ARMONK, NY -- (MARKET WIRE) -- 02/21/08 -- IBM (NYSE: IBM) today announced new technologies that recreate data centers in a
secure virtual
world -- bringing real-time data from different facilities into a 3-D
environment to visualize hot spots, data flow, server utilization and more,
to better monitor and manage the entire IT platform.
Most enterprises have data centers in different buildings, cities and
possibly even countries. This is because data center designs have often
been dictated by a company's need to scale quickly to meet demand from
company growth and the transfer of more business processes to IT. But the
job of efficiently managing data centers in Beijing and Buenos Aires from
an office in Madrid is not always an easy one.
Implenia, a Swiss construction,
building services and real estate company, used the IBM virtual data center
solution to extend its existing virtual operations center, which was
previously used mainly for the facilities management processes. The virtual
data center is a tailored 3-D replica of servers, racks, networking, power
and cooling equipment that allows data center managers to experience
real-time enhanced awareness of their dispersed resources.
A consolidated view gives operators insight into real physical issues, such
as how heat and energy flow through the data center. It also provides an
intuitive method for understanding the company's entire computing
architecture, and allows Implenia finer control of its HVAC and security
systems.
With the IBM 3-D data center, customers can not only
monitor and manage live systems, but they can perform simulations and 'what
if' scenarios about their enterprise. The modeling and simulation
capability can be used for exercises in space, power and cooling planning,
training, and disaster recovery scenarios. Users can move assets, interact
with them and drive them with real or simulated data.
The key element for Implenia is IBM's virtual world integration middleware,
Holographic Enterprise Interface (HEI), to link real-world data center
operations in cyberspace to their Building automation interface. HEI has a
modular and flexible design that allows clients to customize the desired
interactions between real and virtual worlds. Each physical data center
linked through this technology has an HEI instance that will transmit
messages over the private network using Internet standard protocols to the
3-D virtual world server.
The virtual world platform that renders the 3-D environment is based on the
OpenSim Application
Platform for 3-D Virtual Worlds.
As companies of all sizes become more global in nature and tap into skills
across the world, the mounting virtual workforce needs new tools to be
effective. The 3-D Data Center allows experts to manage data center
resources regardless of where they are or when these resources need
attention, giving both employees and corporations enhanced productivity and
freedom. A
globally-integrated enterprise can deliver enormous economic benefits
to both developed and developing nations, and new technology like this one
can help companies seamlessly operate in such a distributed model. This
type of collaboration provides much faster cycle times for analysis and
decision making, by viewing operations in near real time, instead of
exchanging messages and two-dimensional drawings via email.
The 3-D data center is customizable according to the client's servers,
applications and monitoring systems. Models of non-IBM equipment are also
available.
Executive Quotes
"Viewing information about your data center in 2-D text -- even in real
time -- only tells a data center manager part of the story, because our
brains are wired for sight and sound," said IBM Researcher Michael Osias,
who architected the 3-D data center service. "By actually seeing the
operations of your data center in 3-D, even down to flames showing hotspots
and visualizations of the utilization of servers allows for a clearer
understanding of the enterprise resources, better informed decision-making
and a higher level of interaction and collaboration."
"Until working with IBM we only knew the state of our data center from the
information we got through the building automation system and our virtual
worlds communications interface. We didn't know the state of the server and
information that was readily available to us until it was made more
accessible via the 3-D visualizations that IBM built for us," said Oliver
Goh, Implenia IT Specialist. "We think that by combining this information
with the information we had from the building automation side we can, from
a building management standpoint, control the data much better and take
action to be more efficient."
Related Links
The Emergence of the 3-D
Internet
IBM Helps
Clients Benchmark Effectiveness of Green Data Centers
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IBM Media Contacts
Steven Tomasco stomasc@us.ibm.com
Phone: (914) 945-1655
Kelly Sims Kelly.sims@us.ibm.com
Phone: (917) 472-3456
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