Extension:DataCenter

DataCenter is an extension for data center planning and asset tracking... basically, for keeping track of all our servers. Hey, you try keeping a few hundred boxes straight in your head!

This is primarily intended for Wikimedia's internal use, but of course others may find it useful as well.

Overview
The system consists of several kinds of data as well as relationship information that ties it all together.

Facilities

Facility information includes locations which are named geographical places which contain any number of spaces which are essentially rooms. Spaces contain specific information about their size and power availability, and also may have any number of plans.

Plans

The placement of assets in a space can be designed using a plan. Each plan can contain any number of rack assets as well as object assets which are placed inside the racks. In the future this section will include the ability to create connections between objects as well.

Assets

Actual physical pieces of equipment are considered assets. All assets have asset tags, serial numbers and a current physical location at which they are located as well as a reference to a model.

Models

Specific information about assets is stored as models, which can be re-used. Object models can contain other objects as well as ports.

Installing

 * 1) Download the extension files from the MediaWiki SVN repository
 * 2) Run on the command line
 * 3) If you want to start with an initial dataset for testing purposes, Run on the command line
 * 4) Add into your wiki's LocalSettings.php
 * 5) Set $egDataCenterGoogleMapsAPIKey into your wiki's LocalSettings.php with a Google API key as the value. If you don't have one yet, you can get one from the Google API key signup page.
 * 6) Installation can now be verified through Special:Version

Internet Explorer Support
Currently DataCenter is compatible with Internet Explorer 7 (and maybe 6?). However in future versions, support will depend on either eventual native support for the canvas HTML element or continued support through exCanvas. Additionally, even in supported versions of Internet Explorer radial gradients are not supported which greatly reduces the rendering quality of scenes and plans. It is unclear when or if this feature will be supported in exCanvas.

Access Control
To use DataCenter you must be logged in as a user which is a part of one of the following groups depending on what permissions you will need.

Planned Features

 * Rollback functionality for changes
 * Tags (make list of string values for row/meta fields which already exist available using auto-complete or perhaps a list when typing into a text box)
 * Connections in plans
 * Attachments - ability to upload and link documents (like invoices) to assets

Proposed Features

 * Show units for fields such as meters or watts
 * 0 depth rack units render special to denote blank panels
 * Add support for importing data from RackTables to Import script
 * Asset reports (history / status / valuation )
 * Printable 'blueprint' generation from plan
 * More than just racks - tables, desks, shelves etc.