Emerson Network Power (NYSE: EMR) has released version 650 of its Aperture Suite, a collection of data center infrastructure management (DCIM) software tools especially designed for controlling "data center virtual sprawl" by offering new capabilities that help organizations deal with the explosive growth in virtualization and better manage increased data center complexity.
The company notes that the rapid adoption of server virtualization enables potential reductions in data center energy consumption, while introducing new management challenges associated with aligning virtual and physical resources. Emerson says that the virtual management capabilities in the latest version of its Aperture Suite can increase visibility into the relationship between the data center's virtual and physical resources to enable the full benefits of virtualization to be realized, while mitigating risk to facilities.
The new software version includes the Aperture Capacity Manager, Aperture Configuration Manager, Aperture Infrastructure Process Manager, Aperture Integration Manager and Aperture Integrated Resource Manager. The new capabilities integrate Aperture Capacity Manager with virtual management systems, such as VMware and Microsoft Virtual Machine Manager, to reconcile virtual processes and physical hosts to prevent infrastructure overloading and identify under-utilized resources.
Via the new tool, data center personnel performing routine maintenance or equipment changes have visibility into relationships across the physical and virtual layer to reduce the risk of unplanned downtime, while trending of the virtual estate allows growth to be tracked over time, enabling better planning, according to Emerson. Another new feature in Aperture Capacity Manager allows specific resources within the data center to be assigned to a particular department, organizational group or function to ensure support for critical services or enable more accurate charge backs.
Additionally, a new high-level dashboard provides an intuitive snapshot of personnel, power, cooling and space efficiency metrics to provide a quick assessment of data center performance. Embedded dashboard widgets are configurable for new data sources and can be reused to represent other user-defined key performance indicators.
“This new Aperture Suite release advances the state-of-the-art in DCIM by giving data center managers the tools to control virtual sprawl and make better spending decisions when it comes to growth,” comments Tom Waun, president of global sales, marketing and professional services for Emerson Network Power’s Avocent business. “It also underscores Emerson Network Power’s commitment to this product as part of its path to the Trellis platform.”
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