Eaton has launched its first data center infrastructure management solution. Named Visual Capacity Optimization Manager, the new solution is designed to help MSPs and SMBs, as well as operators of enterprise data centers and colocation facilities, save money and improve reliability by making better capacity optimization and risk mitigation decisions.†
“As data centers become more complex and add new equipment, operators experience significant challenges in the form of inefficiencies related to power, cooling and space, inefficiencies that can multiply quickly and slow operations to a crawl,” said Hervé Tardy, vice president and general manager for Eaton’s Distributed Power Quality Division, in a press statement. “With our new VCOM platform, we’re giving operators a powerful tool to manage their infrastructure from the application to the utility pole, lowering the total cost of ownership for critical infrastructure.”
Key features of Eaton’s VCOM software platform include:
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3D renderings of power, space, environment, IT networking, and virtualization status, for identifying trouble spots.
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A centralized device data repository unlimited attribute tracking and integration with third-party asset tracking systems.
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Custom multilevel reports and role-based dashboards for KPI tracking, trending analysis, and predictive analytics
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An integrated rack building tool that draws on a repository of more than 22,000 devices to deliver an accurate visual display of the data center
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Capacity planning functionality for exploring “what if?” scenarios regarding current usage and future capacity.
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Real-time thermal imaging profiles encompassing temperature, humidity, leak detection, door closure, air pressure data, security cameras, and security systems.
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Physical and virtual machine monitoring techology that shows connections, dependencies, and applications from an array of IT assets including physical servers, VM hosts, VM guests, switches, and rack PDUs.
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Change and workflow management capabilities that enable users to generate projects, tasks, and work orders, or integrate with third-party workflow systems. †
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Support for multitenant environments.
With cloud computing eating into traditional on-premises hardware sales, Eaton views management services as a strong source of replacement revenue.†VCOM is the latest addition to the company’s management software portfolio, which also includes Intelligent Power Manager, a solution that helps technicians automate tasks like shutting down physical servers or relocating virtual machines during power outages, abd Visual Power Manager, which provides RMM-like monitoring and administration capabilities for UPS and PDU devices from Eaton and other manufacturers.†
As ChannelPro reported in May, Eaton has historically regarded†DCIM solutions too complex and expensive for most users’ needs. The company developed one anyway, however, because not having a DCIM solution was costing it business with companies that insisted on having one.†