Why Real-Time DCIM Pays Off

How much do you really know about your data center? As a critical part of your business, find out why real-time data center intelligence really pays off.

Bill Kleyman

November 11, 2014

2 Min Read
Why Real-Time DCIM Pays Off
Racks full of servers in a Google data center (Photo: Google)

Your data center is an absolutely critical part of your business. Today’s user is demanding more applications, more bits of data, and a lot more resources, all of which ultimately come from your data center. So how do you manage all of this demand?

Proactive capacity management ensures optimal availability of four critical data center resources: rack space, power, cooling and network connectivity. All four of these must be in balance for the data center to function most efficiently in terms of operations, resources and associated costs. Putting in place a holistic capacity plan prior to building a data center is a best practice that goes far to ensure optimal operations.

Unfortunately, once the data center is in operation, it is common for these plans to fall out of balance due to organic growth and ad hoc decisions on things like power, cooling and network management. The result is inefficiency and in the worst-case scenario, data center downtime.

For example, carrying out asset moves, adds and changes (MACs) without full insight into the impact of asset power consumption, heat dissipation and network connectivity changes can create an imbalance that can seriously compromise the data center’s overall resilience and, in turn, its stability and uptime.

In this whitepaper from Panduit, you'll learn how data center infrastructure management (DCIM) solutions help data center managers access data center intelligence in order to understand and improve capacity utilization.

Leveraging real-time infrastructure data and analytics using DCIM software helps maximize capacity utilization (whether for a greenfield or existing data center) and reduce fragmentation, saving the cost of retrofitting a data center or building a new one. Automating data collection via sensors and instrumentation throughout the data center generates positive return on investment (ROI) when combined with DCIM software to yield insights for better decision making.

Data center capacity management demands optimizing four areas at the same time:

  • Rack space

  • Network connectivity

  • Power

  • Cooling

As a data center manager, you need to understand where the best places are to deploy assets, answering questions such as “Where do I have sufficient power, space and connectivity to place these assets?” Download this whitepaper today to learn how Panduit SmartZone Software Solutions help data center managers determine the “Best Fits” for capacity in their facilities.

About the Author

Bill Kleyman

Bill Kleyman has more than 15 years of experience in enterprise technology. He also enjoys writing, blogging, and educating colleagues about tech. His published and referenced work can be found on Data Center Knowledge, AFCOM, ITPro Today, InformationWeek, NetworkComputing, TechTarget, DarkReading, Forbes, CBS Interactive, Slashdot, and more.

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