CMDB: Data centers, racks and rack units

[sathish_anoor]

Hello,

We are implementing our CMDB module in Service Now (without Discovery) and we are looking for some ideas , best practices surrounding the implementation of data center racks, rack units and the like.

I would like users to share their opinion and preferably their experience with implementing:

Rack Reservation - Often times rack space is reserved for projects a few months in advance and paid for, before an actual server (CI) is installed from a rack.   There are couple of racks, where 1U servers are placed at alternate RUs for ease of accessibility and the alternates RUs are reserved and paid for.   One approach is to create a stand alone table (rack detail) and store the reservations and CI for actual placements.   The other is to create dummy CIs (though we don't want hundreds of dummy CIs pulling up in our BSM).  

Zero RUs - Has anyone implemented how to track zero RUs and placement of CIs in Zero RUs?   One method is to count the zero RUs with the regular RUs ( 45   + 6 ) and present it like a 51

RU rack.   Howerver, our facilities would like to see the 6 marked and displayed as 45 RU and 6 Zero RU rack.

KVM, PDU, Fiber Patch - Any special considerations or are these treated like regular CIs?

Rack Visualization - Has anyone been able to display a requested rack in an list view, which includes the empty RUs and RUs with CI?   If a 4 RU server in placed in RU 4-8, the the visual should display the server and the remaining empty RU in a 42 RU rack.   This is the least priority request, but a nice to have.

Appreciate any experiences you can share.

Sathish

[jonathan_luste]

As far as visualization is concerned, we are also looking to do data center visualization.   Tier44 has an update set we are going to POC.   But that requires data added, and we also are going a non-discovery route (plus without smart PDU and Racks, wouldn't find it anyway).

For your rackspace (and floorspace at the next level) you would need to create another CI table to house the reserved space.   Create a SUM relationship rollup for those tables and have it rollup to the rack (and/or zone).   That would be one option.

Zero RU could be given a rack elevation of 0 and below.   Keeps them from taking up space on your visualization.

[sathish_anoor]

Jonathan,

Appreciate your reply.   So I do have a cmdb_ci_rack, extended from cmdb_ci and has the data center, rack row and rack position fields.   I have a Rack Detail table which is not extended from any table, which has the individual RUs.  

Are you suggesting to extend that Rack Detail from cmdb_ci and make each RU a CI?   Is this how you have implemented your CMDB?   I am new to ServiceNow and just making sure I am not clearing the wrong jungle after several weeks of work .

Having zero RUs numbered in negative is a good idea, I did not think about it.   Is your management OK with Dummy (reserved) CIs showing up in the BSM map?   Mine is kind of hesitant about that fact.

For visualization, I did come across Tier44 solution, but for some reason I overlooked it.   We used the share app "CMDB - 3D Cabinets"

which worked pretty good, except that we were not able to click on the CI and also it did not show the position of each RU.   I am looking to see, if I can make it as text fields and clickable.      

[jonathan_luste · Accepted solution]

I looked at the 3D cabinets.   It is a nice per-cabinet view, but it lacks the capability to look at rows of racks (IE zones, suites, floors, etc.) as well as it isn't interactive in the sense that you can click on a CI to go into its record.   Tier44 offers all this, and the price was rather affordable.   Not that I'm trying to sell their stuff, just my observation so far.

What are your 0 RU devices?   Virtual?

I'd say the rack detail data should be part of the CMDB, for visualization reasons.   It would be nice to visualize the reservation I assume.   Also, not sure how rollup relationships work outside of CI tables.   You could reserve fixed RU per rack or ever specific spaces per rack/cabinet.   It would be a type of "dummy" CI, just not on the server, or router, etc. tables.

To be clear, we haven't implemented this ourselves yet.   I've got folks populating the data center, zone, computer floor, and rack tables currently first, before we introduce the relationships to the CIs.   Currently our hardware doesn't have elevation info populated.

One of the things we are also struggling with is how to report front vs. back of a rack/cabinet as they might be different.

[sathish_anoor]

Wish I had spoken with you earlier!   Thanks for all the insight.   Today morning I figured, the Rack Detail should be extended from CMDB_CI to work optimally.   I am reworking my rack reservations

Zero RUs devices are physical.   We have KVM, Network Switches and Patch Panels.

Our home grown existing CMDB has all the data (physical servers, KVM, PDU) and visualization is also present (including Front/Back).   We do have stuff mounted Front/Back and the facilities team want to replicate that.   We also have to move the data from that system into ServiceNow.

I created   a "Rack Clearance" field and populating it for now.   I have a BR that validates the RU and clearance and it works.   I will have to worry about the visualization later.  

Do you think we can exchange emails and keep in touch?