DCIM Vendor Modius Gets Patent for Data Collection Across Distributed Infrastructure

Data Center Infrastructure Management software company Modius was awarded a patent that relates to the collection of data across distributed environments. The patent covers the company's OpenData Collector, a scalable software component that actively collects unstructured performance data from serial and network-connected devices, normalizes this data, optionally combines it with other metrics and transports it to a centralized database for further analysis.

The patent covers the technology and architecture OpenData uses to collect and normalize data from data centers, IT assets and supporting applications across a distributed environment. DCIM providers are looking to offer real-time data collection for data center monitoring across distributed infrastructures, and the patent addresses San Francisco-based Modius’ way of doing this.

OpenData displays power, environmental intelligence and asset information across a distributed network of facilities on a single console. Data center personnel use this data to make informed decisions to reduce power consumption, prevent outages and proactively manage facilities in general.

OpenData Collectors act as independent hubs for data collection in distributed environments across multiple locations – DCIM for a distributed data center footprint. The software can run on standard servers, dedicated appliances or the cloud, monitoring infrastructure everywhere. There’s also a specialized collector gateway for non-networked devices.

It collects raw performance data, converts it to structured data and combined it with other metrics, available for advanced predictive analytics. It does this using a variety of standard protocol for networked devices like SNMP, BACnet, and Modbus-TCP.

“We believe that real-time data collection is the foundation of every successful DCIM implementation.” said Craig Compiano, CEO of Modius. “Building a high-speed, highly scalable, open data collection architecture was our design goal for OpenData, and we are extremely pleased to now have a patent for this work.”

Compiano added that the company intended to "strongly defend its intellectual property and the products covered by that intellectual property.”