Maximize the value of data center management services with HPE Pointnext Services

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Data center management services are an essential foundation for the software-defined data center, but implementing a DCMS strategy can be challenging. HPE expertise can guide you on your DCMS journey.

By Pascal Lecoq, Director, Worldwide Data Center Technology Services Practice, HPE Pointnext Services

In my previous post, I explained why an approach that incorporates data center management services (DCMS) is an essential foundation for the software-defined data center. (See: DCMS: The key component of software-defined data center and digital twin initiatives.)

I also introduced the DCMS pyramid – see the figure below – and explored its four levels of capabilities.

In this post, I will focus on two levels where businesses often seek the expertise that HPE Pointnext Services provides: Level 2, Operational Management; and Level 3, Intelligent Management. (See: What is Pointnext?)

Operational Management: Enabling the highest levels of capacity, availability and efficiency

The following principles are the starting points for the Layer 2 capabilities:

• Delivering the right capacity to business requires an IT architecture that supports mission-critical use cases, applications, software, and users.
• Providing the right service level for that IT architecture requires a robust, resilient, well-designed data center that provides the space, power, and cooling necessary for the IT hardware to operate as expected.
• Delivering the services produced by the IT architecture and the supporting facility requires teamwork between IT and facility management staff to help optimize capacity, availability, and efficiency.

With these principles in mind, Hewlett Packard Enterprise guides customers through ITIL^® and ITSM-based data center management processes and procedures that promote the highest levels of capacity, availability, and efficiency. We also help you leverage these processes and identify operational gaps, while providing governance processes and procedures to ensure that your data center facility delivers business value.

The data center runbook is an important part of this effort, and HPE Pointnext Services can help you create it. Our Datacenter Operations Consulting Service may be delivered in two steps:

• Light runbook: This provides the complete portfolio of data center operation procedures and guidance. It is arranged in a logical order that makes it easy to access and modify, and it’s based on the client’s existing elements supplemented by HPE’s generic (not site-specific) data center operation procedures.
• Fully customized runbook: This provides a site-specific, fully customized and detailed data center operation tool on top of the light runbook definition.

Intelligent Management: Getting the most value from data center infrastructure management

In Layer 3, data center infrastructure management (DCIM) is the key component. It enables you to:

Configure and optimize the data center. First, consider the efficiency of your operations, including labor and workflow, and then drill down to examine the individual systems. For example, data center infrastructure management DCIM automates the process of planning for new assets and removing old ones. Without DCIM, when you’re deploying new servers or moving systems, data center managers have to manually query available resources such as rack space, power capacity, network ports, and patch panel ports.

This process is labor intensive, with real costs. It also slows the response time to internal customers’ requests. With DCIM, a work order for such a transaction can be generated accurately and reliably in minutes using an established workflow.

This automation is possible since the data center asset data is stored or integrated into a unified database. As a result, the data center operator is able to utilize accurate conditions data in order to run automatic models that analyze various scenarios to configure the data center and provide real-time outcomes that make for intelligent decisions to optimize the data center.

Enable holistic energy efficiency. DCIM automation is a function of leveraging the facility and IT systems information that has been gathered and analyzed, with established trends, into a unified or integrated database. The data is utilized to drive proactive decisions that can forecast the demands of the IT systems and counter-balance the supply of the facility infrastructure. DCIM is intended to provide the intelligent analysis that the individual control systems base their actions on. By utilizing this unified intelligent analysis system, controls systems become more efficient and their automation capabilities are enhanced.

As we all know, the principle that “you can’t manage what you don’t measure” applies to data centers. To enable holistic energy efficiency implementation, one must collect static data as well as continuous and granular dynamic data from the various assets in the data center, as shown in Figure 1, layers 1a and 1b. The collected data can then be post-processed using various analytics and predictive modeling within the intelligent management layer.

In this layer, one can calculate efficiency metrics as appropriate to the data center. For example, knowing the relationship between server wattage requirements from layer 1b (the dynamic data collection layer) and mechanical cooling costs from layer 3 (intelligent management) can help in determining the value of purchasing slightly more expensive, but much more efficient, server power supplies and IT equipment. Also, the operating costs of double-conversion UPSs can be compared to those of line-reactive units based on analytics in layer 3 to determine if the (possibly unnecessary) additional conditioning is financially justifiable.

Make better decisions across locations. DCIM dashboards and reporting allow energy benchmarking across a complete portfolio of data centers. This allows operators to compare energy metrics and understand both challenges and best practices at their various sites. It also allows operators to strategically plan capacity upgrades and IT changes with overall energy metrics in mind. This can include decisions about colocation and cloud deployment. Many DCIM products offer the ability to actually model capacity changes and energy use, as depicted in layer 3 of the figure above.

A guide for your DCMS journey

I’ve focused on two important DCMS levels here; I’ll conclude by pointing out that HPE Pointnext Services can help you design and implement your DCMS strategy at any level, or at all levels, from the bottom to the top. We can help you turn your vision of a flexible, responsive, software-defined data center into a reality.

Learn more about data center consulting services from HPE Pointnext Services and how we deliver hybrid infrastructure-ready data centers as an integrated aspect of your IT strategy.

Read about data center infrastructure solutions from HPE – secure and agile servers, storage, network, management and services for your hybrid cloud data center.

Pascal Lecoq is a Director at HPE Pointnext Services, in charge of the Worldwide Datacenter Technology Services Practice. He focuses on Advisory, Professional and Operations Consulting Services, which include data center transformation and consolidation programs. These services feature strategic advisory consulting from edge to cloud; concept and detailed design; and implementation and commissioning services. Pascal also focuses on data center assessments and capacity planning, and operations consulting. His expertise includes solution offerings such as modular data centers from Micro DCs to PODs (data centers in containers), datacenter management services, and datacenter as a service.

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