Data center infrastructure management (DCIM) solutions add tracking and configuration management capabilities to data center management for physical assets and logical resources found in the data center, unifying the facilities and IT domains into a single, coherent managed information source.
At a high level, a DCIM solution bridges the gap between the physical plant and the IT side of the data center. This bridging function allows monitoring as well as adjustment based on real time and anticipated IT load requirements, together resulting in improved energy efficiency. DCIM deployments provide information on operational monitoring, management and intelligent capacity planning of a data center's critical systems; they deliver this feature by employing specialized software, hardware and sensors. These hardware devices and sensors create a fabric of connections, utilizing protocols like SNMP, Lontalk, manufacturer codes, etc.
Several vendors identify their offerings to be part of the DCIM category; depending on who you ask and what type of DCIM solution, (full suite, partial suite, hardware, software, capacity planning, high-fidelity visualization, real-time monitoring, cable/connectivity management, environmental/energy sensors, business analytics including financial modeling, process/change management, and integration with various types of external management systems and data sources). Therefore, more than a dozen vendors sell a DCIM product. This creates a confusing arrangement of products that may fill some needs and not interface well with others. Customers who successfully deploy DCIM are driven by a myriad of industry and government standard metrics intended to provide cost-effective planning and operations support for the data center. Examples of these include Power Utilization Effectiveness (PUE), Carbon Usage Effectivness (CUE) and Data Center Energy Productivity (DCeP)– as well as vendor-driven metrics such as PAR4 - Server Power Usage Data Center Predictive Modeling and (DCPM). Some of them have multiple ways of being calculated which adds to the confusion.
We have delivered DCIM selection, installation and configuration services to some of the largest corporations in the world. Our experience includes creating development, pilot, and production environments using products from most of the major DCIM vendors. This breadth of experience with many different product sets allows us to provide our customers with keen insight into what will work in their environment, and which tools interface and scale to meet future needs. Best of all, our team works with your staff to give them the opportunity for the education needed to keep the systems in tune and grow the system when required.
The plain truth is that, if you want to get a great return on your investment, you need an expert to help your team optimize the configuration of the interface, configure the SNMP traps, derive set points for the data being captured, and analysis to optimize the process and close in on your energy efficiency targets.
Please contact us today and let us be the bright light that cuts through this fog and puts your team on the right path.