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Phil Jones, Chief Technology Officer at Shoden Data Systems UK
Introduction
Most people would tell you that the biggest trends in IT today are the moves towards virtualisation and cloud computing. But it seems that underpinning these changes is another trend, centred on the technologies which support both of the above. It may come as a surprise that some of the most innovative thinking is to be found in the datacentre itself, specifically in monitoring and efficiency management. This is because businesses need to comply with legislation that requires them to reduce their energy consumption and to become ‘greener’. Therefore, driven by the need to measure, monitor and manage the assets and environment within datacentres, Datacentre Infrastructure Management (DCIM) is emerging as the protocol of choice for those managing enterprise-level environments.
Gartner defines DCIM as the integration of IT and facility management disciplines to centralise monitoring and management while providing intelligent capacity planning of a datacentre’s critical systems. Achieved through the implementation of specialised software, hardware and sensors, DCIM will enable a common, real-time monitoring and management platform for all systems and infrastructure in the data centre. In other words, DCIM enables the data centre manager to deliver a cost-effective service to the business, one that can support critical applications and services, for example by providing a stable infrastructure for a “private cloud”.
Datacentre Challenges
Within the datacentre there is now a need to measure, understand and often to increase Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) at every possible level. At the same time, the power and heat loads within racks are rising, almost in step with the increasing unit costs of energy needed to run the datacentres.
The first requirement is to measure and monitor power usage down to the most granular level; hardware manufacturers usually provide maximum load figures but these are of little practical use, because datacentre managers need real time data in order to make informed capacity planning decisions. Vendor-specific measuring and monitoring tools, together with reporting software have been installed in the majority of the top tier datacentres giving managers the basic information they need. Some would say that this is first phase of Datacentre Infrastructure Management.
The growing need to keep energy costs under control will ensure that DCIM becomes a high priority item in many datacentres.
Joining up the Datacentre and the IT department
In many companies there has often been a gap between those delivering the IT applications to the business and those providing the infrastructure and environment to IT. This is having to change fast as organisations struggle to deliver more cost-effective IT solutions to the business. The latest generation of DCIM tools enables organisations to ‘bridge’ the gap between these two groups to provide a better overall service to the business. Organisations have always had the ability to manage components of their IT infrastructures using proprietary tools, but in the past this has led to islands of knowledge.
The IT Director should be demanding the same service levels from those supporting their infrastructure as those supporting the IT (or business) applications. The overall quality of service ultimately depends upon all the elements of the IT organisation; it’s no use investing in a storage solution with “five nines” availability if the infrastructure is incapable of matching this.
So why do I need DCIM?
Put simply, if you do not monitor your IT infrastructure, you will not fully understand it and if you don’t understand it you will not be able to manage it! Investment in the appropriate infrastructure management tools is becoming essential.
The drivers for deploying DCIM vary from organisation to organisation; the following list shows some of the most common:
• The need to contain/reduce costs
• The requirement to deploy new hardware quickly and effectively
• Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) legislation
• Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) measurement
• The need to make the best use of available rack and Computer Room (CR) space
• A desire to understand and control the whole datacentre
The Solution
Tools are now available to monitor and report metrics for the IT environment and its assets. The introduction of DCIM software gives datacentre managers the information they need to deliver a solid and reliable service to their organisations. This is good for the IT staff, the applications they support and ultimately the success of the company.
When should users implement DCIM?
DCIM should ideally be introduced before available space and power in the datacentre run out, or if the administrator is in the process of moving to or building a new data centre.
The main benefits of DCIM come from the ability to have a clear and real-time view and understanding of each datacentre component and its behaviour and performance. This allows users to make informed decisions and more effective use of resources as well as being able to:
• Visualise or simulate ‘what if’ scenarios
• Reduce the time to deploy new assets
• Mitigate the risk associated with change
Maximise the value of assets including rack and floor space
Gartner suggests that the cost of implementing DCIM should be offset by the operational savings in the datacentre (power, utilisation, cooling, etc.) “...the efficiencies gained in the project by adopting DCIM more than pay for DCIM”
Conclusion
The ultimate goal in terms of datacentre management is a single unified system capable of measuring, monitoring and managing everything in the datacentre; from the application to the air conditioning, from access control to storage and server provisioning.
DCIM is all about matching the IT infrastructure’s ability to meet an organisation’s operational requirements, as well as bridging the gap between IT and facilities management. The good news is that DCIM software to do this is available today.
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