Vendor profile: Geist

Geist provides data center equipment such as power strips, monitoring equipment, cabinet containment and in-rack cooling, and DCIM systems. The roots of its DCIM platform trace back to 2007 when RLE Technologies launched the actual product, then was acquired by Geist two years later. Today, the company is based out of Lincoln, NE, and supports users with offices and manufacturing plants all over the world.

Geist DCIM appeals to both the facility and IT sides of the DCIM market. To work with a diverse set of data center demands, its DCIM solutions offer real-time monitoring, alarming, visualization, and device integration. Geist’s DCIM platform has the capability to communicate with all industry standard protocols and has a services team to ensure all connected devices are integrated properly.

With the addition of Environet Asset in March of this year, Geist DCIM now has a full asset management solution that lends to better capacity planning, space management, reporting, and workflow management.

“With our extensive line of DCIM products, we are able to deliver a full solution that covers both IT asset management and facility real-time monitoring,” said Matt Lane, president of Geist Global’s DCIM Division. “We believe that these products position Geist as a leading DCIM solution provider in the market.”

Currently, Geist has more than 250 individual clients that use the DCIM products. These enterprise clients spanning the globe include:

Today, with 450-plus instances of its DCIM software installed on five continents monitoring over 500,000 equipment cabinets in 1,500 environments, Geist creates comprehensive data aggregation systems that automate data center reporting and provide critical infrastructure management tools. Its two data center monitoring and management systems, Environet and Racknet, fit all needs from power strip aggregation to enterprise level DCIM systems.

Geist DCIM Solution Details

Geist is a global provider of data center infrastructure management solutions. The company was founded in 1948. With its global headquarters located in Lincoln, NE, USA., and offices in Europe and Asia-Pacific, Geist provides DCIM solutions to businesses across the world. Geist offers an intelligent control platform that integrates business procedures across the data center and provides a single point of management. Here is a comprehensive evaluation of Geist DCIM solutions.

Asset Management (8.0/10)

The Geist DCIM platform Environet simplifies the process of visualization and management of both the logical and physical data center infrastructure, providing users with the information needed to effectively manage assets, networks, power, and space. The Environet Asset solution understands where available capacity exists and utilizes work orders to effectively manage the entire asset lifecycle. Dashboards and reporting provide real-time visuals for what is happening within the data center and facility infrastructure.

Power Management (7.0/10)

The Geist DCIM platform enables you to monitor and manage the power consumption details of space, power, cooling reviewing real-time data of mechanical, power, cooling and electrical usage. By visually mapping this data, you can quickly determine the total power usage and power capacity available at any point in time. Geist’s history in the power strip business gives it a great degree of insight and technical competency in Power monitoring

Thermal Management (8.0/10)

The Geist DCIM platform comes with a library of predefined functions to control valves and other equipment based on temperature, humidity and airflow values. When the predefined thresholds are met, the temperature can be automatically adjusted. You can analyze key metrics of PUE trending, PUE comparative and power metrics.

Space Management (9.0/10)

This versatile new software identifies available capacity and resourcefully employs work orders to manage the entire asset lifecycle. The enterprise visualizations provide easy navigation throughout the data center, from the 3D site level down to each individual connection. With convenient drag-and-drop functionality, connection mapping is simple and easy to configure. Dashboards and reporting provide real-time visuals within the data center allowing users to make intelligent, proactive decisions within their data center infrastructure.

Visual Modeling (8.0/10)

The new Environet Asset module can be combined with Geist DCIM’s existing Environet Facility to provide a powerful data center and facility infrastructure management solution. Together, the software provides specialized views of all aspects of the data center environment and capacities including real-time power, cooling, environmentals -all coupled with full lifecycle management of IT assets.

Hypothetical Modeling (9.0/10)

Geist’s Environet Facility’s graphically rich interface and intuitive design as qualities that ease monitoring of data center and facility equipment. Real-time monitoring brings the activity of a single facility, or an enterprise of data centers, into a single graphical view to immediately alert users of potential threats. It can be customized to integrate many different types of devices using industry standard protocols.

Access & Control (9.0/10)

The DCIM module Environet Facility simplifies monitoring by integrating multiple communication protocols into one complete system. It provides the data granularity for efficient management of both the facility and the data center infrastructure. Environet Facility transforms complexity into simplicity with unprecedented visibility and management over environmentals, power consumption and cooling.

Reporting & Alarming (9.0/10)

The DCIM solution is supplied as a stand-alone solution preinstalled on a server. All rack and network components are automatically identified by SNMP, making system setup quick and easy. Because the solution is vendor-neutral, data centre hardware from virtually any manufacturer can be integrated. A convenient and web-based user interface provides an overview of the operating states and environmental parameters of the devices integrated into the Racknet DCIM solution. Asset management and reporting on power consumption, power usage effectiveness and temperatures is performed, for example, for a complete rack row, an individual rack or IT device. All metrics and reports are clearly displayed and, depending on needs, shown in a 2D or 3D view, on a dashboard or in table format. The Racknet system automatically triggers a warning via SNMP if critical and preset limits for power and environmental parameters are exceeded.