DCIM
‘The maturity model’ The Panduit EMEA, data centre team explores why a DCIM maturity model is an important step to achieving efficiency and added value.
ata centres are becoming more complex as the need for HPC (high performance computing), data bandwidth and latency outstrip the capabilities of legacy facilities. It is not simply customers generating more information throughput across the infrastructure. The ability to collect actionable data, analyse and predict outcomes within the technical spaces provides one of the largest opportunities to eliminate energy wastage (up to 50% reduction in cooling energy costs), reduce CO2 emissions and reduce downtime risk. Data’s strategic importance to organisations has placed new pressures on technology networks to work to their optimum performance levels. Data centre equipment moves or device additions alter the balance of power, cooling, space and connectivity and these have a knock-on effect on the capabilities of the technical space. Without knowing the actual or possible outcomes of change, how can we manage the development of the data centre on an ongoing basis?
D
34 www.datacentrereview.com March 2020
Data Centre Infrastructure Management (DCIM) systems have improved considerably over the past few years and now provide the information to not only keep track of physical and environmental changes, but also to generate a live model for the data centre that delivers maximum value to the organisation. Actionable information Today’s DCIM offers a host of advantages to the organisations, including real-time actionable information about assets, power usage, cooling, connectivity, rack security, cabling, bandwidth and power delivery. Although DCIM systems vary widely and are available as modular software applications or as appliances, they collect standardised information from connected infrastructure resources and present a comprehensive range of information to administrators using GUIs. Information is a crucial element to enable effective action. It is essential that a DCIM solution should be paired with intelligent hardware so
