{"id":658791,"date":"2013-05-17T14:29:21","date_gmt":"2013-05-17T18:29:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.datacenterknowledge.com\/?p=97985"},"modified":"2013-05-17T14:29:21","modified_gmt":"2013-05-17T18:29:21","slug":"io-immersant-brings-virtual-reality-to-the-data-center","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/658791","title":{"rendered":"IO Immersant Brings Virtual Reality to the Data Center"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"io-immersant-racks-470\"<\/p>\n

A look at some of the visuals provided by IO.Immersant, a new tool that provides a 3D “virtual reality” representation of a modular data center. (Image via IO).<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Ready or not, virtual reality is coming to the data center. IO<\/strong> this week demonstrated a new application that provides a 3D visual representation of a customer’s data center environment, allowing them to “walk through” their data center and check operating conditions, much as players in World of Warcraft explore Azeroth.<\/p>\n

The technology was on display at IO’s booth at The Uptime Symposium in Santa Clara, allowing expo visitors to go inside a 3D representation of an IO.Anywhere modular data center. The application, called IO.Immersant, draws real-time data from the company’s IO.OS data center management software and creates a graphical version of the module, servers and cooling equipment.<\/p>\n

“It’s a gamification of the data center,” said Kevin Malik,the CIO of IO<\/a> and General Manager of IO Labs, the company’s R&D division. “It renders (the data center) in real-time and allows you to walk through it like a first-person shooter. It reads from the database and displays the information virtually. This is bringing some glamour to the data center.”<\/p>\n

Six Months of Development<\/h3>\n

The visual display is created using libraries of images of the IO modules and equipment. About six months of development went into creating Immersant, which was built by IO’s in-house team, including alumni of Pixar and Qualcomm. The version being demonstrated at Uptime featured a D400 module with 18 racks. The demo allowed user to walk into the module, which was housed 700 miles away in Phoenix, and see a real-time representation of the state of the module.<\/p>\n

“If a valve is set at 30 degrees, Immersant will display it set to 30 degrees,” said Malik. “The first challenge is getting people to believe it’s not a video, and that it’s based on real data.”<\/p>\n

It’s one thing to move from spreadsheets to graphical software interfaces. But are data center managers and admins ready to hug their servers virtually? Or is this just a cool marketing tool to showcase IO’s modular data center technology.<\/p>\n

Malik believes that Immersant is the next step in making data centers relevant to customers, including executives and admins who have grown up in online worlds.<\/p>\n

“We’re skating where the puck is going,” said Malik. “From a security and training perspective, we see this as the next generation of data center management. I think they’re ready for this.”<\/p>\n

Here’s a look at a brief video from Uptime showing the IO team demonstrating Immersant for attendees.<\/p>\n