Patent ID: 8051156

Claim:
An information architecture for a data center containing a plurality of IT network devices, the information architecture including a facility management (FM) network and an information technology (IT) network, wherein: a) the FM network comprises, a cooling infrastructure having a plurality of field devices for providing cooling resources to the plurality of IT network devices; at least one server based on Object Linking and Embedding for Process Control (OPC) providing OPC interfaces to the plurality of field devices; b) the IT network comprises, the plurality of IT network devices; a computerized system operable to implement Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) to manage the plurality of IT network devices; and the computerized system further implementing SNMP for managing the plurality of IT network devices in order to access the OPC interfaces and thereby enable coordinated thermal management and utility computing management in the data center and wherein the computerized system is operable to implement SNMP to access the OPC interfaces through a SNMP proxy agent having a plurality of SNMP proxy sub-agents to gain access to the plurality of field devices of the cooling infrastructure, wherein the plurality of SNMP proxy sub-agents contain respective management information bases (MIBs) that contain managed objects of the plurality of field devices.