TSO Logic has launched a dashboard product that displays key data center performance metrics to C-level executives, IT staff and other employees who do not understand or do not need detailed metrics used by data center operators.

The dashboard, called Data Center Efficiency Console (DEC), uses data from the Vancouver-based vendor's data center power management software. Using a “widget-style” interface, it can display things like data center cost per transaction, power usage by power source, average server utilization levels, revenue per server, transactions per 1kWh or cost per user.

Aaron Rallo, founder and CEO of TSO Logic, said, what constitutes a transaction is different for every user, so DEC allows each user to define it for themselves. “Transaction is whatever is meaningful to them, based on their business.”

An e-commerce company could define it as a sale transaction, for example. An animation studio could use a video frame as a unit, while a wireless carrier could count the number of users on their wireless network.

The point of DEC is to give executives a way to look at data center cost they can understand and make business decisions based on this information. They can view the metrics in real time, delivered to them as HTML5 widgets that display information distilled specifically for them.

Which executives will use the dashboard will depend on the size of the company, but Rallo imagines they will be CIOs, CTOs, CFOs and directors of infrastructure. These executives roles are changing, he said, and the product is designed to help them in their new roles.

“It's no longer just about finding new technology,” Rallo said. “It's about making operations more cost-effective.”

They can use the technology for capacity planning, deciding when to install more efficient hardware or understanding how well a piece of hardware handles a certain type of transaction. It also makes sense to use DEC in corporate sustainability work.

The product is priced based on the number of devices in the client's data center.