NextDC betas open DC management tool

NextDC has released a beta version of its ONEDC portal as a subscription-based cloud platform, aiming to help simplify the management of data centre assets and infrastructure in both the company's and its competitor's data centres. 

ONEDC provides a single dashboard through which data centre and infrastructure managers can view the performance of data centre assets and devices across mutliple locations. 

"ONEDC was designed to power our data centre in respect to core competencies. Customers have been able to centrally manage data across multiple facilties to improve asset management and capacity planning," NextDC group executive of technology David Dzienciol said on the sidelines of the Data Centre Strategy Summit.

The baseline ONEDC offering includes telemetry capabilities for power monitoring, access management (including remote rack unlocking) and environmental monitoring such as temperature and humidity.

"In our new beta version we've enhanced the visualisation capabilities to enable customers to better plan their infrastructure capabilities--it's not just a binary view," he said.

"For example, the dashboard supports the ability to load up virtual racks with data centre assets, apply criteria and plan the load to maximise the use of the rack in the DC.

"You are able to visualise the placement of individual devices into the DC and the ability to see how those components will react with others."

The improved dashboard, which was announced at the Data Centre Strategy Summit, will be rolled out to NextDC customers who will be able to extend the visualisation to assets in non-NextDC data centres as well.

"The new modules offer an opportunity to provide an open SaaS platform that acts as a single management tool across mutliple sites, whether a NextDC or another vendor's," he said.  

The additional modules will provide infrastructure visualisation and management, connectivity tracking, predictable planning and alerts and notifications.

Australia Post - which recently completed a national data centre overhaul that saw NextDC’s M1 Melbourne data centre become its primary production facility - worked with the company on the new modules during the development phase.

The ONEDC dashboard will be generally available in Q3 2015 as a monthly subscription service. 

NextDC launched its beta version of its ONEDC SaaS solution at the Data Centre Strategy Summit.