Romonet today announced their Prognose software suite, as set of tools that allow datacenter operators to develop a predictive modeling capability for energy and capacity within their datacenters. This is a first in the datacenter world, as the software can not only be used in existing installations where there is data available to use to predict future performance, but also on new builds, where the datacenter is still in the design stage. Romonet is utilizing PUE as the model for determining the energy efficiency of the datacenter.
Using the layout Editor, the Prognose user enters the configuration of the equipment and the datacenter using the supplied reference devices from the software library. The user can start with a clean slate or modify one of the provided datacenter templates. Once the datacenter has been modeled in the Layout Editor, the Prognose simulator can be run to allow the user to add infrastructure devices, change the parameters for the canned devices, load IT devices, and add detail information on items such as energy tariffs and climate data.
The Prognose suite does not include monitoring tools, so if the user wants to have up to the minute data on an existing facility they would need to have those tools available separately. The information used by the simulator is that provided in the Prognose database, unless updated by the user.
Romonet refers to their technology as data center predictive modeling, giving the industry a new (DCPM) acronym to add to their lexicon. And if actual widespread use of this technology shows that the modeling is accurate and reflective of the physical changes made in the infrastructure, it will be an acronym that gets a lot of use. “What if” modeling scenarios have proven their value in many industries; the datacenter world is crying out from a reliable way to do this type of analysis in a rapidly changing market.
