To often, the pursuit of Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) benefits leads to a procurement and implementation process that takes too long, software that costs too much, and the tools often under-deliver. Organizations frequently fail to define business requirements for DCIM and evaluate options in a holistic and consistent framework. This webinar can help provide insight into why those outcomes occur and how to avoid them.

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Avoid wasting time and
money procuring DCIM
Matt Stansberry, Director of Content and Publications
Uptime Institute
December 2015

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The Global Data Center Authority

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Agenda
• 2015 Data Center Industry Survey: Focus on DCIM
• DCIM Deployment Problems
• Defining Requirements
• Evaluation Methodology

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SCENARIO: Large Financial Company
• Sent out a lengthy RFI: Developed a set of questions and
asked vendors to provide answers.
• 14 qualified vendors: 40 people on each two hour conference
call.
• 12 months later, still can’t get comparative or uniform pricing
information. Vendors hiding the costs in the variability of the
professional services fees.
• Narrowed field down to single vendor – but hearing negative
information in the market.
• Running out of time – losing the budget by end of year.

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Survey Demographics: 1,000 end users

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DCIM Market Penetration

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Do you expect a return on investment in
DCIM within two years?

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Why is ROI on DCIM so terrible?
• Procurement and deployment take too long
• Many organizations are not getting what they need from a
single tool or vendor
• Pricing volatility, lack of value assigned to the market
• Total costs of DCIM are hidden, undocumented, and
under-­represented
• Buyers use DCIM to replace existing facilities
management functions.

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How long did your organization spend
evaluating DCIM systems before making
a purchase?

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How long did your organization spend
deploying DCIM from purchase to full
functionality?

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DCIM Provider offers ten modules or functions

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You want three

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And you really want this one feature…

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Approximately how much did your
commercial DCIM software cost, including
installation and setup services?

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Which DCIM features are we using?

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DCIM Deployment Nightmares
Lessons Learned

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Global colocation provider
• Colo’s SALES execs made the purchase of DCIM tool for
$US 1M.
• Facilities team doesn’t use the systems. Instead, rely on
previously installed BMS and other subsystems. No
operator value.
• “We’re paying for a dashboard. We should have spent the
money on infrastructure to upgrade a site.”

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Large transportation company
• One year into implementation of large DCIM Vendor
• Should have been an easy transition due to legacy DCIM
investments, but many functions still not working
• Owners had asked the vendor for reference customers or
other users to troubleshoot integration issues with for
over a year, with no response
• Planning to minimize reliance on the installed DCIM tool
and start over.

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Embracing the Best-­of-­Breed
• Large U.S.-­based financial firm started adopting multiple
point products from various DCIM suppliers.
• Picked products that offered significant savings potential
for individual projects.
• Focused on the business benefit, forced the vendors to
sell you on the business benefit.
• Built a custom integration with an in-­house app dev team.

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DCIM Evaluation
Methodology

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Appropriate DCIM Buying Triggers

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How to procure DCIM and achieve ROI
• Define project goals and objectives: If data is not actionable it is
irrelevant
• Document stakeholders, decision-­making process, schedule,
requirements, and workflow
• Document existing management and monitoring tools, and identify
gaps between current assets and goals/requirements
• Assign a value (budget) and develop RFP
• Evaluate qualified responses with a holistic and consistent
methodology

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Uptime Institute FORCSS Index

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Conclusions
• DCIM Procurement is risky, takes a long time, and often
provides no return on investment.
• Some organizations are seeing success -­-­ those
organizations are tying the purchase into a business
decision.
• Many organizations are struggling to deal with poor DCIM
implementations
• We are available to help!

33. © 2015 Uptime Institute, LLC
Matt Stansberry
Director of Content and Publications, Uptime Institute
mstansberry@uptimeinstitute.com
Questions?