Eaton has launched a monitoring software that gives IT managers a better view of their infrastructure, after research showed that many are struggling to fully control their hardware.

The IPM (Intelligent Power Manager) Infrastrucuture product, shown at DCD’s Zettastructure event in London, can track changes and see challenges coming, with a clear dashboard that allows intelligent decisions to be made. It’s based on open source software so data from other vendors’ equipment can be easily incorporated, and the platform can be extended in future. By making the infrastructure easier to manage, the product addresses a skills issues revealed by research, solutions specialist Dennis O’Sullivan told DatacenterDynamics.

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– Eaton

Skills gap

“The results were not a surprise,” said O’Sullivan, a new appointment at Eaton. The research, commissioned by Eaton from analyst firm Freeform Dynamics, found that users appreciated the value of power management, and wanted to invest more in it, but were finding there was a skills shortage when it came to applying the software and looking for benefits from it. The study spoke to 320 data center professionals in Europe. 

The IPM Infrastructure software is based on the 42ITy (pronounced “fortuity”) open source project, which allows vendor neutral data acquisition and integration with other suppliers’ products. The software is embedded in an Eaton intelligent power controller, packaged as a 1U high, half-width box.

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Dennis O’Sullivan – Eaton

The controller feature Ethernet, serial and USB ports as well as process I/O channels, allowing it to build a local, centralized repository of data from equipment such as intelligent power distribution units (PDUs) and uninterruptible power supplies (UPSs). The product supports protocols including TCP/IP, HTTP/HTTPS, SNMPv1, SNMPv2c, Eaton XML/PDC, & SSH console access, and the dashboard can also display information from temperature and humidity sensors.

The IPM is available as a standalone product, or integrated in Eaton’s other IT room and data center products, It will initially be available for smaller IT applications up to ten racks, with a version for larger-scale applications due in 2017.