How are the readings processed?

AixBOMS takes a generic approach to integrating measurements from various sources. This makes sense because there is currently no standard for such data, and some manufacturers have defined their own (proprietary) protocols for it. Without their specialised tools, the data often cannot be read or processed further, or only with considerable effort. Since most data centre/enterprise network operators use products from different manufacturers, the integration effort is multiplied accordingly.

The increasing criticism has led to a noticeable acceptance of the SNMP approach (SNMP: Simple Network Management Protocol) in recent years, which we use as the „standard“ protocol for integrating climate and power data into AixBOMS. Nevertheless, we have remained so open with our development concept that we can offer uniform subsequent processing via AixBOMS, regardless of the chosen integration “protocol“.

In favour of SNMP, in addition to its widespread use, is the current availability of free development support (libraries, etc.) and the many suitable monitoring parameters that we found in the manufacturer MIBs (MIB: Management Information Base: the „SNMP data“) for selected products for power and climate management. For our generic approach, we have selected those parameters that are most meaningful for the system states to be monitored per component type. In AixBOMS, these have been given an appropriate designation and have been incorporated into our data model with their usual relationships and properties.

A sensor has attributes such as the query protocol, its type, its address, its access data for SNMP queries (communities), and measured values. The latter receive, in addition to the pure value, the query date, the query interval, the unit, and factors for normalisation, etc. In the AixBOMS GUIs, the data are always displayed in a normalised form, so that you can easily compare the respective results with each other, regardless of the manufacturer's measurement method used. We avoid different notations for units by using lists of values (LOVs).

AixBOMS offers various options for displaying measurement results. Firstly, there is a new tab for sensors, showing the data in curve form. Since there are components that „have“ multiple sensors, sensors are assigned to parent components. This makes it possible, for example, to compare all sensor data for a rack in one chart. In the DCIM application, there is a dashboard display where sensor data has also been integrated. Here, any sensor can be selected independently of its parent component and its measurement results displayed.

Before querying a sensor, its configuration data must be entered into the AixBOMS database. Pre-filled forms are already available for this purpose, which, supported by the usual selection lists and search functionalities, can be easily used to create new sensors. Afterwards, the new sensor will be considered during the next cycle of the query procedure. The protocol information, which is contained in the configuration data of each sensor, is evaluated by the query procedure, and then the query of the measurement results is carried out. Integration of protocols other than SNMP is easily possible here. After querying, the measured values are normalised and stored in the Measurement table of the AixBOMS database. There, they are regularly subjected to an averaging calculation, so that you always have comparative data available, even after a long time.