Issue link: http://cp.revolio.com/i/734838
4 | THE DATA CENTER JOURNAL www.datacenterjournal.com B ut comprehensive automation in the data center faces the same challenge that plagues other aspects of operation: facilities versus IT. Clearly, IT is the heart of the data center, but it cannot operate without the infrastruc- ture that the facilities crew builds and maintains. Although both departments have an overarching goal in common— delivering services to customers—they may oen be at odds in their individual roles, perhaps owing to a lack of apprecia- tion for one another's requirements and responsibilities. Automation throughout the data center can bridge this divide, at least in theory, and remove some of the discord between facilities and IT. But such a project requires soware that can collect and analyze data from both sides, making decisions that satisfy potentially conflict- ing requirements. perspective: facilities To operate at all, IT needs a clean, steady power supply as well as cooling and other infrastructure. Tackling this job is the facilities department. Rodman St. Amand, Director of Data Center Soware Solutions at Schneider Electric, notes that "electrical and mechanical systems are the internal organs of a data center. ese systems require constant monitoring to keep the end user informed about their operational efficiency and the health of the data center." Automation is a critical part of that operation; for instance, the power system must decide quickly when conditions warrant a switch from utility- supplied power to a backup source (e.g., uninterruptible power supplies for short- term disturbances or diesel generators for long-term disturbances). "All mechanical equipment is monitored and controlled to meet the operational requirements of a specification," St. Amand said. "e specification is written by the engineer of record to meet the requirements of the owner. Building automation and/or a building-management system (BMS) can monitor sensing devices and control the equipment required to maintain the data center environment. Additionally, all electrical equipment is monitored through an electrical power-monitoring systems (EPMS) and in most cases is integrated with the BMS." Automation doesn't completely eliminate the role of personnel, however. St. Amand added that a commissioned data center—including the BMS and EPMS implementations—has many auto- mated functions, but it also delivers critical information to those who are responsible for the various facets of operation. "e combined systems provide alarm notifica- tion and escalation paths that will inform the facilities operation personnel. ese notifications can be programmed and sent to personnel at a local workstation, via web pages, and to PDA and campus radio systems," he said. Raw data, however, can be as bad as (if not worse than) no data. Simply sending an alert every time some metric crosses a threshold (e.g., an aisle or rack exceeds a certain temperature) can quickly become a recipe for "alert fatigue" or simple inefficiency, increasing the oppor- tunity for misinterpretation of data, failure to spot patterns and poor operating deci- sions. Analytics is therefore an important part of automation: the capability to iden- tify patterns in the data, such as hot spots that might indicate an imminent failure of cooling equipment or an obstruction in air flow. "Data-analytics soware is designed to improve the efficiency of facilities by interpreting the many points of data generated by a BMS," St. Amand said. "It complements the BMS and facilities per- sonnel to help interpret areas of preventa- tive maintenance that should be addressed, supporting 'hands-free' operation." In addition, the more disjointed the various aspects of facilities automa- tion, the more difficult decision making can be—whether by personnel or by an application. For that reason, unification of the various aspects of this task offers a number of benefits. St. Amand notes, "Unification of facilities soware packages gives the end user an avenue to see two or more independent systems through one view. e operation of a data center can be very complicated, especially in a situa- tion where you have equipment failure or the interruption of the whole operation. A unified system allows the end user to access vital alarm-related information in order to respond quickly to an issue. Additional value comes when data is col- lected and shared to display metrics for the overall data center (e.g., power usage effectiveness, or PUE)." perspective: it Just as IT can't survive without facili- ties, facilities is pointless without IT deliver- ing the services that customers demand. By nature, IT involves extensive automation— what is a computer but a machine that tackles highly repetitive tasks that, although not necessarily difficult conceptually, would be onerous for even a large group of people to handle? But the data center layers on the complexity, running many of these machines together in a way that (hopefully) is efficient and squeezes the maximum po- tential from each component. "Repetitive, error-prone, manual, mundane tasks that take up too much of IT's time and resources are immediate candidates for automation," said Nimish Shelat, Marketing Manager for Data Center Automation at Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE). He notes, however, that although total automation is theoretically possible, it may not always be the most economical choice. "e decision also rests on the ROI of the automation. Amazing ROI results can be achieved when workflows are reduced, IT personnel are unshackled from the constraints of manual and repetitive tasks, and processes are auto- mated, accurate and efficient." Shelat likewise emphasizes the impor- tance of costs and benefits with regard to hands-free operation. Machine-based deci- sion making is a difficult task, particularly in complicated situations. Although data centers may not face the kinds of life-and- death decisions that self-driving cars do, they nonetheless can either help a company thrive or become dead weight dragging it down. "e option [for hands-free opera- tion] is available today. e key word is op- tion," he said. "It really depends on whether companies want to be 'hands-free' or slowly evolve towards it. Equally, it's a question of ROI." As with facilities, the IT department can choose among solutions that unify the various components of automation to support a more comprehensive view of op- erations. "[Unifying] soware is here today, and IT is empowered to deploy and use it," said Shelat. "But it's not just about the availability of the automation soware, but also the content (workflows and policies) that are available out of box. Essentially, soware and content go hand-in-hand for an automation approach that is scalable and sustainable."