The Romonet Platform positions itself as the only cloud-based, big data-architected management platform that models, simulates and predicts data center costs and operational performance. It aims to solve energy, capacity and financial challenges facing colocation and public and private cloud hosting providers.

The platform measures the performance of individual facilities against a benchmark, modelled on a library of operational data that includes information on climate, energy and equipment.

It can include the cost of downtime and extended recovery costs in its calculations, and even damage to company credibility or loss of brand value, Romonet says, though the company tends to concentrate on quantifiable metrics.

Because the service is either public or private cloud -based, deployment is instantaneous. The platform is accessed via an online portal, with customers registering to a subscription that is ‘tailored to the customers’ specific requirements’.

These and other features led to the company winning a DatacenterDynamics Critical Environment Future Thinking Award (US & Canada), which was pesented during a gala dinner in New York earlier this year.

Platform in action

Operating with the help of the open-source Apache Cassandra architecture, the Romonet platform has so far modelled more than 500 data centers.

Romonet says one multi-billion dollar publishing house employed its total cost of ownership analysis to reveal it was using just 51 percent of its available capacity. Through consolidation, this customer reduced space and power costs from $10.4 million to $5 million.

Intel’s chief data center architect Charles Rego said: “The Romonet Platform enables us to rapidly address our clients’ real issues and concerns using facts, not assumptions.

“It allows us to model and compare any data center environment over any time period against the specifications, utilization rates and parameters we set. In a couple of hours, we can now run a multitude of scenarios to determine the lowest risk and the highest reward.

“It’s straightforward to take a snapshot of data center operational efficiency today, and then compare and contrast that picture with a view of the future where configurations and variables have been changed.”

Live feed reporting

The Romonet platform claims to deliver greater than 98 percent accuracy in its total cost of ownership reporting, as well as savings of up to 50 percent from improvements to operational control and investment forecasting.

It also gives live PUE and real-time variance analysis, simulations of the financial implications of selecting facility size, design and energy choice, and the ability for the client to compare its facility against those of other companies in the industry.

Romonet says this provides a near real-time feed on how the facility is performing and predictive analysis-led guidance on what action is required to improve performance.

Romonet has launched a water analysis and management application in tandem with a large social media company, which aims to help data center operators minimize their water consumption. Through this tool companies will be better equipped to meet corporate social responsibility and environmental regulations, Romonet says.