Data center infrastructure management
Encyclopedia
Data center infrastructure management (DCIM) is the integration of information technology
(IT) and facility management
disciplines to centralize monitoring, management and intelligent capacity planning of a data center
's critical systems. Achieved through the implementation of specialized software, hardware and sensors, DCIM will enable a common, real-time monitoring and management platform for all interdependent systems across IT and facility infrastructures.
The efficiencies of having this type of integrated management have led technology providers like Hewlett-Packard
, Dell and IBM to build out and complement their product-centric infrastructure and management offerings with Converged Infrastructure
environments that converge servers, storage, networking, security, management and facilities. This type of environment allows enterprises to use fewer resources to manage the operations of these independent components.
, DCIM is expected to grow to 60 percent market penetration by 2014, versus one percent market penetration in 2010. There are several trends driving the adoption of DCIM. These drivers include:
To reduce energy usage and increase energy efficiency
, DCIM enables data center managers to measure energy use, enabling safe operation at higher densities. According to Gartner Research, DCIM can lead to energy savings that reduce a data center's total operating expenses by up to 20 percent. In addition to measuring energy use, CFD
is used to create a Virtual Facility
to maximize the use of airflow, which further drives down cooling infrastructure costs.
DCIM will allow optimal server placement with regard to power, cooling and space requirements.
DCIM software is used to benchmark current power consumption through real-time feeds and equipment ratings, then model the effects of "green" initiatives on the data center's power usage effectiveness
(PUE) and data center infrastructure efficiency
before committing resources to an implementation.
More sophisticated integrated monitoring and management tools were later developed to connect this equipment and provide a holistic view of the facility's data center infrastructure. In addition to enabling the comprehensive real-time monitoring, these tools were equipped with additional modeling and management functionality to facilitate long-term capacity planning; dynamic optimization of critical systems performance and efficiency; and efficient asset utilization.
In response to the rapid growth of business-critical IT applications, server virtualization became a popular method for increasing a data center's IT application capacity without making additional investments in physical infrastructure. Server virtualization also enabled rapid provisioning
cycles, as multiple applications could be supported by a single provisioned server.
Modern data centers are challenged with disconnects between the facility and IT infrastructure architectures and processes. These challenges have become more critical as virtualization creates a dynamic environment within a static environment, where rapid changes in compute load translate to increased power consumption and heat dispersal. If unanticipated, rapid increases in heat densities can place additional stress on the data center's physical infrastructure, resulting in a lack of efficiency, as well as an increased risk for overloading and outages. In addition to increasing risks to availability, inefficient allocation of virtualized applications can increase power consumption and concentrate heat densities, causing unanticipated "hot spots" in server racks and areas. These intrinsic risks, as well as the aforementioned drivers, have resulted in an increase in market demand for integrated monitoring and management solutions capable of "bridging the gap between IT and facilities" systems.
In 2010, analyst firm Gartner. Inc. issued a report on the state of DCIM implementations and speculated on future evolutions of the DCIM approach. According to the report, widespread adoption of DCIM over time will lead to the development of "intelligent capacity planning
" solutions that support synchronized monitoring and management of both physical and virtual infrastructures.
Intelligent capacity planning will enable the aggregation and correlation of real-time data from heterogeneous infrastructures to provide data center managers with a common repository of performance and resource utilization information. It also will enable data center managers to automate the management of IT applications based on server capacity—as well as conditions within a data center's physical infrastructure—optimizing the performance, reliability and efficiency of the entire data center infrastructure.
In 2011, Future Facilities and nlyte partnered to provide simulation based airflow management (Virtual Facility
and Datacenter CFD
) to a DCIM platform. This combination of cooling capacity information and intelligent capacity planning process enables a proactive approach for identifying potential hot spots within the data center while providing increased airflow management to reclaim stranded cooling capacity.
In 2011, Emerson Network Power
introduced "Trellis," the industry’s first DCIM platform capable of bridging the data center’s physical and IT infrastructure layers in real time to facilitate holistic data center monitoring and management. According to Reuters, the platform will allow enterprises to “cut their energy bills, infrastructure spending and better allocate staff at the giant server farms that manage everything from bank transactions to corporate payrolls.”
Information technology
Information technology is the acquisition, processing, storage and dissemination of vocal, pictorial, textual and numerical information by a microelectronics-based combination of computing and telecommunications...
(IT) and facility management
Facility management
Facility management is an interdisciplinary field primarily devoted to the maintenance and care of commercial or institutional buildings, such as hospitals, hotels, office complexes, arenas, schools or convention centers...
disciplines to centralize monitoring, management and intelligent capacity planning of a data center
Data center
A data center is a facility used to house computer systems and associated components, such as telecommunications and storage systems...
's critical systems. Achieved through the implementation of specialized software, hardware and sensors, DCIM will enable a common, real-time monitoring and management platform for all interdependent systems across IT and facility infrastructures.
The efficiencies of having this type of integrated management have led technology providers like Hewlett-Packard
Hewlett-Packard
Hewlett-Packard Company or HP is an American multinational information technology corporation headquartered in Palo Alto, California, USA that provides products, technologies, softwares, solutions and services to consumers, small- and medium-sized businesses and large enterprises, including...
, Dell and IBM to build out and complement their product-centric infrastructure and management offerings with Converged Infrastructure
Converged Infrastructure
Converged infrastructure packages multiple information technology components into a single, optimized computing solution. Components of a converged infrastructure solution include servers, data storage devices, networking equipment and software for IT infrastructure management, automation and...
environments that converge servers, storage, networking, security, management and facilities. This type of environment allows enterprises to use fewer resources to manage the operations of these independent components.
Driving factors
According to ForresterForrester Research
Forrester Research is an independent technology and market research company that provides its clients with advice about technology's impact on business and consumers. Forrester Research has five research centers in the US: Cambridge, Massachusetts; New York, New York; San Francisco, California;...
, DCIM is expected to grow to 60 percent market penetration by 2014, versus one percent market penetration in 2010. There are several trends driving the adoption of DCIM. These drivers include:
- Increased power and heat density
- Data center consolidation
- VirtualizationHardware virtualizationComputer hardware virtualization is the virtualization of computers or operating systems. It hides the physical characteristics of a computing platform from users, instead showing another abstract computing platform...
and cloud computingCloud computingCloud computing is the delivery of computing as a service rather than a product, whereby shared resources, software, and information are provided to computers and other devices as a utility over a network .... - Increased reliance on critical IT systems
- Energy efficiency or Green IT initiatives
Features
To address data center availability and reliability requirements, DCIM can identify and eliminate sources of risk to increase availability of critical IT systems. DCIM tools can be used to identify interdependencies between facility and IT infrastructures to alert the facility manager to gaps in system redundancy.To reduce energy usage and increase energy efficiency
Efficient energy use
Efficient energy use, sometimes simply called energy efficiency, is the goal of efforts to reduce the amount of energy required to provide products and services. For example, insulating a home allows a building to use less heating and cooling energy to achieve and maintain a comfortable temperature...
, DCIM enables data center managers to measure energy use, enabling safe operation at higher densities. According to Gartner Research, DCIM can lead to energy savings that reduce a data center's total operating expenses by up to 20 percent. In addition to measuring energy use, CFD
Computational fluid dynamics
Computational fluid dynamics, usually abbreviated as CFD, is a branch of fluid mechanics that uses numerical methods and algorithms to solve and analyze problems that involve fluid flows. Computers are used to perform the calculations required to simulate the interaction of liquids and gases with...
is used to create a Virtual Facility
Virtual facility
A Virtual Facility is a highly realistic digital representation of a data center . The term virtual in Virtual Facility refers to the use of the word as in Virtual Reality rather than the abstraction of computer resources as in platform virtualization...
to maximize the use of airflow, which further drives down cooling infrastructure costs.
DCIM will allow optimal server placement with regard to power, cooling and space requirements.
DCIM software is used to benchmark current power consumption through real-time feeds and equipment ratings, then model the effects of "green" initiatives on the data center's power usage effectiveness
Power usage effectiveness
Power usage effectiveness is a measure of how efficiently a computer data center uses its power; specifically, how much of the power is actually used by the computing equipment ....
(PUE) and data center infrastructure efficiency
Data center infrastructure efficiency
Data center infrastructure efficiency , is a performance improvement metric used to calculate the energy efficiency of a data center...
before committing resources to an implementation.
Evolution of tools
Data center monitoring systems were initially developed to track equipment availability and to manage alarms. While these systems evolved to provide insight into the performance of equipment by capturing real-time data and organizing it into a proprietary user interface, they have lacked the functionality necessary to effectively monitor and make adjustments to interdependent systems across the physical infrastructure to address changing business and technology needs.More sophisticated integrated monitoring and management tools were later developed to connect this equipment and provide a holistic view of the facility's data center infrastructure. In addition to enabling the comprehensive real-time monitoring, these tools were equipped with additional modeling and management functionality to facilitate long-term capacity planning; dynamic optimization of critical systems performance and efficiency; and efficient asset utilization.
In response to the rapid growth of business-critical IT applications, server virtualization became a popular method for increasing a data center's IT application capacity without making additional investments in physical infrastructure. Server virtualization also enabled rapid provisioning
Provisioning
In telecommunication, provisioning is the process of preparing and equipping a network to allow it to provide services to its users. In NS/EP telecommunications services, "provisioning" equates to "initiation" and includes altering the state of an existing priority service or capability.In a...
cycles, as multiple applications could be supported by a single provisioned server.
Modern data centers are challenged with disconnects between the facility and IT infrastructure architectures and processes. These challenges have become more critical as virtualization creates a dynamic environment within a static environment, where rapid changes in compute load translate to increased power consumption and heat dispersal. If unanticipated, rapid increases in heat densities can place additional stress on the data center's physical infrastructure, resulting in a lack of efficiency, as well as an increased risk for overloading and outages. In addition to increasing risks to availability, inefficient allocation of virtualized applications can increase power consumption and concentrate heat densities, causing unanticipated "hot spots" in server racks and areas. These intrinsic risks, as well as the aforementioned drivers, have resulted in an increase in market demand for integrated monitoring and management solutions capable of "bridging the gap between IT and facilities" systems.
In 2010, analyst firm Gartner. Inc. issued a report on the state of DCIM implementations and speculated on future evolutions of the DCIM approach. According to the report, widespread adoption of DCIM over time will lead to the development of "intelligent capacity planning
Capacity planning
Capacity planning is the process of determining the production capacity needed by an organization to meet changing demands for its products. In the context of capacity planning, "capacity" is the maximum amount of work that an organization is capable of completing in a given period of time...
" solutions that support synchronized monitoring and management of both physical and virtual infrastructures.
Intelligent capacity planning will enable the aggregation and correlation of real-time data from heterogeneous infrastructures to provide data center managers with a common repository of performance and resource utilization information. It also will enable data center managers to automate the management of IT applications based on server capacity—as well as conditions within a data center's physical infrastructure—optimizing the performance, reliability and efficiency of the entire data center infrastructure.
In 2011, Future Facilities and nlyte partnered to provide simulation based airflow management (Virtual Facility
Virtual facility
A Virtual Facility is a highly realistic digital representation of a data center . The term virtual in Virtual Facility refers to the use of the word as in Virtual Reality rather than the abstraction of computer resources as in platform virtualization...
and Datacenter CFD
Computational fluid dynamics
Computational fluid dynamics, usually abbreviated as CFD, is a branch of fluid mechanics that uses numerical methods and algorithms to solve and analyze problems that involve fluid flows. Computers are used to perform the calculations required to simulate the interaction of liquids and gases with...
) to a DCIM platform. This combination of cooling capacity information and intelligent capacity planning process enables a proactive approach for identifying potential hot spots within the data center while providing increased airflow management to reclaim stranded cooling capacity.
In 2011, Emerson Network Power
Emerson Network Power
Emerson Network Power – a division of Emerson Electric Company – is a global technology company that specializes in the development and manufacture of power backup systems, power supplies, embedded computing solutions, precision cooling, racks/enclosures, infrastructure management, and connectivity...
introduced "Trellis," the industry’s first DCIM platform capable of bridging the data center’s physical and IT infrastructure layers in real time to facilitate holistic data center monitoring and management. According to Reuters, the platform will allow enterprises to “cut their energy bills, infrastructure spending and better allocate staff at the giant server farms that manage everything from bank transactions to corporate payrolls.”