Data center management vendor Nlyte Software has invented a system that allows facility managers and architects to share designs more efficiently.

The new Smart Blueprints technology allows its users to create and share any portion of a data center’s designs.

The invention is a response to user requests, as data center planners wanted a way to save time on allocating resources and planning the physicality of a data center.

The new ‘advanced intelligent provisioning’ system will automate this process, according to Nlyte.

Nlyte said by giving users more power to optimize hardware configurations, capture these comprehensive designs and share them with other users, the improvement in productivity will be akin to moving from handwriting to word processing.

The vendor claims that by using Smart Blueprints data center designers can adopt best practices and could make compliance with corporate IT policies easier.

It works by capturing and reproducing complex designs that include materials, configurations, connectivity information and 3D visual representations of blueprints.

Nlyte claims it can work at any level of detail.

Use cases include highly configurable chassis-based devices which require individual blades, network interface cards and other modules, fully contained or functional racks, the compilation of multiple functions that are individually housed and the replication of entire pod-level designs for dense computing or storage intensive applications.

Nlyte’s VP of strategy Mark Harris said rather than force data center professionals to start with a blank slate each time they create specific asset designs, Nlyte Smart Blueprints simplifies the process, saves time and capital resources.

Market watcher Rhonda Ascierto, senior analyst at 451 Research, said this could be a useful addition to the skillset in the emerging discipline of Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM).

“The adoption of DCIM software is becoming a priority for these data center professionals,” Ascierto said.

“They will likely view the Nlyte Smart Blueprints technology as a way to capture their best practices and collective knowledge to help their teams save time and make that knowledge reusable and accessible in the future”.