 |
 |
|
Cisco Unified Computing System - Call PBM IT Solutions at (888) 233-6471Q. What systems in a data center should be maintained on an ongoing basis? A. All the supporting systems in a data center face heavy loads and must be properly maintained to continue operating satisfactorily. These systems include cooling, humidification, air handling, power distribution, backup power generation and much more. Per-rack power requirements constrain the number of racks a data center can support. A typical 10,000 - 20,000 sq. ft. facility designed for 50 - 100 watts/sq. ft requires 1/2 megawatt to 2 megawatts of power. Availability and cost of utility power in the megawatt range is expensive and difficult to obtain. Supporting infrastructure - generators, ATS, UPS, and distribution equipment - also are costly. Careful planning and growth projections must be maintained to ensure power requirements can be met. Hardware assets should be used well after their depreciated financial life has ended — for as long as is technically possible. Five issues IT managers must consider to ensure smooth data center operations are as follows: Regulatory compliance, disaster recovery/business continuance, power, Hosted Solutionscooling, and IT as a service will be dominant themes in the coming year as companies work to manage their IT assets to support business goals. Network virtualization is a method of combining the available resources in a network by splitting up the available bandwidth into channels, each of which is independent from the others, and each of which can be assigned (or reassigned) to a particular server or device in real time. Hypervisor software is the secret sauce that makes virtualization possible. This software, also known as a virtualization manager, sits between the hardware and the operating system, and decouples the operating system and applications from the hardware. The hypervisor assigns the amount of access that the operating systems and applications have with the processor and other hardware resources, such as memory and disk input/output. Data backup involves the saving of your data in two or more locations, so that if something happens to your computer, you still have your data reserved in backup. This allows you to keep your data even if you lose your computer. The Cisco Unified Computing System enables more dynamic and agile data centers, in which server identity (MAC addresses, worldwide names [WWNs], firmware and BIOS revisions, network and storage connectivity profiles and policies, etc.) can be dynamically provisioned or migrated to any physical server within the system. Green IT, or otherwise known as Green Computing is the concept of building computer hardware and software system with the minimal impact to the environment. Data storage systems are used in a variety of businesses for the purpose of storing and maintaining data which is critical to the operation of the businesses and their customers. It is very important that such data storage systems be highlyreliable to minimize or eliminate the chance of losing data if the system fails. The most secure and reliable systems employ total redundancy, in which every component of the system is replicated, such that, upon a failure of a component, anothercomponent takes over operation, so that the data storage system can remain fully functional. For example, two storage processors may be provided in a system such that if one fails, the other assumes the operation of the failed processor as well asmaintaining its own. However, total redundancy is expensive and can be an inefficient use of system resources. The Cisco Nexus 1000V aligns management of the operational environment for virtual machines and physical server connectivity in the data center , reducing the total cost of ownership (TCO) by providing operational consistency and visibility throughout the network. It offers flexible collaboration between the server, network, security, and storage teams while supporting various organizational boundaries and individual team autonomy. |
