Data Center Infrastructure Management: ERP for the Data Center Manager

Data Center Infrastructure

Management

:

Topics

• What’s DCIM & the ERP Analogy

• Why DCIM

DCIM – by Definition

“DCIM is a system that collects and manages information about a

datacenter’s assets, resource use and operational status. This information

is then analyzed and delivered in ways that help managers meet business

objectives, service goals and optimize the datacenter’s performance”.

- Andrew Donoghue (Analyst, Eco-Efficient IT), 451 Research

DCIM & the ERP Analogy

•

Manages plant assets

•

Bridges gap between Distributed

Control and Manufacturing Execution

Systems.

•

Enables production planning and

inventory management.

•

Tracks orders, work-in-process,

optimizes resources subject to supply

chain constraints.

•

Provides visibility for KPIs like

Inventory Turns, Inventory Accuracy.

•

Enables lean manufacturing through

best practices like Kanban, APICS

frameworks.

•

Manages Data Center Assets

•

Bridges gap between Facilities and IT

Management Systems.

•

Enables capacity planning for power,

space ; avoids stranded capacities

•

Tracks power usage,

Move-Add-Changes and optimizes asset utilization

subject to high availability constraints.

•

Provides visibility for KPIs like PUE,

watt per rack, watt per sq ft.

•

Enables lean & green IT with best

practices frameworks like ITIL, EU Code

of Conduct & Green Grid.

DCIM: Bridges Gap Between Facilities & IT Management

DCIM: Single solution for end-to-end data center monitoring &

data center operations

DCIM: Enables Capacity Planning

Capacity planning on power and space

 Capacity planning based on real-time and historical data

 Capacity planning based on ‘What-if’ analysis

Intelligent Capacity Planning

Identifying best rack for device provisioning and best row for rack provisioning

 Based on power & space availability, best racks identified for new device provisioning  Based on PDU load, best rows identified for rack provisioning

DCIM Monitors, Manages & Optimizes

Monitoring

Managing & Optimizing

 Identifies underutilized resources  Helps to Predict Failures

 Becomes a system of controls against unauthorized changes  Optimizes floor & rack space

utilization

 Optimizes Power & Cooling

 Enables accurate capacity planning on fact-based analysis.

 Monitors asset base across their lifecycle

 Monitors power use and environmental parameters

 Monitors provisioning and Changes through Work Flow Management  Monitors & records

Move-Add-Change (MAC) of assets

DCIM: Provides 360°View of DC Operations

How Does My Data Center Measure Up to Global Standards

Are the Data Centre

Infrastructure & Capital

Costs aligned to process

improvements?

Have we been able to

reduce Infrastructure

OpEx?

Are we maintaining a

Risk-free Data Centre

Like ERP, DCIM is a Constraint-Based

Planning Software.

Data Center Operations can no longer be

managed by spreadsheets & Visio tools

DCIM – The ERP for Data Center Operations

Why DCIM? The Data Center Challenge

Keeping Up With High Availability

Extreme Redundancies for 99.99% Uptime -> Too many assets & complex to manage

Huge Population of N+1/N+2 Equipment -> High Capital Costs & Asset Under utilization

Chain of inter-dependent equipment -> Multiple points of failures

Growing Heat Loads, Carbon Emissions & e-waste -> Sustainability Issues

Role of DCIM

DCIM functions:

• Data collection

• Environmental monitoring and reporting

• Asset, configuration and change management

• Power management

• Data reporting

• Capacity planning, forecasting, simulation and analytics

• Optimization, operational BI, load management

DCIM benefits:

• By delivering right information at the right time DCIM ensures highest level

of availability

• Allows optimized efficiencies by integrating information from IT and facility

assets

Servers Storages

Enterprise LAN Building Management Network

UPS PDU DG set Rack Sensors

Facility Infrastructure

DC Monitoring

How DCIM Works: Single Console for Facilities & IT

Power Systems Monitoring and Management

 Monitors real-time power at different levels of the power chain  HT/LT Transformer

 Switch Gears  Diesel GenSets  UPS

 Row and rack PDUs  IT Devices

 Cooling & Lighting infrastructure  Reports power consumption for

 Entire data center

 Facility infrastructure like cooling and lighting  IT infrastructure

Data Center Environment Monitoring

 Monitors critical environmental parameters of the data center such as  Temperature (Room and rack level)

 Return air and supply air temperature  Humidity (Room and rack level)

 Hot spots in the data center and temperature profiling of racks

Data Center IT Monitoring

 Apart from monitoring power consumption and environmental operating conditions of servers, DCIM can actively monitor health, performance, resource utilization and availability of servers.

 Based on utilization pattern, age and application type, DCIM helps to identify retirement, replacement and virtualization candidates which can be repurposed to reduce server footprint of the data center.

DCIM: Managing & Optimizing

 Base-lining : DCIM, through real-time monitoring of critical parameters, finds out how data center resources are being utilized and how much capacity is remaining.

Freeing up stranded capacity: DCIM provides visibility of rack space and power use, thus minimizing stranded capacities to accommodate new IT devices.

Projecting future capacity requirement: DCIM helps to accurately forecast rise in energy consumption, cooling and space requirements due to computing growth

DCIM Provides Data Center Manager KPIs

Reports & Analytics on

- Uptime and availability

- Energy efficiency and health

- Data center costs and

savings

- Capacity/Resource

utilization and availability

- Operational efficiency and

SLA Compliance

KRA: Reports & Analytics

DCI

How DCIM Helps

Since DCIM Software dynamically captures information related to asset

utilization, power consumption, environmental conditions and other

parameters, it

• Helps Data Center Manager avoid unnecessary over-provisioning

• Helps plan investments and new capacity

• Helps reduce the capital costs

• Helps reduce power use and other operating costs

• Helps reduce risk of failures through critical alerts

Thank You

http://www.greenfieldsoft.com

Email: [email protected]

See Also on slideshare: The High Availability Mantra: