MergePoint® Infrastructure Explorer

Save Money and Manage Change Effectively

MergePoint Infrastructure Explorer – Know, Plan and Manage your Data Center

Data center managers wrestle daily with how to do more with less including reducing costs and managing rapid change with fewer resources. In a complex infrastructure environment, this is a daunting task without information and tools to speed analysis and guide action. Avocent’s MergePoint Infrastructure Explorer offers data center managers both.  

MergePoint Infrastructure Explorer provides data center managers a solution to quickly assess current assets, including power and HVAC utilization, and visualize changes in real-time to accommodate new technology (e.g. virtualization) and changes in infrastructure configuration.

Avocent’s MergePoint Infrastructure Explorer can also leverage the power of Avocent’s management software, DSview 3 and the associated infrastructure hardware (access and control, power and serial device management). No other vendor offers the combination of robust data center planning, change management and integration with Avocent’s active infrastructure products.

Avocent’s MergePoint Infrastructure Explorer allows you to Know, Plan and Manage your data center. Many of the issues in today’s data centers revolve around an incomplete or inaccurate view of what resources are available. Being out of space or out of power are factors of what IT believes is being used verses what is actually available.  Devices are no longer used but still in racks. There are power ports open on a PDU but the max power supported is already being pulled by other devices.  How full will the new data center be at opening? Mid-to-large sized businesses will benefit from accurate information that is in a usable model, meaning that it can easily be kept up to date.

Plan view illustrates critical information on the data center, providing an overview of capacities and potential issues.

The usual spreadsheet model becomes out of date shortly after completing an inventory as it is a passive data log and not used as a daily tool for planning and design of the data center. Infrastructure Explorer is designed as an easy-to-use visual model of a working data center; the design as an active system ensures more accurate and reliable data on the infrastructure.

Innovative data center solution for lowering costs, managing change and leveraging existing investments.

• Dynamically Monitor – using application integration, Infrastructure Explorer displays dynamic monitoring of environmental characteristics such as heating, cooling and power.
  
  
• Visual Modeling – View graphically the data center(s), racks and individual IT elements within a rack, including detailed visual information to aid in the day-to-day operations of the physical data center (i.e. email server is in row 3, rack b, U 20-24). Significantly reduces the time to respond to issues and plan changes.
  
  
• Planning and Design – Create multiple what-if scenarios to understand the impact of a change or addition to the data center. Enables data center optimization for space, power, weight, heat/cooling and network. Ensures optimal configurations are readily available.
  
  
• Asset Identification and Location – Search for assets by type, domain name, IP address, etc. by providing the physical location in addition to other general asset information. Also provides specific information for locating a device (i.e. recalled power supply type-x – visual indications of which racks and servers need to be worked). Increases response time and reduces labor costs.
  
  
• Capacity Visualization – See at a glance available capacity and potential issues for space, power, weight, heat/cooling and network. Provides accurate information for planning and reduces time needed to implement additions and changes to the data center. Improves change management quality and lowers cost of planning and documentation.
  
  
• Equipment Library – Draw from a master library of more than 250,000 distinct devices. Delivered solution can precisely describe YOUR specific environment, including high fidelity front and rear images, size, weight, power usage, BTU output, etc. Feeds data center capacity metrics and showing details of assets for hands-on operations and maintenance support. Dramatically reduces the effort and time for defining infrastructure models and assessing impact of changes.
  
  
• Data Import – Import existing data center information (.csv files) to speed and simplify implementation. Leverage the value of current information.
  
  
• DSView® 3 Integration – Launch KVM or Serial sessions to assets connected with Avocent hardware. Moves the tool from a visual planning and recording tool to a functional interaction with the environment. Maximizes the value of existing Avocent investments.

Specifications & Technical Requirements

Server
• Microsoft® Windows® Server 2003 R2 Standard Edition SP2 or Red Hat® Enterprise Linux 5.0 (32-bit support only)
• Hardware - Single core Pentium 4 CPU @ 2.8GHz, 2GB RAM, 8GB Free Hard Disc Space

Client
• Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP2 (32-bit support only) and Microsoft Windows Vista® Business SP1
• Microsoft Windows Server 2003 R2 Standard Edition SP2 or Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5.0 (32-bit support only)
• Linux RPM Packages - libXext, libXtst, libXi, xorg-x11-apps, xorg-x11-xauth

• Adobe® Flash® version 9.0.115.0 or 10.0 (Non-debug version)
• Hardware - Single core Pentium 4 CPU @ 2.8GHz, 1GB RAM, LAN Connection


Supported Browsers
• FireFox® version 2.0.0.20
• Microsoft Internet Explorer® 6 version 6.0.3790.3959 128-bit SP2
• Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 version 7.0.5730.13 128-bit