March 03, 2022

Avocent Data Center Planner, Improves Data Center Design, Planning and Operations Efficiency!

Edwin Labirua

Senior Infrastructure Engineer

Leviton Manufacturing Inc (Electrical & Electronic Manufacturing, 5001-10,000 employees)

Score 8 out of 10

Vetted Review

Verified User

Incentivized

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We used Avocent Data Center Planner to create a virtual map of our data center and the cross-connects to all of the equipment. With it, we were able to create an inventory of various servers, network devices, appliances, etc we had in our data center. This allows us to capacity plan where to put new equipment in. It also gives up the available patch panel ports in our various racks as well as the available ports on the various switches we have in our data center.

Pros and Cons

Avocent Data Center Planner gave us an overview of our data center without the need to be physically there to perform an audit.
We can visually map out and trace the cross-connect a device or server is using without a need of remote hands to trace the cable.
It provides us the ability to capacity plan our data center. Giving us the ability to see what space is under or over-utilized and formulate a plan to adjust to correct it.

The library of objects we can use in Avocent Data Center Planner needs to be expanded. There are times the server object we need is not available in the library.
A more efficient way to connect objects together. It's way too easy to delete a connection mapping, a dialogue box asking if the connection should be deleted would be nice. I've accidentally deleted a connection before and it's annoying that I need to redo it.
The ability to import diagrams into Avocent Data Center Planner would be nice. We have Visio diagram of racks and to utilize that instead of recreating it would help speed up the build in of a datacenter in the product.

Likelihood to Recommend

Avocent Data Center Planner is well suited in helping us to capacity plan our data center, increase operations efficiency and keep track of available patch and switch ports. We are able to visually view wherein our data centers are underutilized and more importantly over-utilized. We can also follow the path of the cross-connects from one object to another visually providing us another troubleshooting tool in our datacenter. Previously we had Excel spreadsheets with this information and it's can be confusing to follow compared to a visual representation that Avocent Data Center Planner provides.

Most Important Features

One of the most important features of Avocent Data Center Planner is the visual representation of our entire data center. This gives us a great visual to be able to plan where to set up new equipment.
Another important feature is the mapping of the cross-connects between equipment and cross-connects between racks. With it, we can visualize where things are connected, helping us better troubleshoot things without the need for remote hands to trace connections in the data center.
We have also used Avocent Datacenter to determine how many patch ports are available to each rack as well as ports on the switches on our datacenter. Previously remote hands would be needed to perform an inventory of what is available.
Having one location to view information of our data center is another important feature. Without it, we would have to look at a Visio diagram to determine what devices are in the racks and then an Excel file to view the cross-connects.

Return on Investment

A positive ROI on Avocent Data Center Planner allows us to improve our infrastructure planning by giving a visual representation of our data center so we can see where we can set up new equipment in the future.
Another positive ROI is, we can visualize wherein our data center we are either over-utilized or underutilized increasing the efficiency of our operations.
A further positive ROI is the complete record of device connections eliminated the need for remote hands to trace patch connections for troubleshooting purposes.
Finally having one place to view information on our data center is also a positive ROI. This has increased our operations' ability to manage our data center.
A negative ROI is the amount of time required to set up Avocent Data Center Planner. We had to start from scratch and recreate the Visio diagrams we already had.

Alternatives Considered

Microsoft Visio

Avocent Data Center Planner was far and away better than utilizing Microsoft Visio to manage our data center infrastructure. It provides us a centralized location for all information about our data center from the location of racks, to the devices in them, the device connections, etc. While Microsoft Visio can emulate the rack and device piece of Avocent Data Center Planner, it can't replicate its ability to provide the device connections. We have previously used Excel for that. Having one place for all of that information is also a plus for Avocent Data Center Planner, increasing the efficiency of our data center operations compared to using Microsoft Visio.

Other Software Used

Microsoft Visio, Microsoft Excel, Adobe Acrobat Reader DC

Operating Systems	Unspecified
Mobile Application	No

Avocent Data Center Planner

Overview

What is Avocent Data Center Planner?

Avocent Data Center Planner, Improves Data Center Design, Planning and Operations Efficiency!

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