Interactive 3D Visualization from iTRACS helps to answer the age-old question about usability, a question that’s of great relevance in the Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) world today:
Will your DCIM tool work for you – or are you going to have to work for it?
The unequivocal answer with iTRACS is that the tool will work for you, according to Gary Bunyan, iTRACS Global DCIM Solutions Specialist.
In his “Notes from the Road” column for datacenterknowledge.com, Gary says that the iTRACS Converged Physical Infrastructure Management™ (CPIM™) platform with Interactive 3D Visualization turns data into rich 3D information that is instantly understandable, meaningful, and actionable.
Gary says the value of the iTRACS user interface is its usefulness.
In his datacenterknowledge,com column, he explains, “One root of the word ‘usability’ is to be ‘of use.’ When you’re attempting to manage millions of dollars of IT assets in one of the most complex entities on earth – the modern data center – you don’t need a pretty user interface which, when you pull back the covers, is lacking in usefulness. You need an interface that helps you get the job done – directly helps you manage the complex web of interrelationships between the thousands of IT and Facilities assets sitting on your data center floor.”
Gary also points out that a DCIM user interface like iTRACS can serve many masters across multiple departments including IT, Facilities, and Building Management Systems. This is vital, since each DCIM user has his/her own requirements and expectations.
“The CIO needs something different from the Data Center Manager, who needs something different from the Technical Ops team, which needs something different from the Business Units and other ‘clients’ of the data center,” says Gary. “Everyone wants DCIM to meet their own specific information and management needs, with dashboards customized just for them. Dashboards with deep-dive analytics for making informed decisions – the kind of decisions that justify the investment in DCIM to begin with.”
As Gary points out, in a usability scenario this diverse, a robust user interface like iTRACS brings everyone together:
- Everyone has a single-pane, open systems view into the entire physical infrastructure – IT, Facilities, and Building Management Systems assets
- Everyone has access (albeit to varying degrees) to the same rich repository of data about assets, power, space, time, connectivity, and process
“From this perspective,” Gary concludes, “usability isn’t about how much the individual user can get done. It’s about how much the whole enterprise can get done.”
