Posted on Wed, Aug 11, 2010 @ 01:27 PM
Viridity Software prides itself on the use of industry standard management protocols that are both managed by open standard organizations as well as vendor specific protocols. This gives us a distinct advantage because we have designed Viridity EnergyCenter to work in all data centers. EnergyCenter is vendor agnostic, meaning it will work the same with Windows servers as it will with Red Hat Enterprise Linux servers and OpenBSD servers. EnergyCenter can even be installed on Windows and Linux.
WMI (Windows Management Instrumentation)
WMI is Microsoft Window’s implementation of WBEM (Web-Based Enterprise Management) and CIM (Common Information Model). All versions of windows since Windows 2000 have the WMI service installed by default.
The three important aspects of WMI that should be known are
Namespaces, Queries, and Security.
Namespaces (targets):
Basically you need to point at something to ask it a question. You point with a ‘moniker’. It contains the target machine and then the namespace on that machine.
“winmgmts:\\localhost\root\CIMV2”
Some namespaces are: SECURITY, directory, CIMV2, RSOP, SmsDm, and SecurityCenter. Some of these acronyms might seems familiar and that’s because they are.
Queries (questions):
To ask the namespace for something you send is a proper question such as the following.
SELECT state FROM win32_service WHERE Name=’wuauserv’
In English this is “tell me if Automatic Update is on right now.”
Security:
At a basic level you connect to another computer the same way you connect to a file share or a shared printer. If you can connect to a computer via “\\server\share” then you can read it’s WMI data. The access permissions are controlled for each namespace with the windows standard Discretionary Access Control Lists (DACLs).
SNMP (Simple Network Management Protocol)
SNMP is a standard managed by the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force). It is a default part of any serious piece of networking equipment. It is installed on Microsoft Windows Servers but not enabled by default.
There are 3 important aspects of SNMP, Namespaces, and Security.
MIB (target)
The layout of data that you can get with SNMP is called a MIB (Management Information Base). You need to connect to an machine’s SNMP agent and then it will use a MIB to look up data on that machine. Inside MIBs are objects organized in a tree.
Queries (questions)
To get data from a MIB you have to query for specific information in the following forms:
ASN.1: “.1.3.6.1.2.1.25.3.3.1.2”
or
“.iso.org.dod.internet.mgmt.mib-2.host.hrDevice.hrProcessorTable.hrProcessorEntry.hrProcessorLoad”
In English, this is “Get the CPU utilization for each processor”
Security
For the most supported version, Version 2 is used. In Version 2, a Community String is used to access the SNMP service of a machine. The default Community String on most devices is ‘public’ and it is allowed read-only access. Each Community String can have it’s own access level.
|
Access Level
|
Description
|
|
read-only
|
The machine can only be read via SNMP
|
|
read-write
|
The machine can be configured via SNMP
|
-Joseph Paul Cohen, Viridity Engineering Team
Posted on Mon, Apr 12, 2010 @ 12:35 PM
Viridity EnergyCenter makes the list of 10 hot tools for the next-generation data center
In a recent Computerworld article, Beth Schultz chose Viridity EnergyCenter as a product that makes life easier for data center managers. She writes that what makes EnergyCenter interesting is that “Most power monitoring tools focus on the physical infrastructure. This is limiting, Viridity says, in that it provides data center managers no insight as to why power is being consumed. Viridity's software examines how applications consume energy – and then recommends how to eliminate inefficiencies. If the Viridity software delivers as promised, it should prove a boon for data center managers looking to increase energy efficiencies.”
To learn more about Viridity EnergyCenter download our free white paper on improving data center efficiency.
Posted on Thu, Apr 08, 2010 @ 10:55 AM
Recently, we’ve been talking about Viridity EnergyCenter software with press and analysts with great results.
“Viridity Entering Datacenter Energy-Efficiency Market with EnergyCenter”
The 451 Group writes:
"Viridity's EnergyCenter has two strong selling points. First, it is very easy and quick to set up (even at scale) – an important factor in complex environments where simple projects can take months. Second, no new hardware is required, increasing flexibility and keeping the price low."
>Read the full report
"Viridity Launches Energy Management Solution for Datacenters"
IDC writes:
“On March 22, Viridity announced the general availability of the company’s first product offering, EnergyCenter, a software tool that monitors and manages datacenter energy. IDC believes energy management is an emerging opportunity and that Viridity is entering the market at an opportune time.”
>Read the full report
"Viridity’s EnergyCenter Brings Energy Management to the Data Center"
The Mesabi Group writes:
“ Mark Twain famously said “Everyone talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.” Conversely, in IT everyone talks about data center energy efficiency, and many are trying to do something about it. The introduction of Viridity’s new EnergyCenter offers a particularly intriguing example.”
>Read the full report
Posted on Mon, Mar 22, 2010 @ 08:20 AM
At Viridity, one of the things we frequently tell data center managers interested in a more efficienct data center is to start gathering information that can help them make informed decisions. Gathering the facts can be a time consuming task, but doing so means you can reap huge rewards when it comes time to take on the next big consolidation, tech refresh, or asset growth project. Taking the guess work out of this process can make or break your time and expense budgets.
Before Viridity EnergyCenter software, there were a number of disparate tools at your disposal for aggregating this information: spreadsheets, layout tools, and protocol monitoring. If you're using these today, the good news is you’re ahead of the curve. What you've probably realized though is that over time keeping these tools up to date when you’re planning the next big project, is a huge task. If that’s not enough, we frequently hear from administrators who've invested the time to get the raw data because they are overwhelmed with the amount of information and don’t know how to pull from their efforts.
One of the great things about working at Viridity is I work on a solution that solves all of these issues that we are all too familiar with. I started my career working in the data center and I experienced first hand both the uncertainty of not having the information to make informed decisions and the paralysis that can occur with too much information in vast and in varied formats. I can still remember hearing the Viridity pitch for the first time and thinking "Why is nobody else doing this?"
Viridity EnergyCenter goes beyond automating the process of keeping your data center information up to date. In about 15 minutes, you can discover your networked equipment and can start polling for power consumption and utilization information. This feature alone usually gets people interested, but it's really not about the information, it's about making it actionable. The information gained helps make the energy efficiency case, but it's getting the answers to your questions that makes your data center energy efficient.
• Is there enough power provisioned to add new equipment?
• Would the cost of a tech refresh be offset by operation cost?
• What equipment is doing useful work and which are candidates to be consolidated or removed?
EnergyCenter uses the information gained from looking at the power consumption and utilization of your equipment and augments it with information we've gathered over time to give you the answers to these questions.
The first step will always be getting as much useful information as possible. Whether you're ready to invest in data management software or not it's what is going to drive your future projects and maintenance. Our mission is to let customers focus on execution by providing proven answers to previously difficult problems. Be sure to check out the products page to see how we can help you. We're always focused on providing the features important to our customers, if you have a suggestion, we'd love to hear.
Matt Bailey, Software Engineer