A data center represents a physically contiguous area in which racks containing IT equipment are located.

For example, you have IT equipment in two rooms or on separate floors. You could create a data center for each of these areas.

Each server, enclosure, or power distribution device in your data center can report its power requirements, but it can be difficult to understand the power and cooling requirements for your data center as a whole. The appliance enables you to bring power and cooling management of your servers, enclosures, and power delivery devices together in a single management system.

When you initialize the appliance for the first time, it creates a data center named Datacenter 1. You can rename or edit this data center to match the values and layout of your data center, you can use it as the basis for a planned data center model, or you can delete this data center without adverse effects.

Default rack placement

When you add a rack to the appliance for management, the rack is displayed in all data centers even though its actual location is not known. When you assign a rack to a data center, it is no longer displayed in other data centers.