What We Do
The Problem
Today, data centers in the United States consume nearly $12 billion a year in electricity usage (WSJ, Sept 08). And they are getting thirstier: already double what they were in 2004, some predict data centers will soon grow to almost 5% of the entire US grid in the near future.
Unfortunately, most data centers today are very inefficient compared to new efficiency guidelines being produced by the DOE and other organizations like the Green Grid (www.thegreengrid.com). The average data center spends in excess of $1 cooling for every $1 spent on actual computing work. However, best-practice companies (such as Amazon and Google) have found new strategies to reduce their non-computing energy spend by as much as 75%.
How Modius Helps
Modius OpenData® helps companies implement these types of energy-efficiency best practice by offering a new approach to data center energy management. By measuring more things in more places more easily, Modius gives large companies on-line visibility to energy consumption and capacity utilization across all their critical computing locations.Learn more about the Modius solution in the System Overview Data Sheet.
Our approach allows our customers to monitor key performance indicators, such as power consumption, across an entire network of data centers from a single console. By providing granular monitoring and measurement of every critical infrastructure device at each location, Modius also enables operators to reduce risk of equipment failure and improving overall availability.
Our Offering
Modius offers a complete measurement and monitoring solution for generating a single, real-time view of all business critical facilities across the enterprise, including all major data centers, server rooms, branch offices, and IDF closets.
Modius can collect data from each and every site and transport it securely across the WAN or Internet to a central location. Through this architecture, Modius provides a real-time view onto all of the data center equipment across the entire enterprise from a single console.
How it Works
The core enabling technology is OpenData - a vendor-neutral measurement system that collects accurate device health, performance and utilization information from virtually any device in the data center, no matter which manufacturer or communication protocol it uses.
OpenData software is installed at each of the sites to be monitored. Over the local network, OpenData then connects to each of the devices and extracts native performance data. Generally, only one install per site is required to harvest network-enabled data (additional collectors are available for serial-only devices).
The key to OpenData’s ease-of-use is that it does not require special device drivers or other programming to collect data. OpenData uses a library of configurable XML templates to collect an unlimited number of points from both new and legacy devices.
Benefits
The OpenData system solves the challenge of continuously collecting real-time health and performance data across a network of data centers and storing it in an open standard data base. Data Center managers can use this consolidated data to monitor the performance of these sites in a single console.
The Modius OpenData system is built around 3 core modules, which can be purchased individually or as a complete system:
The information in each module is accessible using a reporting tool to generate a multitude of management reports and analytic queries. The modules provide a holistic view of all the health and utilization analysis for both the power chain and cooling systems in the data center, in addition to other specialized data center infrastructure systems, including: fire detection and suppression systems, security access equipment, static switches, etc.
Advantages
The advantages of using Modius:- Real-Time view
Performs continuous, real-time collection of performance information for all devices - Single console
Presents a consolidated, enterprise-wide view of all critical infrastructure devices from any location within a “single pane of glass” - Captures the entire chain
Measures infrastructure equipment “from the parking lot to the power strip” and from “legacy to leading edge”, regardless of device type or manufacturer - Accurate measurements
Provides real-time performance, utilization and capacity measurements - Centralized alarms
Creates threshold and alarm notifications of device health from a single dashboard - Easy configuration
Configurable by the end-user without any custom programming - Customized reporting
Generates custom reports detailing performance history, which can be used for trending and analysis
For more information, please see our Product Overview page.
