vital for troubleshooting, essential for planning … but
TRANSCRIPT
Product Introduction
Documentation …
Vital for troubleshooting, essential for planning … but who wants to maintain it!
Everyone wants the benefits of accurate, complete and current information.
Our mission was to create the most efficient product and methodology to ensure you always have it!
We would like to present
OBTAIN 24/7 To your data center.
Working Together
Automatic Diagram Generation!
Diagrams are a great tool during configuration planning and change implementation.
Drawing packages and CAD products can be used to make diagrams, however, the basic
design of such products demands a large amount of time and effort to produce the diagrams.
OBTAIN 24/7 uses a completely different approach. Diagrams are generated automatically
from the database. All spacial layout is performed by OBTAIN 24/7. You can tailor the
diagrams quickly and extensively. We realize that your job is to plan and implement
configurations changes. Diagrams are just a tool, the less time you spend maintaining them,
the better!
Configuration data is very
complex. Even small
objects often have many
relationships. If you
forget one of the links
during a change, it could
lead to a nasty failure.
Sure, you can store
configuration data in
spreadsheets and CAD
drawings, but they lack
automatic error and
consistency checking.
OBTAIN 24/7 is a robust
configuration database
designed wi th one
purpose in mind …
serving the data center! It
can record even the most
subt le re la t ionsh ips
between all of the objects you need
t o m a n a g e , a n d O B T A I N
accomplishes this in a multi-user,
concurrent access environment with
multiple versions of the configuration
data available!
No other configuration database can
provide this type of power and
flexibility! No other product has the
wide range of automatic diagram
generation combined with automatic
highlighting to show what has
changed between versions of
configuration data!
The huge increase in rack mounted devices creates documentation problems for
many sites. Like CAD based products, OBTAIN 24/7 provides a graphical way to
document each device and rack. But get ready to take your documentation to a
whole new level!
With OBTAIN you can quickly jump between four important views: rack, floor,
data and connectivity. And the linkage between views is automatic! Unlike CAD
drawings, you do not need to manually create and maintain ‘link buttons’ between
diagrams.
OBTAIN diagrams are not separate drawings that have to be maintained. The dia-
grams are fully integrated with the database so each change immediately alters all re-
lated diagrams.
Device Racks
Leverage the investment you have made in
your configuration data by adding power in-
formation.
Power Manager is an optional product, but it
is tightly integrated with the OBTAIN data-
base. It is a graphical planning tool for docu-
menting all aspects of power from substations
through the UPS to PDUs and end devices.
Facilities often maintains a separate set of
documentation that it ‘guards’ and rarely
shares. The demands of 24/7 planning an op-
eration require faster more complete informa-
tion sharing. OBTAIN 24/7 provides a com-
mon database for all data center assets and
connectivity.
Your OBTAIN administrator has complete
control over which users can update data.
Power Manager
For years, we’ve heard data center people say “Wouldn’t it be great to have all of our
hardware and connectivity documentation in a single database.” Well now you can! Say
goodbye to incomplete, out-of-date, inconsistent documents in different formats.
Location View is an optional product that provides a way to create CAD-like drawings to
document the placement of your Device, Rack, Patch Panel and Power Assets on the floor.
A single drawing can be created for each Location defined in OBTAIN.
Floor views are automatically integrated with connectivity and power data. This provides a
fast ‘jump’ between logical and physical data. Planners and problem solvers are able to
quickly view all aspects of an asset. Connectivity between assets can even be displayed on
the floor view!
Location View
The advantages of using OBTAIN Location View are:
Lower Maintenance Effort
All assets that are positioned in a location are automatically linked to related
device rack views, asset dialogs, connectivity diagrams, power panels, PDUs, etc.
Simplicity
The design of CAD based floor layout products are built around symbols. This
old technology was appropriate when devices were large and had unusual door
swings and clearances. Today, almost all devices are either rack mounted or
simple rectangular boxes. OBTAIN takes advantage of this graphic simplicity to
save you time and effort.
Multi-user Access
The Location features can be viewed by anyone with access to the OBTAIN
database without the expense and training cost of providing each user with their
own copy of a CAD product.
Tight Integration
The tight integration with the OBTAIN 24/7 database enables advanced features
such as displaying all connections from a device to other objects on the floor view
with just a couple of clicks.
Speed
The compact, object-oriented design of OBTAIN has been extended to the
graphic symbols used in the floor view. If you have ever waited while your CAD
software loads a project and then opens a full drawing that you much search and
zoom into before useful work can begin, then you may be ready for some new
technology.
Location View
Workorders is a revolutionary technology designed to solve several problems found in data centers that
have grown in size, complexity or have an increased number of people planning and making changes
concurrently.
Problem 1 – Communicating changes from planner to reviewer to implementor.
OBTAIN Workorders saves all changes in a ‘delta database’. This ensures that the production
database always reflects the current state of assets and connectivity even while the planned
change or workorder is being developed. A side benefit of this is that OBTAIN 24/7 knows
exactly which objects, such as cables or ports, will be changed by the plan.
The diagram on the next page is one example of how this information is used to highlight the
important items from those that do not need to be focused on. This can save valuable time
during the review process and more easily point out deficiencies in the plan. It also saves time
during the critical change window.
As well as highlighting changes. OBTAIN 24/7 can be used to exclude large amounts of detail
from reports and diagrams when it is unrelated to the change being worked on.
Problem 2 – Keeping planners from double allocating key resources such as switch ports or shared fiber infrastructure.
OBTAIN Workorders has a sophisticated lock mechanism that keeps asynchronous changes
from using the same physical resource. The locking happens at the smallest and most discrete
component such as a single port or jumper cable. This lets planners use the same patch panels
or switch devices but informs then when they try to double allocate a resource.
Problem 3 – Keeping a plan synchronized with a changing base set of documentation even if the plan is delayed.
OBTAIN Workorders are like delta databases that are spawned from the production database.
After a plan is reviewed and implemented, the workorder is applied to the production database.
All of its changes automatically flow through to other, “in-progress” workorders. This means
that other planners see the newly implemented changes integrated into their plan and can make
adjustments if required. Workorder plans can be evolved over extended periods of time while
ensuring that they are always in sync with the production database.
Workorders
Problem 4 – Planning for Multiple Scenarios
Planning lead times and change windows are shrinking. Often the final decision on which set of
equipment will be purchased is not made until the very last moment. The best way to cope
with such a dynamic environment is to preplan for the two most likely scenarios. When the
final decision is made, one of the scenarios can be fleshed out in more detail and implemented
quickly.
OBTAIN Workorders can be made ‘mutually exclusive’. Meaning that from the start only one
of the workorders will be applied, while the other is discarded. OBTAIN allows mutually
exclusive workorders to double allocate resources such as CHPIDs, ports etc. This gives you a
jump on the planning process and often identifies other resources that need to be financed and
ordered to successfully implement the proposed change.
OBTAIN’s Workorder feature
turns it into a multi-state database
which is like having several
separate yet completely integrated
databases acting as one. This is a
good fit with how work in a real
data center is planned and
performed. In reality, thing
happen asynchronously. Several
changes are being planned, altered
and performed at the same time.
Some of them are implemented on
schedule. Others are delayed.
Some are abandoned or backed
out of. You need to constantly
adjust your plans based on changes
made or planned by other people.
OBTAIN 24/7 ensures you plan is
kept in sync.
Workorders
Many of the largest data centers in the US, Canada and Europe use OBTAIN.
With our business partners, we have helped our customers refine their hardware planning process. Along
the way we have learned a lot! The most important improvement in the accuracy and completeness of
documentation comes from making the documentation a by-product of the planning process.
Historically, documentation has been an afterthought. Something people get around to after the change is
finished and if there is time before the next change hits the fan. So, cable labels are created in an ad hoc
fashion and often the complete picture of a change can only be formed by piecing together documents
from several different sources.
In time of hardware failure, disaster recovery or loss of key personnel, a heavy price is paid. On a daily
basis, a hidden price is paid each time someone needs to:
Run out to the floor to check something;
Interrupt another worker for information they maintain but cannot share
because it is in their unique format … or in their head;
Pull a cable because on one knows where it goes;
Call a meeting to discuss a preventable outage.
It used to be that the mainframe equipment was completely separate from open systems. Even within
open systems the HP hardware might be controlled by a different group that the SUN Servers. Data
centers have changed and will continue to evolve. Accurate and complete configuration data maintained
by consistent methods is one of the hallmarks of a well run data center.
In an increasingly 24/7 mobile world, key data center people are expected to respond immediately to
outages. The continuing evolution of PDA technology will enable us to put the complete OBTAIN
database with security at your fingertips wherever you are. The efficient, object oriented data structure
and automatic diagram generating algorithms of the OBTAIN database make it uniquely adaptable to the
small screen size and limited memory of pocket PC based PDAs.
Our engineers are currently gathering design specs for this project. If you would like to share your ideas,
please e-mail your suggestions to [email protected]
Workorders
Future Developments
Import/Export
Features
HCD Utility
MVS UCB (VOLSER Import)
Device Import
Cable Import
Cable Label Export
MS Access Export
Spreadsheet Link
Contact
Information
System
Requirements
CLIENT
• IBM-compatible PC Pentium CPU
• 128 MB of RAM, 50 MB hard drive space
• Windows 9x/2000® or Windows NT® 4.x (or later)
SERVER
• IBM-compatible PC, Pentium 600 or above CPU
• 245 MB of RAM, 60 MB hard drive space
• Windows NT® Server 4.x (or later)
OBTAIN 24/7 is a registered trademark of Knowledge Flow Corp.
© Copyright 2003 Knowledge Flow Corp.