Steve Lancaster from Chevron presented on his experience implementing a DCIM (data center infrastructure management) solution over five years. He discussed how DCIM helped him achieve goals like asset management, aligning space and power usage, and inventory reports. Lancaster highlighted collaborating with the vendor as critical. He wished he had better understood all of DCIM's capabilities upfront and set up power monitoring. Looking ahead, Lancaster wants to utilize DCIM for capacity planning, run power failure scenarios, and streamline processes.

1. Twitter: @datacenterworld 1
Session DCDM3
DCIM Software Five Years Later:
What I Wish I Had Known When I
Started (Case Study)
Steve Lancaster
James Cerwinski
Download
the App
and
rate this
session.
app.datacenterworld.com

2. 2
Data Center World – Certified Vendor Neutral
Each presenter is required to certify that their
presentation will be vendor-neutral.
As an attendee you have a right to enforce this
policy of having no sales pitch within a session
by alerting the speaker if you feel the session is
not being presented in a vendor neutral fashion.
If the issue continues to be a problem, please
alert Data Center World staff after the session
is complete.

3. 3
DCIM Software Five Years Later: What I
Wish I Had Known When I Started (Case
Study)
Session Description
In this case study presentation, Steve Lancaster, Data Center
Assets Facility Lead, at Chevron, will share what he learned
from using DCIM to successfully optimize Chevron’s 1,800+
rack data center environment. Lancaster will discuss critical
aspects of his DCIM journey, including what he was looking to
achieve with a DCIM solution, and how he is using it today to
monitor data center activities and make smarter data center
management decisions. He’ll also explore how collaborating
with a trusted advisor helped him achieve his objectives, areas
where he expects to expand this use in the future and what he
wishes he had known when he started.

4. Presenters
Steve Lancaster, Chevron, Data Center Assets Facility Lead
• More than 18 years managing data centers and providing IT
support
• Responsible for developing San Antonio data center from ground
floor into an enterprise level, highly redundant modern data center
James Cerwinski, Sunbird Software, Director Product Marketing
• More than 20 years of experience in designing, developing and
deploying management systems to improve uptime and efficiency
of data centers, telecom central offices and other IT infrastructure.
• Worked at Raritan Inc. and Bell Labs, holds a BS in Electrical
Engineering and an MBA, and is a joint-inventor for the patent for
“detecting whether a server has shutdown gracefully”

5. Agenda
Background
Goals Met with DCIM
Collaboration with a Trusted Advisor
What I Wish I Had Known
Looking Toward the Future

6. Background

7. Background
About Chevron
Life Before DCIM: Complicated
Avoid Buyers Remorse: Tips on Choosing
the Right DCIM
Deployment: Major Obstacles and Pitfalls
to Avoid

8. About Chevron
Project Driver
• 7 Existing Data Centers
• Usage requirements outpacing capacity
• Need to build a new data center in San Antonio
• Limited visibility into assets and space availability
• Looking for a full solution – data path management,
tracking, asset management and power in one tool
Data Center Management Tools
• Spreadsheets & Visio
• dcTrack Solution in Houston facility
Key Users
• Data Center Operations
• Data Center Procedure
• Infrastructure Design
• Hardware Rack and Stack
“New Data Center build is a good time to move
off of spread sheets”
Steve Lancaster, Chevron

9. Life Before DCIM: Complicated
Challenges
• Limited control and functionality with Excel
• Excel is non-intuitive, non-visual based system
• Lack of linkages for the intelligent data structure
• Difficult process to input and extract data
• Lack of business intelligence and analytics for clear
decision making
Goals
• Asset management and cross-site identification –
remote management of sites
• Align space, power and cooling with business lines
• Monitor actual data to feed back to capacity
management
• Inventory Reports for bi-annual physical rack
inventory
“When you have large data centers with large
amounts of data to maintain, update and verify, you
need the ability to clearly see timely and accurate data
and the linkages between all the pieces of data so you
can make data-based decisions quickly.”
Steve Lancaster, Chevron

10. Avoid Buyers Remorse: Tips on Choosing the
Right DCIM
• Understand your goals and
objectives
• Backward engineer to gain
deep understanding of
solution capabilities
• Narrow down based on
which meet goals and
objectives
• Review ease of use,
deployment and support
• Perform hands on
evaluation and Proof of
Concept (POC)
Define Assign Install
Demo: User
Interface
Demo: Bulk
Template
Client Data
Prove Use
Case
Close

11. Deployment: Major Obstacles and Pitfalls to
Avoid
• Limited training – work with vendor to gain
hands-on experience; ensure all team members
understand how to perform common tasks
easier and why
• Minimal head count – account for goals, ensure
resources and development availability
• Undocumented plans – create a detailed
deployment plan and stick to it
• Dirty data – use best practices to provide clean
and auditable data
• Unclear use cases – work with engineers to
understand all available capabilities and
enhance the software for future use

12. Goals Met with DCIM

13. Goals Met with DCIM
• Asset management and
cross-site identification
• Alignment of space, power
and cooling with business
lines
• Monitoring of actual data to
feed back to capacity
management
• Inventory Reports for bi-
annual physical rack
inventory

14. Asset Management
• Cross-enterprise visibility
• Floor map with health information and
asset details

15. Space, Power and Cooling by Business Line
• View PUE, space and power capacity
graphically
• Compare sites and business lines

16. Power Reporting
• Review Power across businesses and sites
• Identify trends – capacity and events
• Forecast future needs

17. Inventory Reports
• View and print rack details for
moves, adds, changes
• Attach to work
requests(future)
• Record all changes for audits

18. Lessons Learned and the Future

19. Collaborate with Trusted Advisor
Discuss Software Goals and Objectives
Support through POC
Deployment Services
Feedback into Future Development
User Group Sponsors

20. What I Wish I Had
• Visibility of all tools to ensure current
and future needs
• Understood how to utilize the tools for
initial deployment based on best
practices (vs. past experience)
• Evaluated and taken advantage of
each component available (MPO
connectivity, power path – data path)
• Set up my power chain for full reporting
and visualization of data center
environment
• Focused on the most important parts
with a look into the future (vs.
prioritizing)

21. Looking Towards the Future
• Capacity reporting for proactive vs. reactive planning
• Understanding impact if power is lost and the “what if”
(space, power and cooling – using CRAC or other) – do I
have enough cooling?
• Power Chain build out
• Deeper understanding of overall system functionality
• Identify areas for automation to reduce decision making
and number of “hands” needed
• Streamline internal processes and utilize best practices

22. 22
3 Key Things I Hope You Have Learned During This
Session
1. Must-know tips for choosing the right
software and avoiding DCIM buyer’s
remorse
2. Major obstacles and pitfalls that can
hinder your DCIM deployments
3. Top DCIM features your data center
team can’t live without

23. 24
Thank you
Steve Lancaster
832-854-3194
210-740-2582
slancaster@chevron.com
Twitter: @datacenterworld
James Cerwinski
732-993-4476 x1002
732-687-1087
james.cerwinski@sunbirddcim.com