Web-Enabling Your Hot Tub

Here’s a remote monitoring challenge you don’t see every day. Buffalo, New York resident Eric Nagel is using the Pingdom monitoring service to alert him when his hot tub goes offline. “How does he do it? He uses a wireless temperature sensor that checks the status of (the hot tub) via his own server,” Pingdom writes on its blog. “A small script generates an online status page that contains either ‘OK’ or ‘Too cold.’ This status page is monitored with Pingdom, so Eric will get an alert via SMS if his hot tub is too cold.”

Nagel’s hot tub is outdoors, and “during the cold Buffalo winters, if there was a problem and the lines froze, I’d be S.O.L.,” he writes. “So through the miracle of modern technology, I’ll know if a problem is coming.”

That’s a different type of temperature management and monitoring challenge. Too bad they didn’t have that in place for the Celebrity Hot Tub Party.

Raritan Acquires dcTrack Management Software

A visualization of multiple cabinets in a single screen from dcTrack.

Raritan today announced it has acquired the dcTrackdata center infrastructure management software from Nassoura Technology Associates. The deal underscores the growing importance of software in helping data center operators manage increasingly complex environments. 

Raritan will integrate dcTrack and its related technologies into its power management portfolio, which provides data center managers with insight into energy efficiency and capacity management issues. Khaled Nassoura, founder and CEO of Nassoura Technology, will head Raritan’s new Green Data Center Initiative.

“Our acquisition of dcTrack will further strengthen Raritan’s data center power management capabilities to address customers’ energy and operations issues,” said Rasul Damji, Vice President of Product Operations at Raritan. “The addition of dcTrack’s comprehensive visualization software will complement Raritan’s capabilities of gathering, measuring, monitoring and analyzing power usage and environmental indictors, as well as our remote server access and control technologies.

Providers Unplug Web Host, Spam Plummets

The global volume of junk mail plummeted Tuesday after network providers disconnected a California web hosting firm cited by the Washington Post and others for hosting spammers. Global Crossing and Hurricane Electric disconnected McColo Corp. after receiving inquiries about the firm’s activity from Post security blogger Brian Krebs. SpamCop and other organizations that monitor junk mail reported an almost immediate drop in spam levels in the wake of the disconnects.

In September a similar fate befell another web host, Atrivo/Intercage, which for several days had its traffic refused by all its connectivity providers (as documented by Renesys). But as often happens, Atrivo soon found a new provider who would accept its traffic.

GDCM Unveils Update of Management Software

Global Data Center Management(GDCM) has launched nlyte 5.0, the latest version of its data center management software. nLyte allows data center staff to manage critical infrastructure, automating operations and capacity management. The software provides change and configuration modeling, workflow and process automation, and tracking of power, cooling, cabling and network connections. (Above: a screen shot of the nlyte Cabinet Planner)

“I’m proud to unveil a significant new chapter in the development of GDCM’s product portfolio,” said Michael Evans, CEO of GDCM. “Getting the most productivity and cost savings from data center infrastructure is the goal of every CIO, and nlyte 5.0 is the most effective solution to optimize existing IT assets before investing in new machines, software and cooling systems.”

Data Center Management Tools for the iPhone

We don’t usually cover mobile gadgets here at Data Center Knowledge, but I wanted to belatedly share a link that might of interest to readers who are iPhone users. Pingdom has put together a list 12 iPhone apps for sysadmins and Webmasters. ”In our opinion, the iPhone can be extremely useful to administrators responsible for keeping servers, networks and websites up and running,” they write. “Loaded with the right applications, it becomes an on-the-move toolbox for when work needs to be done but there’s no computer nearby.”

Biometrics in Data Centers: Palms or Eyeballs?

Biometric security devices have become familiar features at data centers. In many facilities, palm scanners (shown at left) are used to authenticate the identity of employees and customers prior to entering the equipment area. This month the UK hosting company Telecity said it has installed a new security system at one of its London area data centers that uses incorporates iris scanning technology to identify staff and clients. “We understood that Telecity needed to demonstrate to its existing and prospective clients how seriously it takes the security of their equipment and data,” said Jeremy Terry, director of Meesons, which installed the system for Telecity.

Iris recognition technology has been a plot device in many Hollywood films, ranging from “Minority Report” to “The Simpsons Movie,” but has also been tested or implemented in a number of airports and schools in the US and UK. Iris scans are less intrusive than retinal scans, but nonetheless might test the comfort levels of data center staff and visitors to a larger degree than palm readers.   

A Day in the Life of a Data Center Manager

What do data center managers do on a day-to-day basis? Eric Bush, a data center operations supervisor at The Planet, walks readers through his daily routine in a post on the company’s blog. Bush reviews the hand-off from the day shift to the night shift, and provides a detailed overview of the items he’ll check during a perimeter patrol of The Planet’s data centers. If you’re not from the operations side of the house, this post provides an interesting window into the data center.

Capacity Utilization as a C-Suite Shocker

Are C-suite executives really comparing efficiency metrics like Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) in evaluating their data center performance? The Uptime Institute says it sees this happening, but industry observers are skeptical. “I think it’s a bit of a stretch to assume C-Level execs are even aware of PUE (let alone calling data center staff out on the carpet about it),” writes Matt Stansberry.

Other industry veterans say executives are indeed pressuring data center managers, but the metric that has been a real shocker is capacity utilization - how much mileage the company is getting out of the hardware it has already bought.

“We’re going to see the C-suite pushing back down on asset utilization and asset management,” said Jack Pouchet, Direct of Energy Initiatives at Emerson Network Power’s Liebert unit. Pouchet said there is low executive awareness of server utilization rates, which are often cited as averaging between 10 and 30 percent. “You’re going to start seeing aggressive policies coming down to change that.”

Closer Look: Brocade’s Deal for Foundry

Catching up: Earlier this week Brocade Communications Systems (BRCD) announced plans to acquire Foundry Networks for $3 billion. This deal figures to be significant in the evolving battle for market share and mindshare in converged data center networks. Here’s a roundup of analysis from major tech sites:

• PC World describest Brocade’s move as “a major strategic move in a brewing war over the future of data-center connectivity” that would “combine a maker of Fibre Channel SAN (storage area network) switches for data centers and a specialist in enterprise Ethernet LANs, two technologies that are headed toward a merger themselves.”
• Search Networking examines whether the acquisition allows brocade to gain ground on Cisco Systems (CSCO), with one analyst opining that it “is likely to help Brocade remain a viable competitor in a two-company battle, but it’s not likely to dramatically change the balance of power in that battle.”

Maintenance Key to Maximizing Battery Life

Maintenance and monitoring are important steps in ensuring that your data center batteries operate at peak reliability. Charles O’Donnell, vice president of Monitoring and Professional Services for the Liebert Services business of Emerson Network Power, discusses the importance of battery maintenance and the company’s remote monitoring services. This video runs approximately 2 minutes, 45 seconds.

For additional video, check out our DCK video archive and the Data Center Videos channel on YouTube.