March 20, 2008 -- Nassoura Technology Associates, LLC has released an upgraded version of its dcTrack 2.0 system for automating data center infrastructure management. Major feature enhancements, according to the company, include: data center visualization tools; SNMP data discovery of power, temperature, and humidity items; support for virtual machines and IP addresses; and subnet management tools.
According to the company, dcTrack 2.0 now provides data center managers and users with "broad and deep" visibility into the data center. The system's data center visualization tools now support real-time AutoCAD integration to view and read data center floor plans and objects. Any managed object that is added to the CAD floor plan is automatically recognized by dcTrack.
The visualization tools further allow data center managers to zoom in on a cabinet and expand it to view its elevation, and to further zoom in on a device within the cabinet to view its detailed front and rear views where the device ports can be identified and labeled. While users can easily add their own views, dcTrack also includes an extensive library of rear and front views of data center devices.
In addition to standalone servers, dcTrack tracks and manages blade and virtual and servers, with the ability to manage virtual servers based on clusters, data store locations, virtual switches, and virtual ports. Also new to the upgraded release is support for one-to-many and many-to-one IP address assignments for server network interfaces.
The upgrade also includes an intelligent tool for managing complex IP subnetting, thus enabling the assignments of logical connections, in addition to physical connections, between servers and network switches, which can now be managed based on IP addresses and VLANs.
dcTrack 2.0 can also track and manage power per phase, thus enabling data center managers to keep loads balanced across all three phases. The system is also now able to read real-time power loads of SNMP-compatible power objects such as smart power strips, PDUs, and UPS units. Another enhancement to the system's power management capability is the ability to track power load by phase at the breaker, the breaker panel, the PDU, and the UPS.
"The enhancements found in dcTrack 2.0 are the result of real world feedback from our clients and several months of intensive research and development," comments Khaled Nassoura, PE, the product's architect. "These enhancements will add tremendous value to data center managers' daily operations and reduce significant costs associated with decentralized and manual tracking of key data center assets."