Over the years in this blog, we’ve said this too many times to count: no singular software can do it all. Yes, many organizations are looking for the single pane of glass view — and for good reason: you have so many moving pieces and tools and you need one central repository in order to cut costs, maximize efficiency, ensure compliance, and so on.
But — is the ‘single-pane-of-glass’ idea of DCIM software achievable? Yes. But it’s not achievable by using just one software solution that can do it all. Just as with your IT team, one person can’t do it all: each member of a team brings strengths (and weaknesses) that allow for the end-result. The same is true for the data center: different tools have different strengths and weaknesses. The key to getting different team members to produce the desired end-results is communication. The key to getting data center tools to work together and produce the desired end-results? You guessed it: communication.
You don’t want to replace tools that do a good job with a lesser tool that “does it all”. Most data centers have already invested in a variety of tools from monitoring the network (tools like Solarwinds or Spectrum), to Service Desk CMDB to manage issues (like ServiceNow or Remedy), Cloud platforms, like AWS and Azure. These tools do their job well. Why reinvent the wheel if you do not have to? A swiss army knife, for example, is obviously handy, but it won’t yield amazing results when you need them. If you need a lot of tools, you need a toolbox that consolidates your tools and keeps them organized, visible, and trackable.
Further, you don’t want to end up paying more than you need to: you don’t need to replace any of these systems that you have acquired with a one-size-fits-all tool that claims to do the same. Imagine the sunk costs when ditching an existing toolset, your initial investment, and your time investment to now have to learn a new system — with all of the headaches involved!
The truth is that these tools, such as Solarwinds, are invaluable members of your data center’s team. Other tools that are members on your data center’s team may include VCenter, smart PDUs, AWS, CA Spectrum, ServiceNow, Excel, Visio, and more. You don’t need a one-size-fits-all software: what you need is software that allows for, and facilitates, seamless communication with all the various members playing on your data center’s team. DCIM helps you achieve communication across the different tools you use (see our recent case study on how Acciona Energy unified teams and tools using DCIM software).
With our software (netTerrain DCIM), for example, netTerrain’s Collector is included. The Collector has the ability to import your existing data sources, via Web Services API, into netTerrain, so you can utilize your existing applications and more importantly, populate the data into netTerrain. Why is this important? You get reliably up-to-date data center diagrams with data that reflects your applications data.
Our recent DCIM case study with Acciona Energy mentions about bringing siloed data together, in this case, it brings in data from:
- ServiceNow to bring in properties for devices and other assets
- VCenter to import and update physical host and virtual machine data
- CA Spectrum to update device properties and status information.
The benefits Acciona Energy achieved by using netTerrain DCIM, which serves as the visual and centralized repository to bring in all of the data center team’s applications, consuming the data, and visually seeing the data in useful data center infrastructure diagrams, have been great:
Before netTerrain DCIM
- Too Many Silos
- Complex Infrastructure
- Separate Databases
After netTerrain DCIM
- Easily Create Visuals – in essence creating a single pane of glass view into your data center
- Consolidate Data in a centralized repository
- See Business Impact
By having a consolidated and centralized repository of your disparate data silos, the results and benefits are huge:
- Find Problems Faster
- Fix Issues Sooner
- Retain More Customers
- Make Life Easier
Want to learn more about how netTerrain’s built-in discovery and Collector can help you unify tools and teams? Click here to learn more.