

    Cheers gs

    Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
    twitter @storageio

    All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved

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    Green and Virtual IT Data Center Primer

    Green and Virtual Data Center Primer

    Moving beyond Green Hype and Green washing

    Green IT is about enabling efficient, effective and productive information services delivery. There is a growing green gap between green hype messaging or green washing and IT pain point issues including limits on availability or rising costs of power, cooling, floor-space as well as e-waste and environmental health and safety (PCFE). To close the gap will involve addressing green messaging and rhetoric closer to where IT organizations pain points are and where budget dollars exists that can address PCFE and other green related issues as a by-product. The green gap will also be narrowed as awareness of broader green related topics coincide with IT data center pain points, in other words, alignment of messaging with IT issues that have or will have budget dollars allocated towards them to sustain business and economic growth via IT resource usage efficiency. Read more here.

    There are many aspects to "Green" Information Technology including servers, storage, networks and associated management tools and techniques. The reasons and focus of "Green IT" including "Green Data Storage ", "Green Computing" and related focus areas are varied to discuss diverse needs, issues and requirements including among others:

    • Power, Cooling, Floor-space, Environmental (PCFE) related issues or constraints
    • Reduction of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and other green house gases (GHGs)
    • Business growth and economic sustain in an environmental friendly manner
    • Proper disposal or recycling of environmental harmful retired technology components
    • Reduction or better efficiency of electrical power consumption used for IT equipment
    • Cost avoidance or savings from lower energy fees and cooling costs
    • Support data center and application consolidation to cut cost and management
    • Enable growth and enhancements to application service level objectives
    • Maximize the usage of available power and cooling resources available in your region
    • Compliance with local or federal government mandates and regulations
    • Economic sustain and ability to support business growth and service improvements
    • General environmental awareness and stewardship to save and protect the earth

    While much of the IT industry focuses on CO2 emissions footprints, data management software and electrical power consumption, cooling and ventilation of IT data centers is an area of focus associated with "Green IT" as well as a means to discuss more effective use of electrical energy that can yield rapid results for many environments. Large tier-1 vendors including HP and IBM among others who have an IT and data center wide focus have services designed to do quick assessments as well as detailed analysis and re-organization of IT data center physical facilities to improve air flow and power consumption for more effective cooling of IT technologies including servers, storage, networks and other equipment.

    Similar to your own residence, basic steps to improve your cooling effectiveness can lead to use of less energy to cut your budget impact, or, enable you to do more with what you already have with your cooling capacity to support growth, acquisitions and or consolidation initiatives. Vendors are also looking at means and alternatives for cooling IT equipment ranging from computer assisted computational fluid dynamics (CFD) software analysis of data center cooling and ventilation to refrigerated cooling racks some leveraging water or inert liquid cooling.

    Various metrics exists and others are evolving for measuring, estimating, reporting, analyzing and discussing IT Data Center infrastructure resource topics including servers, storage, networks, facilities and associated software management tools from a power, cooling and green environmental standpoint. The importance of metrics is to focus on the larger impact of a piece of IT equipment that includes its cost and energy consumption that factors in cooling and other hosting or site environmental costs. Naturally energy costs and CO2 (carbon offsets) will vary by geography and region along with type of electrical power being used (Coal, Natural Gas, Nuclear, Wind, Thermo, Solar, etc) and other factors that should be kept in perspective as part of the big picture.

    Consequently your view and needs or interests around "Green" IT may be from an electrical power conservation perspective to maximize your power consumption or to adapt to a given power footprint or ceiling. Your focus around "Green" Data Centers and Green Storage may be from a carbon savings standpoint or proper disposition of old and retired IT equipment or from a data center cooling standpoint. Another area of focus may be that you are looking to cut your data footprint to align with your power, cooling and green footprint while enhancing application and data service delivery to your customers.

    Where to learn more

    The following are useful links to related efficient, effective, productive, flexible, scalable and resilient IT data center along with server storage I/O networking hardware and software that supports cloud and virtual green data centers.

    Various IT industry vendor and service provider links
    Green and Virtual Data Center: Productive Economical Efficient Effective Flexible
    Green and Virtual Data Center links
    Are large storage arrays dead at the hands of SSD?
    Closing the Green Gap
    Energy efficient technology sales depend on the pitch

    What this all means

    The result of a green and virtual data center is that of a flexible, agile, resilient, scalable information factory that is also economical, productive, efficient, productive as well as sustainable.

    Ok, nuff said (for now)

    Cheers gs

    Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
    twitter @storageio

    All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved

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    Green and Virtual Data Center: Productive Economical Efficient Effective Flexible

    Green and Virtual Data Center

    A Green and Virtual IT Data Center (e.g. an information factory) means an environment comprising:

    • Habitat for technology or physical infrastructure (e.g. physical data center, yours, co-lo, managed service or cloud)
    • Power, cooling, communication networks, HVAC, smoke and fire suppression, physical security
    • IT data information infrastructure (e.g. hardware, software, valueware, cloud, virtual, physical, servers, storage, network)
    • Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) along with IT Service Management (ITSM) software defined management tools
    • Tools for monitoring, resource tracking and usage, reporting, diagnostics, provisioning and resource orchestration
    • Portals and service catalogs for automated, user initiated and assisted operation or access to IT resources
    • Processes, procedures, best-practices, work-flows and templates (including data protection with HA, BC, BR, DR, backup/restore, logical and physical security)
    • Metrics that matter for management insight and awareness
      People and skill sets among other items

    Green and Virtual Data Center Resources

    Click here to learn about "The Green and Virtual Data Center" book (CRC Press) for enabling efficient, productive IT data centers. This book covers cloud, virtualization, servers, storage, networks, software, facilities and associated management topics, technologies and techniques including metrics that matter. This book by industry veteran IT advisor and author Greg Schulz is the definitive guide for enabling economic efficiency and productive next generation data center strategies.

    Intel recommended reading
    Publisher: CRC Press – Taylor & Francis Group
    By Greg P. Schulz of StorageIO www.storageio.com
     ISBN-10: 1439851739 and ISBN-13: 978-1439851739
     Hardcover * 370 pages * Over 100 illustrations figures and tables

    Read more here and order your copy here. Also check out Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press) a new book by Greg Schulz.

    Productive Efficient Effective Economical Flexible Agile and Sustainable

    Green hype and green washing may be on the endangered species list and going away, however, green IT for servers, storage, networks, facilities as well as related software and management techniques that address energy efficiency including power and cooling along with e-waste, environmental health and safety related issues are topics that wont be going away anytime soon. There is a growing green gap between green hype messaging or green washing and IT pain point issues including limits on availability or rising costs of power, cooling, floor-space as well as e-waste and environmental health and safety (PCFE). To close the gap will involve addressing green messaging and rhetoric closer to where IT organizations pain points are and where budget dollars exists that can address PCFE and other green related issues as a by-product.

    The green gap will also be narrowed as awareness of broader green related topics coincide with IT data center pain points, in other words, alignment of messaging with IT issues that have or will have budget dollars allocated towards them to sustain business and economic growth via IT resource usage efficiency. Read more here.

    Where to learn more

    The following are useful links to related efficient, effective, productive, flexible, scalable and resilient IT data center along with server storage I/O networking hardware and software that supports cloud and virtual green data centers.

    Various IT industry vendor and service provider links
    Green and Virtual Data Center Primer
    Green and Virtual Data Center links
    Are large storage arrays dead at the hands of SSD?
    Closing the Green Gap
    Energy efficient technology sales depend on the pitch
    EPA Energy Star for Data Center Storage Update
    EPA Energy Star for data center storage draft 3 specification
    Green IT Confusion Continues, Opportunities Missed! 
    Green IT deferral blamed on economic recession might be result of green gap
    How much SSD do you need vs. want?
    How to reduce your Data Footprint impact (Podcast) 
    Industry trend: People plus data are aging and living longer
    In the data center or information factory, not everything is the same
    More storage and IO metrics that matter
    Optimizing storage capacity and performance to reduce your data footprint 
    Performance metrics: Evaluating your data storage efficiency
    PUE, Are you Managing Power, Energy or Productivity?
    Saving Money with Green Data Storage Technology
    Saving Money with Green IT: Time To Invest In Information Factories 
    Shifting from energy avoidance to energy efficiency
    SNIA Green Storage Knowledge Center
    Speaking of speeding up business with SSD storage
    SSD and Green IT moving beyond green washing
    Storage Efficiency and Optimization: The Other Green
    Supporting IT growth demand during economic uncertain times
    The Green and Virtual Data Center Book (CRC Press, Intel Recommended Reading)
    The new Green IT: Efficient, Effective, Smart and Productive 
    The other Green Storage: Efficiency and Optimization 
    What is the best kind of IO? The one you do not have to do

    Watch for more links and resources to be added soon.

    What this all means

    The result of a green and virtual data center is that of a flexible, agile, resilient, scalable information factory that is also economical, productive, efficient, productive as well as sustainable.

    Ok, nuff said (for now)

    Cheers gs

    Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
    twitter @storageio

    All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved

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    Open Data Center Alliance (ODCA) BMW Private Cloud Strategy

    Storage I/O cloud virtual and big data perspectives

    If your organization like StorageIO is a member of the Open Data Center Alliance (ODCA) you may be aware of the resources they make available about cloud, virtualization, security and more. Unlike so many other industry associates or trade groups dominated by vendors, the ODCA has an IT or customer focus including member developed best practices, strategies and templates.

    A good example is the recently released ODCA member BMW group private cloud strategy document.

    This 24 page document covers BMW groups private cloud strategy that sets stage for phased future hybrid. By being a phased approach, it seems that BMW is leveraging and transitioning for the future while maintaining support for their current environment (including Windows-based) as part of a paradigm shift. This is refreshing and good to see how organizations are looking to use cloud as part of a paradigm or IT service deliver model and not just as a new technology or platform focus.

    Topics covered include IaaS along with PaaS for DB, Web, SAP and CSaaS or Corporate Software as a Service based on the NIST cloud model. Also included are roles and integration of CMDB, ITSM, ITIL, orchestration in a business vs. technology driven model. Being business driven, that means there is a mission statement for the BMW cloud strategy, with objectives aligned to support organization enablement vs. using different tools, technologies or trends along with design criteria.

    What I like about the BMW strategy is that it is aligned to support the business as opposed to finding ways to use technology to support the business, or justify why a cloud is needed. In other words, something different from those needing for a technology, tool, product, standard or service to be adopted.

    Thus while having been a vendor, the ODCA customer focused angle appeals to me from when I was on that side of the table working in IT organizations. Otoh, for some of you reading through the BMW document might result in DejaVu from experiences of web-based, client-server, information utilities and other IT service delivery models or paradigms.

    Learn more at the ODCA newsroom

    If you have not done, check out and join the ODCA.

    Ok nuff said

    Cheers gs

    Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
    twitter @storageio

    All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved

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    Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) and IRM

    StorageIO industry trends cloud, virtualization and big data

    There are many business drivers and technology reasons for adopting data center infrastructure management (DCIM) and infrastructure Resource Management (IRM) techniques, tools and best practices. Today’s agile data centers need updated management systems, tools, and best practices that allow organizations to plan, run at a low-cost, and analyze for workflow improvement. After all, there is no such thing as an information recession driving the need to move process and store more data. With budget and other constraints, organizations need to be able to stretch available resources further while reducing costs including for physical space and energy consumption.

    The business value proposition of DCIM and IRM includes:

    DCIM, Data Center, Cloud and storage management figure

    Data Center Infrastructure Management or DCIM also known as IRM has as their names describe a focus around management resources in the data center or information factory. IT resources include physical floor and cabinet space, power and cooling, networks and cabling, physical (and virtual) servers and storage, other hardware and software management tools. For some organizations, DCIM will have a more facilities oriented view focusing on physical floor space, power and cooling. Other organizations will have a converged view crossing hardware, software, facilities along with how those are used to effectively deliver information services in a cost-effective way.

    Common to all DCIM and IRM practices are metrics and measurements along with other related information of available resources for gaining situational awareness. Situational awareness enables visibility into what resources exist, how they are configured and being used, by what applications, their performance, availability, capacity and economic effectiveness (PACE) to deliver a given level of service. In other words, DCIM enabled with metrics and measurements that matter allow you to avoid flying blind to make prompt and effective decisions.

    DCIM, Data Center and Cloud Metrics Figure

    DCIM comprises the following:

    • Facilities, power (primary and standby, distribution), cooling, floor space
    • Resource planning, management, asset and resource tracking
    • Hardware (servers, storage, networking)
    • Software (virtualization, operating systems, applications, tools)
    • People, processes, policies and best practices for management operations
    • Metrics and measurements for analytics and insight (situational awareness)

    The evolving DCIM model is around elasticity, multi-tenant, scalability, flexibility, and is metered and service-oriented. Service-oriented, means a combination of being able to rapidly give new services while keeping customer experience and satisfaction in mind. Also part of being focused on the customer is to enable organizations to be competitive with outside service offerings while focusing on being more productive and economic efficient.

    DCIM, Data Center and Cloud E2E management figure

    While specific technology domain areas or groups may be focused on their respective areas, interdependencies across IT resource areas are a matter of fact for efficient virtual data centers. For example, provisioning a virtual server relies on configuration and security of the virtual environment, physical servers, storage and networks along with associated software and facility related resources.

    You can read more about DCIM, ITSM and IRM in this white paper that I did, as well as in my books Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press) and The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press).

    Ok, nuff said, for now.

    Cheers gs

    Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press, 2011), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press, 2009), and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier, 2004)

    twitter @storageio

    All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2012 StorageIO and UnlimitedIO All Rights Reserved

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    Spring (May) 2012 StorageIO news letter

    StorageIO News Letter Image
    Spring (May) 2012 News letter

    Welcome to the Spring (May) 2012 edition of the Server and StorageIO Group (StorageIO) news letter. This follows the Fall (December) 2011 edition.

    You can get access to this news letter via various social media venues (some are shown below) in addition to StorageIO web sites and subscriptions.

    Click on the following links to view the Spring May 2012 edition as an HTML or PDF or, to go to the news letter page to view previous editions.

    You can subscribe to the news letter by clicking here.

    Enjoy this edition of the StorageIO newsletter, let me know your comments and feedback.

    Nuff said for now

    Cheers
    Gs

    Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
    twitter @storageio

    All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2012 StorageIO and UnlimitedIO All Rights Reserved

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    From ILM to IIM, Is this a solution sell looking for a problem?

    Storage I/O trends

    Enterprise Storage Forum has a new piece about what could be the successor to ILM from a marketing rallying cry perspective in the form of Intelligent Information Management (IIM).

    Information management is an important topic, however, given tough economic times, can IIM be joined into some other discussions about efficiency and boosting productivity to help justify its cost what ever that cost may be in terms of more hardware, software and people to carry out? With EMC and Gartner banging the drum, it will be interesting to see who else jumps on the IIM bandwagon.

    On the other hand, lets see what over variations surface perhaps an VIIM (Virtualized IIM), or a IIMaaS (IIM as a Service), or how about Cloud IIM or GIIM (Green IIM) among others like xIIM where you plug what ever letter you want in front if IIM (something that someone missed out on a few years ago by not grabbing xLM).

    While I see the importance of data management, the bottom line is going to be how to budget and build a business case when sustaining business growth in tough economic times is a common theme. Hopefully we can see some business case and justifications that can involve some self-funded, that is, the cost of adopting and deploying IIM is covered by the savings in associated hardware and software management and maintenance fees as well as a means of boosting overall IT and data management productivity.

    Ok, nuff said.

    Cheers gs

    Greg Schulz – Author Cloud and Virtual Data Storage Networking (CRC Press), The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press) and Resilient Storage Networks (Elsevier)
    twitter @storageio

    All Comments, (C) and (TM) belong to their owners/posters, Other content (C) Copyright 2006-2024 Server StorageIO and UnlimitedIO LLC All Rights Reserved