Impact simulation

The impact simulation provides an indication of issues or potential issues with the active power and cooling configuration in the event of a failure.   You can use the simulate impact option to simulate a failure to determine whether the design is strong enough to fit the requirements of the real-world infrastructure.   Note: The simulation is only as accurate as the source information (the data provided in the data center model). A simulation, although a helpful and informative tool, may not be accurate and only shows eventual real effects.     Viewing the impact of a failing piece of equipment   Select a piece of equipment in the rack view or in the floor layout that: Supplies power to other equipment in the layout, for example a UPS, rack PDU or PDU Supplies cooling to other equipment in the layout, for example a row-based cooling unit Right-click it, and select Simulate Impact to simulate failure and see the impact. ITA_simulating_impact_360036174814.png   In the Simulated Impact table in the image below, the equipment that would be impacted is listed. The Status (Live) field is used for equipment that is associated with live devices and indicates the device status: OK, Failure, Critical, Error, Warning, Informational. Note: If a piece of equipment has not been associated with a device, it will show as OK.   Viewing the impact of an active alarm   Select an alarm in the Alarms pane below the layout Right-click it, and select Simulate Impact to see the impact if the live device that is reporting the alarm would fail  A list of equipment in the data center model that would be affected by the simulated failure pops up, including a description about what type of impact the failure would have, such as power loss, or power redundancy loss.   Simulated impact of cooling failure   Simulated impact of cooling failure is based on calculated inlet temperature for individual racks compared to the maximum target inlet temperature for the room. If the first value exceeds the latter, the impact will show as overheating all equipment in the rack.   The calculated inlet temperature for an individual rack can be seen by selecting the Cooling tab in the Floor Layout, and hovering over the rack to see the tool tip.   The inlet temperature is calculated as the high-level average inlet temperature for the rack. The calculations are not detailed enough to specify the temperature more precisely, such as floor, middle, or top of the rack.   In addition, the generic cooling prerequisites, assumptions, and design guidelines apply.   Simulated impact of power failure   Simulated impact of power failure on a selected PDU or UPS will give an indication of loss of redundancy, cooling (UPS) and power supply.   On rack PDUs and paired receptacles the Impact description will show how the load of the simulated failed equipment distributes onto the associated equipment if you have redundancy in your setup. This gives you an impression of any weak points in your design. In the picture (2) you can see that the failure of one rack PDU will result in an increased load leading to a total of 109% on the associated rack PDU.   In the Connected Breaker column you can se the which breaker is affected, the increased load and the exact location of the breaker.   ITA_simulating_impact_2_360036174814.png   See also Filtering and finding equipment in simulated impact list Exporting impact table Configuring simulated impact layout Configuring cooling impact preferences

You can configure the thresholds for impact so the system reacts to impacts that are important to your physical infrastructure.Together with a virtual host configuration, the impact analysis on virtual machine hosts feature can be used to put impacted hosts in maintenance mode, preventing failure. The IT impact simulation enables you to simulate the effect of potential power or cooling failures. You can define custom criteria for when a server is marked as impacted in the system. Select Tools > Preferences > Cooling Impact. Edit the value of the Maximum Inlet Temperature to modify the temperature thresholds of the impact. As long as a cooling failure does not cause the temperature to exceed the configured threshold, virtual servers will not be migrated in response to the failure. Simulating impact of a potential failure also behaves in the same way. Note: If you select No limit, the system will not react to cooling impact. See also Simulating impact Filtering and finding equipment in simulated impact list Exporting impact table Configuring simulated impact layout

You can configure the layout of the Simulated Impact list to show equipment according to your preferences. Click Configure Columns and select which columns to show. Edit the column width: Drag the boundary of a column header to the required position. Double-click the boundary of a column header to make the column width fit to contents. Drag and drop columns in the list to move columns. Click on a column header in the list to sort on this column. Click on column header in the list to toggle sort order (ascending/descending). Note: The simulation is only as accurate as the source information (the data provided in the data center model). A simulation, although a helpful and informative tool, may not be accurate and only shows eventual real effects. See also Simulating impact Filtering and finding equipment in simulated impact list Exporting impact table Configuring cooling impact preferences

You can set a filter on the Simulated Impact list to show only the equipment that you want to see.In the Search... field of a column, start typing some characters of the equipment you want to see. The table shows all items that contain the typed characters in the column that is searched. Note: The simulation is only as accurate as the source information (the data provided in the data center model). A simulation, although a helpful and informative tool, may not be accurate and only shows eventual real effects. See also Simulating impact Exporting impact table Configuring simulated impact layout Configuring cooling impact preferences

You can filter your network impact analysis to include only the key elements of your setup, for example your main servers and internet access. Right-click the equipment and select Properties > Properties (custom). Type Network Marker in the Name column and define the equipment in the Text column, such as main server or internet access. Click OK. Repeat for other key elements. You will only get simulated network analysis on the equipment with the Network Marker custom property. Simulated impact analysis on equipment other than the Network Markers will only include impact of power and/or cooling failure. ITA_filtering_network_impact_analysis_360036715073.png   ITA_filtering_network_impact_analysis_2_360036715073.png Note: To delete the Network Marker property, open Tools > Configure Custom Properties and right-click Network Marker in the Custom Properties table to delete it. It will not suffice to delete it in the equipment's right-click menu.   See also Simulating impact

You can export the list of impacted equipment to a file. Click Export. Select file format and browse to identify the destination where you want the file sent, and click OK to execute the export and exit the dialog. If you want to export more equipment data than is currently shown in the list, select to include filtered out equipment and/or hidden columns. Note: The simulation is only as accurate as the source information (the data provided in the data center model). A simulation, although a helpful and informative tool, may not be accurate and only shows eventual real effects. See also Simulating impact Filtering and finding equipment in simulated impact list Configuring simulated impact layout Configuring cooling impact preferences