IT systems need electrical power to operate, but a management in number of organizations still don’t know exactly how much their data centres cost and why.
For those enterprises Vancouver’s TSO Logic has released a dashboard that connects to its suite of energy management applications to give higher-ups better visualization of costs.
Called the Data Efficiency Conosole, company CEO Aaron Rallo describes it as “a dashboard that allows C-levels and other executives to see exactly what’s happening form a cost perspective in their data centre in a way the business can understand.”
It connects to TSO Logic’s Power Metrics software, which pulls transaction data through open protocols links from servers on the network, DCIM (data centre infrastructure management suites and network application controllers.
Calculations are made with added information from utilities that serve customers on their kilowatt per hour to come up with metrics on almost everything from the power cost per application transaction to the cost of rendering a frame of video.
“Power usage is quickly becoming a big cost in data centers,” said Rallot. “It’s 33 per cent of the total expenses of running a facility. “Many C-level executives and directors look at a data centre and see a bunch of blinking lights, and see a power bill that (only) tells them how much power they’re using. And what we’re trying to do with the dashboard is distill down all this complex information about how power relates to the business in a format that is easy to read for them.”
The console comes with over 30 widgets that make calculations. Managers can chose which ones they want to see.
Rallo said the cost of the dashboard is based on the number of devices in enterprise — physical and virtual servers, switches, access points. There are pay-as-you-go or a straight up front cost. He was reluctant to provide details, but would say that a small-to midsize environment a solution would start at $60,000.
The company’s products include Power Control, which controls server power to maximize workloads, and Power Metrics, which pulls data from applications to show how they use energy.