Data Center Engineer
User Solution Data Sheet
“The Trellis platform
and applications
are designed to be
easy to use, deploy
and manage with
intuitive navigation
designed around
how data center
personnel work. It
unifies all facilities
and IT systems in
the data center for
both planning and
operations.”
– Gini Agee, Research
Director Data Center Trends
and Strategy, IDC
Infrastructure Management &
Monitoring for
Business-Critical ContinuityTM
Challenges Faced by Data Center Engineers
Data center engineers’ days are extremely hectic as they try to
ensure power and cooling capacity is available and identify potential
issues before problems occur.
Efficient is not a word that data center engineers
use too often when describing their work day.
With their main goal of overseeing the dayto-day operation of power and cooling for the
infrastructure, they are constantly busy ensuring
adequate capacity, minimizing downtime,
investigating alarms and recording changes—all in
the name of power and cooling.
These engineers struggle with slow lead time
when trying to ensure that power and cooling
capacity is available, because they lack visibility
into upcoming projects. Multiple solutions are
being used to track and manage the information
that is shared by different departments.
Therefore, there is no way for everyone to be
completely on the “same page.”
They also lack the ability to identify potential
issues before alarms are generated. Information
is presented in streams of data and not in the
context of the operation. The number of alarms
is overwhelming and delays the engineer from
accurately triaging alarms and taking appropriate
corrective action, increasing the likelihood of a
system failure.
How the Trellis™ Solution Can Help
The Trellis™ platform supports multiple protocols
and vendor products, eliminating the need to
manage several solutions. It allows for one single
source of information from alarm management
capabilities to resource coordination and
planning.
Information is received in real time and data
center engineers are able to see the current status
of all devices in one location. They are able to
make decisions based on the most up-to-date
situation. Also, they only see those items they
consider to be critical in context of the operation,
ensuring that resources are deployed to only
those issues that could compromise availability.
With the Trellis platform, data center engineers
are able to help reduce labor and administration
costs, mean time to repair and the risk of
unplanned downtime.
Data Center Engineer
Infrastructure Management & Monitoring
for Business-Critical ContinuityTM
User Solution Data Sheet
Project Planning
Alarm Calendar
Alarm Filtering
E
CID
DE
SEE
PL
AN
TE
IDA
Power – Data center engineers can view
power system resource utilization and
capacity, understand the dependencies of
the complete power system and visualize
the aggregate status and capacity of
paralleled power devices with the Trellis
platform.
VA L
Cooling – The Trellis platform can assist
data center engineers by enabling them to
monitor and manage floor-mount cooling
units such as CRAC and CRAH. They can
effectively collaborate with the data center
team to evaluate the current cooling
system utilization and plan any changes
necessary.
ANALYZE
AND
RST
DE
UN
Site Management – With the Trellis™
platform, data center engineers can track
and report on the health of facility-critical
devices as well as monitor environmental
conditions such as temperature and
humidity. An option for customizable
notifications and threshold validation
functions allows users to focus on active
alarms that need to be attended to
immediately, thus enabling the effective
and efficient use of support personnel.
With a unified view of the infrastructure, IT and
facilities teams can see what has and is occurring in
the data center, intelligently decide on the best plan,
take the right action and accurately assess the impact.
SEE
Top Three Reasons Data
Center Engineers Need
the Trellis™ Platform
AC T I O N
AC T
See. Understand
the current health of
the infrastructure in
one view, including
upcoming projects
that add demand and
system dependencies
that impact availability.
Decide. Select the
optimal location for
equipment and know
when and where to add
additional capacity.
Act. Focus resources on
critical issues.
Emerson, Business-Critical Continuity, Emerson Network Power and the Emerson Network Power logo are service marks and trademarks of Emerson Electric Co. Avocent and Trellis are trademarks of Avocent
Corporation. ©2012 Emerson Electric Co. All rights reserved. 1112-DCENG-DS-EN