Immersive Datacentre ExplorAtion and Supervision

Project Information

IDEAS

Grant agreement ID: 851835

DOI

10.3030/851835

Project closed

EC signature date 8 May 2019

Start date 1 June 2019

End date 30 November 2020

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Future and Emerging Technologies (FET)

Total cost

€ 96 875,00

EU contribution

€ 96 875,00

Coordinated by

EATON INDUSTRIES (FRANCE) SAS
France

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - IDEAS (Immersive Datacentre ExplorAtion and Supervision)

Reporting period: 2019-06-01 to 2020-11-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Datacenter design tools are often available with Datacenter Infrastructure Management (DCIM) software packages, but these address the needs of large DCs and require lengthy configuration of the assets. Small businesses running On-Premise Server Rooms usually lack skilled personnel able to use specialized software and complex user interfaces, hence the need to provide them with intuitive Human Machine Interface (HMI) leveraging user experiences commonly found outside of the professional environment (e.g. 3D engines largely used for Gaming or Augmented Reality). Description and monitoring of the assets in production are also part of DCIM software packages, again not tailored to address On-Premise small DCs.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The technical performance of the DC monitoring software was proven in previous project named MANGO and first customer feedbacks were very positive and motivating.

However, the next key steps could not be addressed in MANGO project to take results beyond research and enable innovation potential.

Therefore, next project named IDEAS was submitted relying once again on the complementarity of the consortium between UNIZG-FER and EIF in order to define and validate a business model based on a DCSO as a Service (DCSOaaS) platform available to partners across Europe.

This new DCSOaaS extends the approach taken for complex monitoring software initially developed within MANGO project, this time generalizing the use of 3D technology which is a Key Enabling Technology to offer immersive user experience and open the door to disruptive technologies such as Augmented Reality.

IDEAS ambitions to cover a broad range of stages within the lifecycle of a DC (from initial configuration and commissioning down to the end of life) while providing intuitive interfaces to end users and releasing the constraint of extensive training to handle complex user interfaces.

Followed sub-objectives are planned to enable fast commercialization:

• Competitiveness analysis incl. existing competitors, products, pricing, intellectual property (IP) landscape assessment, data privacy assessment refer to EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). The objective is to verify / adjust assumptions of given business plan.

• “Voice of Customer” analysis incl. assessed customer expectations covering technical requirements, usability/HMI, services, value. The objective is to align and if necessary adjust the product concept and business plan based on intensive workshops with potential end customers and channel partners. WP2 Mentioned sub-objectives will lead to a consolidated and step-by-step “Go To Market” plan. The objective is to create a detailed “Go To Market plan” based on the business hypothesis to ensure a fast and large market penetration.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The consortium proposes to build up and commercialize a disruptive and flexible DCSO (Data Centre Service Optimization) solution instead that provides the essential features of intelligent power management running in house (requires a yearly subscription) while other features less frequently used such as design of a DC (initial design of the DC and change of its assets) will be accessible in SaaS (Software as a Service) on demand. While taking into consideration data privacy matters, IDEAS proposes to solve the initial problem by providing an intuitive way of describing DC assets and building out of this description a 3D representation. Services can then be brokered using a hosted platform that will be part of a DCSOaaS offering (DCSO as a Service).

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