Big Data + Predictive Modeling = Actionable Intelligence!

San Francisco, March 17th 2015: Building on its reputation for being a leader in predictive cost and performance management in the data center, Romonet has rolled out the latest release of Romonet Portal, its advanced data center analytics service, along with a range of new and updated products to cover the needs of those involved in running or looking to invest in data centers.

In it’s mission to provide data center owners and operators with actionable intelligence, Romonet has brought together it’s powerful and patented data center cost and performance predictive modeling engine with a noSQL database architecture and Big Data analytics, allowing faster and more insightful decision-making information for users.

Romonet has also updated Portal’s user interface, to provide a targeted and easy to understand view for site managers and staff along with users that have responsibility across a portfolio of many sites.

"Traditional monitoring and trend analysis tools are reactive; giving teams insight either at the point of an alarm or a historical view of events that have already happened," said Zahl Limbuwala, CEO of Romonet. "However feeding a predictive model with the actual data from the site’s monitoring allows Romonet Portal to give operational teams visibility and warning of future operational issues. It can actually provide a warning when a device performance starts to degrade or exhibit small but important early warning signs of failure" said Limbuwala, "In fact, combining these Big Data techniques with Predictive Modeling allows Romonet Portal to spot and alarm on things like filters in air handlers that need changing, or blanking plates being removed, causing increased air leakage."

While developing this new combined capability Romonet had to deal with another hidden issue within the data center, that of monitored data quality. Liam Newcombe (Romonet’s CTO) said, "It was a surprise to us initially that on average 35% of the data coming out of the BMS and EMS platforms out there is junk data." Newcombe added "We now clean, verify and store all the metered data in our noSQL database, as most monitoring systems are not capable of storing this type of time-series datasets over many years and still be responsive to queries and lookups"

Big Data architecture means predictions can be made faster, and with more frequency, than ever before. Performance issues can therefore be identified and solved before they have a chance to disrupt availability of service to customers.

Romonet Portal’s Big Data capabilities come from using a scalable non-relational database, as used by Internet giants such as Facebook and Google. In conjunction with Romonet’s proprietary and award-winning predictive modeling engine, this allows users to forecast, plan and measure business performance with greater insight, accuracy and agility than previously possible. The new Big Data architecture means analysis that would previously have taken hours or days can be performed in minutes; the database is capable of sorting through millions of data points in minimal time, and removes the requirements of archiving, even with massive datasets; all the customer’s data is there to access, all of the time.

Product portfolio

Romonet’s technology and expertise has for many years been used by a very broad range of clients in addition to its core market - the data center owner/operator.

Romonet supplies its software and services to equipment vendors, manufacturers and OEM’s, both in electrical and mechanical products as well as IT and computing products. Romonet also provides services for investors and shareholders in data center businesses, and with the market becoming ever more competitive, the holistic system level and financial analysis that Romonet performs is becoming increasingly valuable to this customer group.

"Due to the growth in this type of work, we have created a specific set of well defined and productized services that makes it easier for an investor or investor-driven engagement to happen" said Limbuwala, "In effect these are all types of investment due diligence, for everything from a large new data center to a major capital reinvestment within an existing site. We’ve gone from doing three or four of these a year to three or four a month! – Clear evidence that there is a lot more financial diligence around investment in this market".

This portfolio of products allows Romonet to help all those who need guidance and advice with regards to data centers, from the cloud operator with a portfolio of football pitch sized facilities to an investor looking to invest tens or hundreds of millions of dollars.

"After many years of preaching the total cost of ownership sermon within the data center industry, we have developed a reputation as the independent authority on cost and performance of data centers. These new productized services will make it easier for anyone who requires guidance to engage with us and take advantage of our independence and knowledge before they commit to a crucial decision." said Limbuwala.