Jonathan Guy, VP of Engineering for RF Code, discusses the challenges and potential of distributed computing.
The IT pro’s job today is significantly more difficult than it was just a few years ago. IT complexity has grown disproportionately, even as we’ve seen slower budget and staffing increases. At the same time, digital transformation projects need staff time.
Additionally, the pandemic created new challenges in the data center. Where historically, IT pros could handle everything locally in a controlled environment, they no longer have such control in a distributed enterprise, especially if they use legacy tools to manage their business.
Edge Computing and Real Time Monitoring
In my latest ZKast, I spoke with Jonathan Guy, VP of Engineering for RF Code, a provider of data center monitoring solutions. Guy explained why organizations need real-time and critical asset monitoring tools, as data center functions move to the edge. Highlights of the ZKast interview, done in conjunction with eWEEK eSPEAKS, are below.
- The post-pandemic IT landscape is all about managing remote distributed computing and edge computing. On top of remote work becoming the norm, there is a heightened awareness among organizations of the risks involving centralized resources. In particular, multinational companies with complex infrastructures are under pressure to proactively reduce risk in a global economy.
- Clearly, today’s organizations face many workplace challenges, whether they’re pandemic/health related or due to the lack of skilled workers. That’s why organizations need in-depth data to run their business in the most efficient way possible. Data is a critical asset, which can be collected via sensors, monitoring systems, and other tools.
- The problem is that the tools that organizations use to manage their environments are constantly evolving, but organizations often don’t make changes until the tools become outdated. It’s important to implement tools for a distributed enterprise. Therefore, organizations should be focusing on these key issues:
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- Asset security: keeping an eye on the physical location of the assets.
- Power systems: understanding which systems put a strain on the power grid.
- Environmental monitoring: checking the temperature, humidity, cooling capacity, and airflow in IT environments.
- RF Code provides environmental and critical asset monitoring from a single dashboard, which can be customized based on an organization’s requirements. Organizations get insights that are uniquely tailored to the specific parameters they set, which allows them to be both reactive (when something is out of order) and proactive (using data to improve business outcomes).
- Because RF Code’s systems are wireless and use a proprietary 433 megahertz (MHz) technology, they’re well suited for large-scale data centers and distributed environments. 433 MHz uses a low frequency and has low power requirements needed for a long battery life. The frequency is also highly regulated, which results in more reliable solutions.
- While RF Code’s core focus is large-scale data centers, it also specializes in co-located compute resources where multiple organizations operate in the same facility. Beyond that, RF Code has developed solutions for edge computing. In fact, edge is becoming a bigger area of focus for the vendor, as compute resources get closer to all the gear that interact with data.
- RF Code’s flagship solution, CenterScape, is installed inside an enterprise network, where it is managed by the organization. With CenterScape, organizations get a range of sensors, which can be deployed across globally distributed networks. The solution doesn’t require cabling to power distribution units (PDUs) because it’s a unidirectional wireless interface.
- RF Code also offers many integrations within CenterScape for building automation systems into other software tools that can be used in the data center. CenterScape can serve as an organization’s pane of glass, or alternatively, RF Code can work with any existing system that an organization may have.
- RF Code has a new cloud-based solution coming soon, geared for organizations that don’t operate their own data centers but want to have visibility into distributed locations. The solution, called Sentry, launched in April and is due to start shipping soon. This is RF Code’s first software as a service (SaaS) solution for decentralized edge computing locations.
- Now with the launch of Sentry, RF Code will offer autonomous monitoring of unmanned locations, so IT teams don’t have to be present on-site. Sentry—which can be deployed in 20 minutes—monitors several IT locations at scale from anywhere.
