The deployment of nlyte’s DCIM solution within the Dutch Police ForceNovember 10th, 2010
Previously on HQ News, we announced our partnership with nlyte Software, the sole provider of performance-based solutions for DCIM. We launched this partnership by holding the first ever DCIM event in Switzerland, which took place in Geneva on the 27th October.
The event attracted a great turn out, with speakers from blue-infinity, nlyte, and the Dutch Police Force demonstrating how DCIM solutions can help address the challenges associated with data centres.
Following introductions to both companies and an overview of this new partnership, nlyte introduced their DCIM solution and the new features in the latest version of the software – one of these is the introduction of Microsoft Reporting Services to comply with more standard environments. Whilst the software offers a very quick deploy solution which is easy to install, the existing IT environment needs to be discovered and understood – either through analysis (the more preferable option) or importing existing data.
Following this overview, Jan Wiersma of the Dutch Police Force presented his experiences in deploying the nlyte solution to manage the force’s 18 data centres, 6,000 servers and 1,500 plus applications. As a member of the global data centre community Pulse, Jan has excellent knowledge about what is needed within a data centre, along with the latest issues and solutions.
The Dutch Police Force has an extensive network of data centres and servers utilising both Windows and OpenVMS systems, and Jan explained how the nlyte solution was solving many management challenges by providing a 3D view of its data centres, modelling capabilities and lifecycle management. Jan relived the pre-install preparation that was needed, which consisted of auditing the existing set-up (floors, connections, existing servers etc.) in order to populate the nlyte database with accurate and reliable data. He also highlighted the importance of process – without which the solution could not have been sustained as the data would have been inaccurate.
In obtaining data centre reports, Jan stated his preference for using Crystal Reports. Jorge Pablo Gonzalez, practice manager at blue-infinity agrees, stating that ‘Crystal reports allow for reporting and statistical analysis of many data sources, which make them ideal for large scale deployments of nlyte’s software, such as in the case of the Dutch Police Force’.
The event was very well received, and offered foresight into how the recent partnership between blue-infinity and nlyte has provided us with the capacity to present to our clients an effective and efficient solution to data centre management.
After the well-known poor success of Windows Vista among the end users, Microsoft was forced to admit that only a new improved version of Windows might gain customers’ trust again.