Data Center Infrastructure Management Software (DCIM): when you think of DCIM, what comes to mind? Expensive? Complicated? Way too much work to even get up off the ground? Difficult to convince your boss? Maybe it would add even more headaches to your job?

Below are three key reasons as to why it’s probably a whole lot easier to succeed with a DCIM than you think:

1. DCIM Doesn’t Have to Cost an Arm and a Leg…

Yes, DCIM software can be expensive but it can also save your organization a great deal of money over time and give you a return on the investment many, many times over. That being said, the price tag may give a case of sticker shock to you or your boss or your budget.

With software like netTerrain DCIM, we get it: we make it easy to start small and scale up as needed. This means there’s a lower initial investment if you don’t want to put all of your eggs in one basket until you know the software is really going to deliver (we also offer a 30-day money-back guarantee). You choose how many devices you want to start with, and go from there: learn more in this blog.

Example: Data Center Floorplan in netTerrain

netTerrain also provides you the ability to do month-to-month (with SaaS), a yearly on-premises subscription, as well as a permanent license. Try netTerrain on a per-monthly basis, or do a yearly subscription, to see how much traction you can garner with having a DCIM solution. Go for the smaller wins first, then you can proceed to use DCIM on a larger scale. You can always upgrade to a permanent license after your yearly subscription has expired.

2. Installing and Deploying DCIM isn’t Rocket Science

Enterprise-grade software like DCIM gets a bad reputation for deployment headaches, but it doesn’t have to! You don’t need to or shouldn’t have to pay your DCIM vendor fees to get your DCIM solution installed. Right? This goes back to the first point, how the perception of DCIM can be very expensive. DCIM should be an easy install that you can achieve just by following some instructions in an Installation Guide — not costing you thousands for services help.

The good news here is that some DCIM vendors (like us, ahem) make deployment and installation easy-peasy. With netTerrain, we basically have a plug-and-play model: you don’t really need the user guide to get started. Plus, as we said just above, you can choose to start small and score a win before scaling up.

Example: Connect to ServiceNow in Seconds using netTerrain

3. Getting DCIM’s Insights is Easy with Dashboards and Reports

Getting the insights you need in easy-to-digest reports and dashboards is important with any solution like DCIM. Some vendors make software that is, in fact, very complicated and you basically need to pay the vendor or hire a consultant to get the meaningful reports you need.

Other vendors (like netTerrain) make it so easy that you can create your own custom query reports and dashboards in just a couple minutes (see blog here). Dashboards are essential for data center capacity planning. Easily see your IT inventory or assets, run reports on maintenance/warranty expiration dates, see how much capacity is available on a per rack, per data center (items like power, space, and weight availability).

Example: Rack Capacity Dashboard in netTerrain

These reports can show management the number of unnecessary expenditures (zombie server and cables anyone?), reducing power costs, using netTerrain’s Environmental Monitoring Module, and see its own cooling analysis, increase rack density, find underutilized servers, and more.

To summarize, do the many benefits of DCIM outweigh the costs? We sure think so, but check to see if a DCIM vendor has options to help you get started, like offering a 30-day trial, month to month license, yearly subscriptions, and even a 30-day unconditional return policy.

Start off documenting a smaller room inside your data center, or your lab. Go get your win quickly to see how you can foster a larger deployment of DCIM and document the rest of your data center rooms after showing management your victories! If you’d like to test drive netTerrain or just learn more about it, we’re happy to help: click here to get started.

About Fred Koh

As a seasoned sales executive, Fred Koh serves as Director of Sales and is responsible for Graphical Networks sales and channel partner program, marketing strategy, and operations.