DCIM tools help data center managers improve planning, lower costs, and speed up information delivery by providing visibility into data center infrastructure and automation of manual processes. They solve problems around maintaining availability and responding quickly to business needs while lowering costs during consolidation and cloud computing initiatives. DCIM tools provide concise summaries of capacity, assets, and performance to help answer questions around planning, operations, and analytics. Their use is important for reducing operational expenses by 10-30% annually while improving productivity.

1. Leveraging Data Center
Infrastructure Management
(DCIM) Tools
....to improve planning, lower operational costs,
and speed up information delivery

2. Session objectives
Overview of DCIM
Problems DCIM Solves
How DCIM Works
Why It’s Important

3. Key Take Away
Do You Have The
Right Tools?

4. Overview Of DCIM
Business Applications
IT Infrastructure
Servers | Storage | Networking
Data Center / Facilities Infrastructure
Power | Cooling | Racks | Security | Environment

5. DCIM Growth Projections
According to Gartner Research:
DCIM tools and processes will become
mainstream in data centers, growing
from 1% penetration in 2010 to 60% in
2014. 60%
2014
1%
2010

6. What Do Analysts Say About DCIM?
“It is imperative that as these deployment models (traditional IT, cloud,
outsourcing, hosting, colocation) permeate data center environments
there is some level of orchestration keeping power, cooling, space,
servers, networking, and storage in equilibrium. DCIM is meant to perform
this orchestration for space, power, and cooling in the data center,
respective of IT systems' changing requirements.”
IDC MarketScape: Worldwide DCIM 2011 Vendor Analysis – January 2012
“One thing is clear: modern, well-run data centers will increasingly be run
by managers armed with detailed, live and accurate information about the
status of their equipment, along with reporting, analysis and control
systems that enable them to plan effectively and to act on short notice.”
The 451 Group – Market Insight Service – July 13, 2011
“Energy savings from well-managed data centers can reduce operating
expenses by as much as 20%.”
Gartner 2010

7. Session objectives
Overview of DCIM
Problems DCIM Solves
How DCIM Works
Why It’s Important

8. Problems DCIM Solves
Maintain
Availability Lower Costs
Respond Faster to the
Business DC Consolidation
Capacity Planning Cloud Computing
Need to dramatically simplify planning, designing,
deploying & operating data centers

9. Symptoms of Poor Data Center Operations
It’s like the wild west! I flew to London to put a
Post-It note on a rack!
I found some servers and I didn’t
know where they came from or I use Excel (Access) to
who installed them track what’s there
My CIO said “There’s some white When I come in every
space – put the servers there!” morning, I can HEAR if
everything is okay
My hand at the back of the rack –
THAT’s how I find hot spots I could fix this if we had a
fire – a BAD fire!

10. Session objectives
Overview of DCIM
Problems DCIM Solves
How DCIM Works
Why It’s Important

11. Planning

12. Common Planning Questions Answered
By DCIM Tools
How will a new server impact the
Where do I place my next server? existing branch circuit?
How does my trending look for
Do I need to spread out my blade server CPU utilization across the
servers to get reliable operations? entire data center?
IT Manager
Do I have underutilized servers that Does the existing power and cooling
could be consolidated ? equipment have the capacity to
accommodate new server technologies?

13. Provisioning New Systems

14. CPU Utilization – Individual Servers
Color-coded bars show
Overlay server level CPU the avg. CPU utilization.
utilization data on the rack layout.
Server CPU %
Server tooltips include
detailed utilizaton data.

15. CPU Utilization – Trending for Entire DC

16. Operations

17. Common Operational Questions Answered
by DCIM Tools
What projects are due tomorrow I lost a fan on my CRAC
& their current status? – what do I do now?
How can I address hotspots in my What’s my PUE?
data center?
What do I have in my data center?
What’s the overall health of my data
center? IT & Facility One of my racks has an exceeded
Managers power capacity - what can I do?

18. Auto Discover IT Assets
Automatically discover
network enabled data
center assets.

19. Provision Discovered Assets
Discovered assets can be
placed directly into the data
center model.
The model is populated based on
the data retrieved during discovery.

20. Capacity & Alarms in One View

21. Alarm View
● Highlighting entire rack where alarm is present
Schneider Electric

22. Measure Real-Time Power
● Real-time Power Consumption > Power Details Overlay
Real-time power consumption displayed as an overlay on floor and rack layout

23. Lower Safety Margins Saves Money
Safety
Margin
Power & Power & Power & Power &
Cooling Cooling Cooling Cooling
IT Facilities IT Facilities
Demand Supply Demand Supply

24. Air Temperature & Velocity
Schneider Electric 24

25. Communication Between Virtual & Physical Worlds
Why move a VM? Reasons on both sides...
Not enough COMPUTE resources... There is physical infrastructure DANGER ...
OR
The virtual machine manager DCIM
watches this side watches this side
Power Cooling
● Power outage – on battery, low battery
● Not enough PROCESSOR
● Cooling trouble – failure of a cooling device
● Not enough MEMORY
● Loss of redundancy in power or cooling
● Not enough STORAGE
Cooling Power

26. Analytics

27. Common Analytical Questions Answered
By DCIM Tools
When will I need to build another What’s the cost of running my
data center? data center?
How do I know if our energy How can I reduce my operational
efficiency initiative succeeded? expenses?
CIO
Have we met our regulatory requirements?
When will my data center run out of
power and cooling capacity?

28. Capacity Dashboard

29. Control Energy Usage in Your Data Center
“Energy use is a substantial cost of IT operations, in some cases exceeding the
cost of the IT hardware itself!” Quote US Department of Energy, May 2007

30. DCIM...anytime, anyplace
Graphical
Overview
Graphical overview of power, Capacity Overview
cooling, space, and network on a Full capacity utilization overview on
weekly, monthly, or yearly basis. power, cooling, space, and network at a
glance.
Barcode scan
functionality
Built-in barcode scanner for easy
identification of assets
Remaining
Capacity
Drill down view into any location
or room and predictions of
remaining capacity based on
growth rate.

31. Why It’s Important?
Financial Benefits
 Reduce costs by 10-30% annually
 < 12 month payback
 Improve OpEx and CapEx
Automate Manual Processes
 Reporting, inventory, moves/adds/changes, capacity planning, outage
impact analysis, energy measurements
 Respond faster to business initiatives by as much as 50%
 Dramatically improve productivity
Measure Data Center Performance
 Gain operational intelligence about energy efficiency, resource utilization,
process efficiency
 Link KPI’s to strategies & actions that drive improvement
 Holistic view of Data Center for all roles
Overall, DCIM helps you gain control of your
infrastructure so that it doesn’t control your business!
Schneider Electric

32. Key Take Away
Do You Have The
Right Tools?

33. THANK YOU