Emerson's Trellis Integrates With IBM on DCIM

Emerson Network Power continues to focus on partnerships to boost its Trellis data center infrastructure management (DCIM). The latest partnership is with IBM, which will integrate its IBM IT service management software with Emerson’s Trellis platform. As part of this collaboration, IBM will resell the Emerson Trellis platform as its DCIM solution.

Integrating IBM software with Emerson’s Trellis platform will provide real-time data on data center operations, from IT applications through infrastructure components and all the way to the power grid.  This information can be used to improve energy efficiency and space and capacity utilization, and improve operational efficiency, all of which reduce the risk of downtime.

According to Gartner, DCIM is an estimated $450 million market today, expected to grow to $1.7 billion by 2016. Industry analyst firm IDC believes this integration can deliver customer benefits.

"The combination of Emerson’s real-time infrastructure optimization capabilities in the Trellis platform and IBM’s suite of enterprise system management capabilities has the potential to help IT and facilities teams deploy a comprehensive data center infrastructure management solution to increase energy and operational efficiency," said Jennifer Koppy, research manager at IDC.

Emerson customer Brocade outlined the value of combining DCIM and ITSM. “‘Do more with less’ has become standard operating policy in IT and data center environments," said Valery Sokolov, senior manager, Engineering Lab Services, Brocade. "At the same time, the mix of physical and virtual assets is growing exponentially. Because of these trends, there is a real business case for tools and applications that will provide the visibility and metrics required to manage IT resources and facilities provisioning efficiently and productively.  This is where DCIM and ITSM applications become critical to provide the data required to achieve that goal, as well as to plan and model growth.”

The combined capabilities also provide insight into the true costs of running an application, calculating its resource demands in real-time, and dynamically provisioning resources in support.

"Managing the physical constraints of available space and power in the data center is becoming a greater challenge for organizations," said Jamie Thomas, vice president, Tivoli strategy and development, IBM. "This, combined with the increasing demand on the enterprise for reliable and agile IT services, makes finding a cost-effective solution critical for our customers. The combination of Emerson Network Power’s market-leading DCIM solution – the Trellis platform – along with our solutions for IT service management and systems management, is an ideal way to meet these customer needs with innovative capabilities.”

Steve Hassell, president of Emerson Network Power’s Avocent business, said that aligning Trellis with IBM software "enables data center managers and IT and facilities leaders to see, decide, and act across all resources.  This collaboration with IBM is a strong validation of our DCIM strategy and the ability of the Trellis platform to improve how data centers are currently managed and operated.  Our collaboration will span engineering, development, and go-to-market strategies, and we are making significant investments to realize the full potential of our work together."

Details of the Trellis platform integration roadmap with IBM Tivoli software will be available in March at the IBM PULSE 2013 conference.