21 / 88
21
WWW.7X24EXCHANGE.ORGwith evaluating and deploying several
legacy network management tools
and bsM software solutions. this
experience allows us to share some
key considerations when it comes to
implementing solutions in an hpC-
driven scientific data center.
A. DATA CENTER OPERATIONS
one of the first factors to consider is
the way the data center operations
are handled. an unmanned data
center operations strategy requires a
complex backend solution to run the
whole process in an automated
manner. whereas manned data center
operations would require a different
type of solution, which is user friendly,
and offers the required capabilities. in
addition, the level of tasks assigned to
the operators in response to received
events determines the needed
capabilities and functions from the
bsM solution. these considerations
though seemingly primitive, are
important starting points that help
direct what to look for in a bsM
solution.
B. BUSINESS SECTOR
understanding the business sector
where the data center operates is yet
another key factor to consider. service
providers, financial institutions, public
sectors, and scientific data centers
have different types and architectures
of technologies, and, hence, operate
differently. while financial institutions
are more interested in keeping a tight
control on each single transaction and
ensure it is successfully completed,
service providers are more concerned
about infrastructure devices such as
network devices and servers. the
main reason for this difference is the
business objective, in which a service
providers’ business is affected by an
availability issue of servers and other
devices. in a scientific hpC-based
data center, however, the criticality of
nodes can be completely different.
typically, such an environment is
based upon commodity hardware
vulnerable to hardware failures and it
is normal to have several nodes totally
unusable for maintenance. hence, the
bsM must be configured so that it
does not panic on each node failure,
unless necessary. that said, a good
bsM solution for a data center in one
industry may not deliver the required
business value for another data center
in a different industry. therefore,
knowing what each bsM vendor in
the market provides and the
industries where their solution is more
dominant provides a strong insight on
steering the decision for the bsM
solution.
C. LICENSING MODEL
licensing model plays a crucial part in
determining the cost efficiency of the
monitoring solution. the licensing
model also defines the required
administration efforts by support. in
general, software licenses are
categorized into the following:
proprietary licenses and free and
open source license. proprietary
licenses grant the use of the software
solution to users, while the ownership
of the software remains with the
developer, and, as such, modifications
can only be done by the developer.
free and open source software
licenses, however, allow users and
developers to use, modify and share
the software and the source code
behind it. table 1 summarizes the
main differences between both
proprietary and open source licenses.
there are different methods to define
the scope of the license for the
proprietary commercial bsM
solutions. for example, they could be
licensed per monitoring point, which
is measured by what needs to be
monitored, e.g., disk utilization and
Cpu. they could be licensed per
monitored device, measured by the
number of devices to be monitored.
finally, they could be offered with an
unlimited site license model.
in addition, there are two proprietary
licensing models commonly used for
bsM solutions: subscription and
perpetual license models. in the
subscription license model, the owner
is entitled to utilize the software
based on the number defined in the
license scope. this means that the
cost associated with the software
Table 1: Comparison between Proprietary vs. Open Source License.
free anD oPen source
ProPrietary
cost
Mostly free.
free or paid.
copyright
licensed, credit given to
licensed by developer only,
original developer when modified.
user granted rights to used
source code ownership
no ownership rights.
developer owns rights.
source code Modifications
anyone can modify.
only developer can modify.