network address inventory

With server consolidation on the rise and storage demands increasing, there is a pull-push battle to save money while moving towards more efficient hardware. This means that older equipment will be pulled in exchange for higher-capacity products in the years to come. Sometimes, serviceable surplus assets will sit in storage while virtualization strategies mature. And servers will be returned, removed or relocated by wellmeaning and overworked administrators. In either case, these devices may escape the detection of manual network address inventory procedures and turn up missing on a routine audit. This could put the entire IT organization into panic mode if unsecured personal data was onboard.

Advanced planning tools are now available to assist datacenter personnel as they administer moves, additions and changes to datacenter assets. Now, managers can specify the types of equipment that should populate a rack based on criteria such as power availability, space availability, heat and weight loads. Since datacenters are also under pressure to reduce their power consumption and heat output, these new modeling tools offer real-time data points which summarize their potential energy positions and temperatures.