Even with the best DCIM tool, our administrators want the ability to get a real time, detailed view of their equipment, racks, and cabling. We've been looking for a decent solution for years and still have not found anything.
Ideally, we'd like a top down map of our data center and when a rack is clicked, a front or back view is made available. Not a drawing from a DCIM tool, but a real time picture of that rack.
We're playing now with the idea of creating a camera from a Raspberry Pi that takes a picture every hour. Mounted across from the associated rack. Obviously, I now have 400+ Raspberry Pi's to maintain, so this is not ideal.
Looked at telepresence robots, but now I need one of those for every single pod or install automated doors to allow the robots to enter and exit on their own. Not to mention, this is time consuming for the administrator to connect and take the time to drive it around to find his rack he wants a picture of.
Is there really not a solution in place that does this today? I find it hard to believe that someone else isn't wanting the exact same thing....
Live view of racks in Remote Data Center
