Associating infrastructure assets in a data center

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9948522-B2
Application number	US-201715404055-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Jan 11, 2017
Priority date	Jan 11, 2016
Publication date	Apr 17, 2018
Grant date	Apr 17, 2018

Abstract

A data center infrastructure monitoring system and method that includes a plurality of geographically distributed data centers, each data center of the plurality of data centers having a plurality of physical infrastructure assets. A central monitoring center is communicatively coupled to one or more data centers of the plurality of data centers and configured to, in response to receiving, by a computing device, indications of a plurality of user inputs creating one or more graphical relationships between a plurality of icons depicting infrastructure assets in a data center, determine, by the computing device and based on the graphical relationships, hierarchical relationships between the infrastructure assets in the data center depicted by the icons, and store data indicative of the hierarchical relationships between the infrastructure assets.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A method comprising:
in response to receiving, by a computing device, indications of a plurality of user inputs to a graphical user interface creating graphical relationships between a plurality of icons depicting infrastructure assets in a data center, wherein the infrastructure assets comprise electrical assets providing power within the data center, and wherein one or more of the graphical relationships between the plurality of icons graphically depict paths for power flows among the electrical assets in the data center, translating, by the computing device, first data, the first data indicating inputs positioning the icons at positions relative to each other and connector icons coupling the icons, to second data indicating hierarchical relationships between the infrastructure assets in the data center depicted by the icons, wherein the second data comprises objects associated with the infrastructure assets and properties associated with the objects, the properties including one or more of upstream electrical assets relative to the power flows, downstream electrical assets relative to the power flows, and resiliency status of the infrastructure assets;
accessing, by the computing device, a customer database to obtain customer data indicating a relationship between customer cabinets in the data center and infrastructure assets directly connected to the customer cabinets;
building, by the computing device and based at least on the second data and the customer data, mappings between respective customer identifiers associated with the customer cabinets and electrical assets on respective power paths for the customer cabinets by recording the customer identifiers in association with entries for each of the electrical assets in a data structure;
determining, by the computing device and based at least on the mappings as recorded in the data structure, one or more customer cabinets in the data center that depend on one of the electrical assets for power; and
outputting, by the computing device and for display, an indication of the customer cabinets that depend on the one of the electrical assets for power.

2. The method of claim 1 , wherein the customer cabinets in the data center are dependent upon one or more of the infrastructure assets for temperature regulation.

3. The method of claim 1 , wherein the infrastructure assets comprise mechanical assets associated with one or more of a plurality of zones of the data center, wherein the customer cabinets are associated with one of the plurality of zones, and wherein one or more of the graphical relationships between the plurality of icons graphically depicts associations between the mechanical assets and one or more of the plurality of zones.

4. The method of claim 1 , further comprising determining whether each of the infrastructure assets is upstream or downstream of at least one other of the infrastructure assets relative to the flow of power from a power source in the data center.

5. The method of claim 1 , further comprising determining one or more zones of the data center associated with each of the infrastructure assets.

6. The method of claim 1 , wherein receiving the indications of the plurality of user inputs creating the graphical relationships between the plurality of icons comprises receiving indications of a plurality of user inputs creating a one-line diagram.

7. The method of claim 1 , wherein receiving the indications of the plurality of user inputs creating the graphical relationships between the plurality of icons comprise receiving indications of a plurality of user inputs to the graphical user interface in dragging and dropping each of the plurality of icons from an asset icon library to a user palette portion of the graphical user interface to create the graphical relationships.

8. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
in response to receiving a user input via the graphical user interface requesting a list of customers of the data center dependent upon one of the infrastructure assets in the data center, outputting, by the computing device and for display, the list of customers affected based on the mappings as recorded in the data structure.

9. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
in response to receiving a user input via the graphical user interface selecting an alarm configured for one of the infrastructure assets in the data center, outputting, by the computing device and for display, a list of customers affected by the alarm based on the mappings as recorded in the data structure.

10. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
in response to receiving a user input via the graphical user interface selecting an asset tag point configured for one of the infrastructure assets in the data center, outputting, by the computing device and for display, a list of customers affected by the asset tag point based on the mappings as recorded in the data structure.

11. The method of claim 1 , wherein building a mapping comprises:
associating, by the computing device, a customer identifier associated with a customer cabinet with each of the electrical assets on the power path for the customer cabinet; and
storing, by the computing device, the association in a data structure.

12. The method of claim 1 , further comprising:
receiving, by the computing device, a user request via the graphical user interface requesting a view of infrastructure assets that are relevant to selected data center equipment;
in response to receiving the user request, identifying, by the computing device a proper subset of infrastructure assets that are relevant to the selected data center equipment;
generating, by the computing device, an array of data relevant to the selected items, and
converting, by the computing device, the data to a graphical depiction of icons and interconnections for the subset of infrastructure assets; and
outputting, by the computing device, the graphical depiction of the data for display.

13. A data center infrastructure monitoring system comprising:
a plurality of geographically distributed data centers, each data center of the plurality of data centers comprising a plurality of physical infrastructure assets; and
a central monitoring center communicatively coupled to one or more data centers of the plurality of data centers and configured to, in response to receiving indications of a plurality of user inputs to a graphical user interface creating graphical relationships between a plurality of icons depicting infrastructure assets in a data center, wherein the infrastructure assets comprise electrical assets providing power within the data center, and wherein one or more of the graphical relationships between the plurality of icons graphically depict paths for power flows among the electrical assets in the data center, translate first data, the first data indicating inputs positioning the icons at positions relative to each other and connector icons coupling the icons, to second data indicating hierarchical relationships between the infrastructure assets in the data center depicted by the icons, wherein the second data comprises objects associated with the infrastructure assets and properties associated with the objects, the properties including one or more of upstream electrical assets relative to the power flows, downstream electrical assets relative to the power flows, and resiliency status of the infrastructure assets, wherein the central monitoring center is configured to:
access a customer database to obtain customer data indicating a relationship between customer cabinets in the data center and infrastructure assets directly connected to the custome

Assignees

• Equinix Inc

Inventors

• Marinelli Michael
• Maloney William
• Raparti Swayambhu
• Sukiennik Anthony J

Classifications

• H04L41/0681

  Configuration of triggering conditions · CPC title

• H04L67/00

  Network arrangements or protocols for supporting network services or applications (user-to-user messaging H04L51/00; network arrangements, protocols or services for supporting real-time applications in data packet communications networks H04L65/00) · CPC title

• G06F1/3287

  by switching off individual functional units in the computer system · CPC title

• G06F11/30

  Monitoring · CPC title

• H04L41/16

  using machine learning or artificial intelligence · CPC title