Eaton's Intelligent Power Manager Plug-in For VMware’s vCenter Server

Eaton UPS are one of the few uninterruptible power supplies manufacturers that have focused not just on hardware power protection but also how this integrates into a server environment. Their Intelligent Power Manager UPS management software comes with a plug-in that allows direct integration into VMware’s vCenter Server to create an easy to manage power environment for virtualized servers. The plug-in allows IT and datacentre mangers to manage their back-up power and power distribution infrastructure using the same console they use to manage their physical and virtual servers.

Gartner Inc reports that by 2016 80% of server workloads supported by x86 hardware will be running on virtualized servers. Adoption of virtualization has grown rapidly as the technology provides a number of benefits:

• Reduced Hardware Investments: datacentres with lighly utilized/loaded servers can consolidate these into a smaller number of more efficiently optimized servers running virtualised environments.
• Ease of Asset Management: a smaller number of servers makes the datacentre and IT environment more efficient with spin-off benefits across the organisation. Lower capital budgets are required in addition to lower cost maintenance and server replacement programs.
• Efficient Floor Space/Revenue Generation: virtualisation helps to optimise floor space as server power is concentrated into a smaller footprint. This can free up space for additional revenue generating servers in co-location datacentres and help to reduce the amount of capital finance required to fund building expansion.
• Enhanced Resilience: live-migration provides additional resilience in a virtualized environment as VMs can be relocated from one host to another to keep critical systems running.

Whilst virtualization provides a number of benefits it also complicates power management and especially in relation to uninterruptible power supplies. Principally this is in the area of power infrastructure management where the use of different suppliers for UPS and PDUs can lead to the need for a number of different power management tools to be installed and operated by datacentre technicians. In addition, for live-migration to be truly beneficial it must be able to automatically migrate workloads during mains power failures as well as virtual machines themselves. These are complex tasks and ones that Eaton has tackled head on with its Intelligent Power Manager plug-in.

The Eaton Intelligent Power Manager Plug-in is ideal for virtualised environments like VMware and provides IT managers with a number of functions:

• Automatic generation of a global view of the power infrastructure and back-up power (UPS) status.
• Manage and control down to a socket level power hardware both inside and outside the datacentre facility.
• Gracefully shutdown critical servers and network devices during a mains power failure, safeguarding work and data integrity.
• Receive, display and act on real-time UPS and PDU alarm signals – mains power failure, UPS alarm, battery problem, overheating etc.
• Execute en masse firmware updates to UPS and intelligent PDUs within the IT environment.
• Assist efficiency monitoring by measuring power consumption for Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) calculations.

Probably the single most impressive feature of the Eaton Intelligent Power Manager Plug-in is its seamless integration capability into the VMware environment. As part of our education program EcoPowerSupplies can provide on-site training and a presentation on Eaton UPS and the Intelligent Power Manager Plug-in and software for virtualized environments. Simply contact us to arrange a convenient time, date and location.