Towards a Smart Rack: How We Tested Labels for Data Center Server Accounting

Hello, Habr! My name is Sergey, and at DataLine I am working on improving monitoring systems. We have already talked a lot about monitoring engineering and network infrastructure. But besides it, there is also the task of tracking IT equipment. 

When we are monitoring in a data center, it is important to know where each server is located and who owns it. This information is stored in a special system for accounting components of information systems, or Configuration management database (CMDB). It is important to immediately update the data on the location of the servers, otherwise there is a problem of "ghost servers" for which no one is responsible. 

All this information can be driven into the system by hand. But when it comes to tens of thousands of racks, I want to automate the process. We are developing our automation system and are constantly looking for how to improve it. The idea of ​​a “smart rack” has been in the air for a long time, which itself knows what equipment it has installed in which unit. In our data center, we decided to conduct an experiment and test several new technologies to solve this problem. I'll show you the results of these experiments and will be happy to discuss how the community solves this problem. 

About accounting tasks and current problems

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