Real Time is all the rage today. If we were a boy band, we would probably call ourselves the “Reel Tymes” or similiar. Well, maybe that is an exaggeration, but you get the point. Everything in IT seems to go better when the word “Real-Time” is used. For most IT professionals, using the term “Real-Time” is intended to describe a structure that is built to be DYNAMIC. Remember in today’s world nobody wants to be viewed as static so this is a very trendy thing to do. So it makes perfect sense to look for a provider of Real-Time products, right?
Wrong. Real-Time should not be viewed or purchased as a stand-alone product. Instead, it should be DEMANDED as one of the many attributes of the IT infrastructure and all of the tools that manage this structure. That said, it is no surprize that everywhere you look the concept of Real-Time has popped up and the search for Real-Time is in progress. Gartner has for the last several years described the magic auto-provisioning and capacity throttling data center as the Real-Time Infrastructure (RTI). All of the major platform vendors are supplying Real-Time solutions which “fit perfectly” in a dynamic world. All of this discussion about the need for real-time has caused a vast number of end-users to search for the perfect Real-Time product. I have even seen big Fortune 50 companies issue RFPs for Real-Time as a product. Real-Time as a product???
Huh? Why would anyone buy Real-Time as a product? This is crazy. Real-Time MUST be a facet or dimension to the IT world already in place. Real-Time is an additional attribute for devices and spaces which can have different levels of performance. It is the data associated with operations at any point in time. It is NOT a product, but a set of key values which MUST BE REPRESENTED IN CONTEXT of the IT structure itself. Real-Time information when treated as the deliverable itself is a failure in the making. At minimum, buying real-time as a product will consume lots of time and resources and yet still not provide any significant level of actional management information. Real-Time information MUST be presented in CONTEXT!
Think about Real-Time as a highly desireable feature for a data center operations manager. How else would you know how many servers or CRACs were online unless you were monitoring their status in real-time? How else would you calculate PUE or other KPIs unless you has access to the real-time attributes across the power chain and cooling plants in the context of these devices, with all of their placements and connectivity as the framework or context?
Tools such as dcTrack and PowerIQ are highly skilled at monitoring and provisioning devices and documenting the physical instrastructure all the way down to the devices, power-chain, cooling and structured cabling pathways. At each point along this physical world, the ability for a solution like dcTrack and PowerIQ to provide “Real-Time” monitoring can be leveraged to ‘peek’ into the status of a given component. It is the CONTEXT for infrastructure management that matters… Real-Time is merely a dynamic attribute for the given structure. Knowing what connects to what, what is positioned where, and the like provides the ability to do capacity planning and ongoing operations in a way that is highly responsive.
(By the way, the RFP which I mentioned above for Real-Time which hit the street this past spring was cancelled without furthar action after a dozen vendors spent weeks working on supplying their responses. Turns out it’s alot harder to buy Real-Time as a stand-alone product unless there is a clear understanding about the IT Infrastructure context which is ultimately where the value exists.)
