Intelligent Data Centres Issue 18 | Page 41

EXPERT OPINION DCIM enables data centre managers to centrally manage all their resources and capacities in a single pane of glass to maintain uptime, improve efficiency of capacity utilisation and increase productivity of people. Consider the following use cases for remote data centre management with DCIM software: • Remotely plan space, power and connectivity. DCIM software provides a virtual visual instance of your data centre in 3D with colourcoded floor map overlay reports displaying real time data such as cabinet space, budgeted and actual power, plus network and power port availability to help you easily identify the ideal location to deploy assets. Similarly, ‘what-if’ analysis helps you understand the potential impact of additions and decommissions in your data centre. With this information at your fingertips, you can identify stranded space and power capacity to defer capital expenditures or understand if additional resources are necessary in order to meet demand. Plus, a comprehensive DCIM solution with an Auto Power Budget feature will unlock precious rack capacity as each individual server make/model instance is assigned a unique power budget value that’s automatically set from real-time outlet-measured readings from intelligent rack PDUs-your devices’ exact loads under your compute stress in your environment. • Direct technicians to complete changes accurately. With limited on-site hands at data centres and colocation sites, accurate and productive remote direction of technicians on where to go and what to do can be a difficult process without the right tool. Without a single source of truth of all assets across all locations, you will not have confidence that you are directing technicians to the correct location to make the correct changes. DCIM software enables remote planning and initiation of clear work orders and instructions for remote hands. Cabinet elevation views provide the exact U position of your assets and device views while high-fidelity front and back images show technicians exactly where the data and power ports are located to ensure that connections are made correctly. DCIM ensures that work activity is done accurately the first time, reducing the need for additional trips to the data centre and mitigating the number one cause of downtime: human error. • Remotely monitor power and environment sensors across multiple locations. Managing multiple remote sites with their own power and cooling systems is easy with DCIM. An enterprise dashboard displays real-time power and environmental health, trends, events and alerts for all sites in a single pane of glass with the ability to drill IN THIS ‘NEW NORMAL’, REMOTE DATA CENTRE MANAGEMENT TOOLS HAVE PROVIDED TOTAL VISIBILITY INTO GLOBAL DATA CENTRE FOOTPRINTS FROM ANYWHERE AT ANY TIME. www.intelligentdatacentres.com Issue 18 41