As a DCIM solution vendor, we are often asked questions about Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM). What is DCIM? What can you do with it? How can you compare one vendor to another vendor? This fast crash course has overviews and links to resources that will help you gain a solid understanding of DCIM solutions.
What is a DCIM Solution?
DCIM is software that helps you to achieve data center efficiency. Efficiency? Yep: energy, cost, and time efficiency. In fact, DCIM is so successful in helping data centers achieve efficiency that all United States federal data centers have been required to run DCIM since 2018 through DCOI compliance.
What you specifically need to achieve with DCIM depends on you, defining DCIM beyond that would be misleading. Different DCIM solutions offer different features. Some software solutions, such as netTerrain, offer cabling and circuit management, for example.
Backplane View in netTerrain DCIM
What Can You Do with a DCIM Solution?
In the paragraphs above, we said that DCIM solutions help you achieve data center efficiency…but, what, specifically, do they let you do? It depends on the DCIM solution.
If you ask people what DCIM means to them and their project, below is an overview of what are some of the needs that they are looking DCIM to help them solve:
- Data Center Floor and Rack Space Management to manage space capacity
(click here to learn more) - Environmental Power and Temperature Monitoring to help reduce power costs and manage rack density
(click here to learn more) - IT Asset Management (ITAM) to help reduce unnecessary IT expenditures
(click here to learn more) - Cable Management System to manage cabling infrastructure and view available/used ports
(click here to learn more) - Hybrid Infrastructure views from VMWare, AWS, and Azure to see a complete view of all environments of your infrastructure
(click here to learn more) - Change Management through work orders to track all changes inside the data center
(click here to learn more)
Capacity Dashboard in netTerrain DCIM
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How to Choose a DCIM Vendor?
Before you buy DCIM, make sure the solution you select positions you for success…and not shelfware.
Why?
DCIM isn’t a one-size-fits-all purchase. It needs to be the right software for your goals. One company, for example, may need computational fluid dynamics; another company, may really need to wrangle in cabling headaches. Where are your efficiency problems in your data center…what’s causing you to stay up at night? Based on your answers, that’s your list of requirements of what you need in a DCIM software.
From there, you’ll want to find vendors that offer DCIM that can solve your issues. If you have cabling and circuit headaches, and need real-time power monitoring, software like netTerrain DCIM may be a great choice. It really depends on what you need. You can click here to dive into our blog series on choosing the right DCIM solution.
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How much of a Pain in the Neck is Implementing a DCIM Solution?
A common question we’re asked is how difficult DCIM will be to implement and use. It’s a good question, as users using a solution makes all the difference between seeing the ROI a solution promises or not. One key word: usability. How easy is it for your colleagues to use a DCIM system?
From our experience, we’ve heard from many folks who want to try out netTerrain DCIM even though they’ve already bought DCIM software! Why? The software they bought simply isn’t user-friendly enough and it’s just collecting dust. Usability is a key consideration when you’re purchasing DCIM software.
For implementation: ask your DCIM vendor! How much of a pain DCIM turns out to be depends on the software you buy and how you implement it. What is the typical time from start to finish, how long does it take to get your DCIM installed, connect to other third-party systems, and how long and how much money the training classes are?
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Below are some blogs that may be helpful in determining if a solution will be difficult or not:
To sum up: DCIM is software that helps data centers become more efficient…what efficiency means really depends on the organization and the data center. If you’d like to see if our DCIM solution netTerrain could help solve your IT pain, click here to get started.