ABSTRACT
The 3D datacenter brings together data from customers systems and renders the many dimensions of the datacenter in ways that are not possible with 2-dimensional business applications. The integrated and consolidated view of the datacenter provides enhanced situational awareness of multiple facets of the center, leading to improved operational efficiencies and new insights into the business. A 3D datacenter is customizable and versatile, both in the data it receives and the layout and function of the datacenter. This customization is useful when managing live systems, but especially if the tool is used to perform simulations for planning such as space, thermal, power, or other planning needs. Or if the business is oriented toward marketing and branding, customers can include their own brand images, products, and equipment in the center for sales and marketing purposes such as demonstrations. A 3D datacenter also extends the business value of previous investments, by leveraging and extending existing systems management and monitoring infrastructure.
A day in the life of a system administrator in a 3D datacenter consists of teleporting their avatar into the synthetic datacenter. Walking, and flying, through the synthetic datacenter to check on status or clicking on physical systems to move their workloads to another part of the 3D datacenter. What happens in the virtual world will be mirrored in the physical world and vice versa. Moving virtual machine images in the synthetic world will be a control for global workload load balancing. Other avatars could teleport in for collaborative debugging, training and capacity planning sessions. Physically, the experts would come from any corner in the world where there is internet access. No one need board a plane that may get delayed or drive on a freeway that freezes up or leave the comfort of their families to help colleagues provide a global IT operations.
