Call Centers Depend on the Quality of Data
A data center contains the information needed for call center representatives to effectively communicate, but how are all the components within a data center communicating together. A communication gateway will have all systems working and delivering data while saving money. When updating the automation system that monitors and controls a 20,000 square foot facility, Caspian Technology Concepts partnered with Kepware, the world leader in communication software for automation in both OPC and embedded device communications, provided communication between devices that were otherwise not compatible. The solution took the form of two products offered by Kepware. First, KEPServerEX is the communications solution that supports a wide variety of protocols. Secondly, LinkMaster is a solution for mapping data Tags from one protocol to the data Tags of another. This customized package solved the challenge of how to automate the temperature system in a large data center without a costly replacement project. The importance of an automated system is elementary as thousands of computers create heat and challenge managers to maintain proper temperatures. An unregulated system is costly as 100 server cabinets uses up to 300,000 watts of electricity!
The three main protocols in this industry are BACnet, Modbus and SNMP. Within a vast data center footprint, various automation components from multiple vendors create a complex connecting of all the components that required careful review. In this project the temperature system is monitored by SNMP whereas most of the facility housed Modbus compliant equipment. One protocol does not communicate with another, leaving an integral part of the infrastructure unable to provide critical data.
The overall objective of monitoring and improving the data center efficiency requires vital information of power consumption and the ability to remotely control each outlet. Eaton Corporation supplied a power monitoring and control system, called an enclosure Power Distribution Unit (ePDU). At over $1000 for each of the 130-plus ePDUs, replacement was not a viable option. The Kepware SNMP Driver was able to extract data by polling the ePDUs for information and captures Traps (the notifications from SNMP compliant devices.) Valuable insight into the performance of the system increases control over the temperature, thus energy costs and the Industrial SNMP driver for KEPServerEX provides reliability of the entire system with stable performance from all components.
Overall effectiveness of an automation system is the ability for all the systems to talk to each other. Now the Caspian engineers are able to draw information from the ePDUs with the SNMP technology. LinkMaster, a separate product that runs alongside KEPServerEX, and is configured to take data from the SNMP-based devices and map the data to corresponding Modbus emulated devices via a Kepware Modbus Slave driver.
The customer had selected a Siemens Power Management solution called WinPM to supervise the server cabinets, and a variety of on-site equipment ranging from backup power generators to the 27 thirty-ton cooling units. The data center will fully benefit from the monitoring and detailed reporting capabilities of the WinPM solution with information integrated, including the ePDU data. The automation completed with the connection of a Kepware Modbus Slave driver which is capable of simulating a Modbus device. These products simply run on a server installed in one of the control cabinets, and feed data up to the Siemens WinPM product.
This was the first time Caspian engineers had worked with Kepware products. The development of the several thousand Tags needed in their application was greatly facilitated by the ability to export a simple configuration in XML, open the file with Microsoft Excel using its features to generate a much larger database, and then importing results to KEPServer for operation. Caspian engineers had complete control over the communications update rates and how data is transferred from SNMP protocol to the Modbus Slave driver. Once installed, the operation was repeatable and reliable.
This data center in a Fortune 50 financial company found an expert in designing, building, monitoring and maintaining with a true understanding of the complexity of all the components in Caspian who zeroed in on Kepware while researching vendors to provide communication integration both for Modbus and SNMP. Confident that Kepware would stand behind its products and impressed with the wide-range of partners, engineers downloaded of Demo products from the Kepware website enabled to perform a proof of concept. All worked as expected and the decision to implement the Kepware solution was made.
When asked about their experience and if they would use the Kepware products again, Dale Boehm - President of Caspian said, “Our experience with Kepware products was very good and we expect to be using their products much more going forward. This is exactly the tool we need in our bag of tricks, as we integrate the disparate products we encounter in legacy system upgrades.” For Caspian, headquartered in Milwaukee Wisconsin, they are not engaged in merely ‘running’ a data center. Today’s global, 24x7 business day requires the most efficient means of managing a company’s most critical data with the highest degree of infrastructure reliability.
For more information, contact Caspian Technology at www.caspiantek.comor Kepware at www.kepware.com