rackmonkey features
know your racks
RackMonkey helps you keep order in your data centre. You can easily query the devices you have and represent them visually in the rack. The pages shows a few of RackMonkey's views and how you might use them (these screenshots are taken from v1.2.4). More information on using RackMonkey can be found in the User Guide.
Finding a Device
If you want to locate a device, simply type its name, serial or asset number into the find box at the top right of every RackMonkey screen. In the screenshot below we've searched for 'www' and found 4 devices. To view a device in its rack just click on the name of the rack next to the device.
Viewing Racks
RackMonkey allows you to view individual racks or many racks side-by-side. To jump to the physical view of a rack select it from the dropdown at the top right of RackMonkey views. To see multiple racks you need to select the Racks tab.
Print out a rack diagram and take it with you to the data centre to make finding a device easy or to check on the state of machines. The rack view also makes it easy to plan where to put new hardware. In the screenshot below we can see two racks, one of which has a monitoring server at position 17, while the other rack has a free space at that position.
Once the server is racked it is easily added to RackMonkey by clicking on the appropriate [+] symbol or by copying the entry for an existing server.
Device Detail
If we want more detail on a particular device we can just click on its name. If the device is a Dell and you have entered its serial number (service tag), RackMonkey will link through to the Dell site so you can see detailed warranty and specification information. Note how RackMonkey has recorded when the last update was made and by whom - in this case by an anonymous user, so IP address is recorded.
Working with Devices
Sometimes you need to work with a group of devices. For example, you may be asked to provide a list of all the Sun T2000s in use by a given customer. The device table view allows you to filter and sort devices so you can get to the information you need. You can also select different variants of the device table view with the dropdown at the top left of the screen, for example to display asset information.
Hopefully this page has given you a flavour of what RackMonkey can do. The best way to see more is to download RackMonkey and test it yourself. You can also read the documentation and the FAQ to learn more.
