NextDC launches iPhone app for data centre monitoring

Data centre provider NextDC has launched an iPhone app that allows its customers to use their smartphone to remotely monitor and manage their racks in the company's facilities.

The OneDC app, also available through a Web browser, allows customers to respond to crisis situations without being physically present in the data centre. Its features include power and temperature monitoring, remote locking of racks and ticket management.

“Anyone who has infrastructure in data centres can tell you of the dreaded 2:00am call to come to the data centre to let someone into a rack due to a critical failure,” NextDC CEO Bevan Slattery said in a statement. "With OneDC you can remotely view critical elements such as power and cooling as well as manage the entire rack locking process without getting out of bed."

“So our customers will be able to [look at] what the current power and cooling is of any rack within their facility; how much power they’re consuming; what their temperature is; [and] what the humidity is within that space,” Slattery told Computerworld.

NextDC clients will be able to set alerts for temperature, power utilisation and security. The app also keeps an inventory of rack locking and unlocking, billing and invoicing.

Slattery said NextDC began by pinpointing what clients wanted — a seamless way to manage their data centre space. The ideas were amalgamated into OneDC, with the product undergoing development and testing over the past nine months.

“Every component of a data centre has always been selected so that it can integrate with the OneDC application, so the power systems that we purchased; the power distribution units had to have power monitoring on them; the rack locking system — we had to have the right software,” he said.

OneDC is currently being trialled by NextDC, with five clients taking part in the early release program. Feedback so far has been positive, Slattery said. According to Slattery NextDC customers are pleased with the app's simplicity and security features, such as immediate access to audit logs.

A second trial release will be rolled out shortly, with the final app expected to be available in two to three months. A carbon footprint calculation is also planned for the 1.1 release around the middle of this year.

NextDC plans to release an Android and Windows version within the next three months. OneDC will also be available for iPads and Windows tablets.