data center cables

In a previous article here, we discussed the importance of viewing your entire Cloud and Infrastructure. In this blog, we will pick up where that article left off and discuss why exactly this is important when it comes asset management. To illustrate, we will use our own Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) software, netTerrain DCIM, as an example. DCIM software, such as ours, should function as single pane of glass through which you can view your entire physical and vital infrastructures. Let’s take a look at how this can work and adapt to new technology.

Traditionally, an organization’s computing requirements were handled by just one data center… Today, however, organizations are distributing their computing resources across a number of different physical locations — such as: centralized facilities, cloud servers, and edge data centers. As data centers move towards becoming truly ‘software-defined’, one of the key feature sets people need in DCIM is solid inventory/asset management, or, in other words: the ability to see what they have inside their data center rooms and telco closets.

So…with seemingly everyone moving to a cloud computing environment (public or private clouds, hybrid, etc.), ask the following question, whether you already have DCIM software or you are considering it: does your DCIM vendor also discover your cloud infrastructure, such as AWS or Azure, and visualize it too?

netTerrain DCIM, for example, is adapting to the new hybrid infrastructures and provides organizations a view inside the data center and beyond. The ‘netTerrain collector’ (formerly Integration Toolkit), for example, can easily visualize AWS and Azure. This gives you the ability to visualize both your physical views of your data center, racks, etc., as well as your virtual cloud infrastructure — all in one place.

In addition to AWS and Azure, netTerrain DCIM allows organizations can also connect to third party infrastructure management software systems, such as: Solarwinds Orion, CA Spectrum, Service Now, Remedy, and its own discovery engine in order to keep the assets in your DCIM solution up to date. Further, the asset management in netTerrain DCIM includes discovering your assets (both inside and virtual), data center capacity reports, and table reports that can be exported to spreadsheets.

As new technologies continue to emerge, netTerrain will continue to adapt so that you can still achieve a single pane of glass view into your DCIM solution. The bottomline is this: whether you have been using some kind of DCIM software to manage your organization’s assets or you are currently considering DCIM, you don’t want to end up stuck using a DCIM solution that is holding your organization back because it isn’t adapting to new technology and the ways we use it. Find a DCIM solution that adapts to what you need to do; don’t adapt what you need to do to the limits of your DCIM solution.

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.