Tackling the Top 2015 Data Center Trends with DCIM Date:   Friday , June 05, 2015 Somerset, New Jersey headquartered Raritan International is a provider of data center infrastructure management and rack power distribution solutions. Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) solutions are now being implemented by companies across all sectors like BFSI, PSUs, healthcare, telecom, e-Commerce, media and entertainment and by companies of all sizes. Though Building Automation Systems, Electrical Power Monitoring Systems, IT Network Management and Security Systems are all critical to monitor performances at local level, DCIM integrates all local and independent systems into one dashboard providing a holistic view of the data center. As estimated by Gartner report, the Indian data center infrastructure market, including server storage and network equipment, will see a 5.4 percent increase to $2.03 billion in 2015. Keeping this in mind, five trends i.e., Cloud, Virtualization, Automation, The Internet of Things (IoT), Industry Measurements will vastly rule the data center trends in this current year. First, what does the move to the cloud mean for any data center? The cloud is growing rapidly and is quickly evolving into a standard in every IT organization. In fact, cloud data center traffic is predicted to increase at a rate 4x faster than traditional data center traffic. A hybrid cloud is one that combines a private cloud for mission critical information and the public cloud for non-critical information. Therefore, even with movement to the cloud, there is no escaping the upfront cost of virtual servers, as well as ongoing operational costs, maintenance, and application expenses. The trend of cloud computing is directly tied to the second trend – virtualization. Virtualization can reduce the costs by improving the methods used for power and cooling in the facility as well as simplifying administration and maintenance procedures. Although virtualization is a great first step toward energy efficiency, data centers are still going to need to optimize energy use. DCIM software provides the tools to measure power usage effectiveness (PUE), and ensure that the managers are operating in the safe zone. It can also help to identify ghost servers or power hogs that can be powered down to provide operational savings. The next trend is automation. The more automated processes are, the greater the ability to do more with less – freeing up resources and budgets to spend in other areas. A DCIM solution provides powerful and intelligent tools for workflow automation. With DCIM you can generate change requests, automate device moves, and maintain a complete audit trail of requests and work orders for compliance. ? In regard to the Internet of Things, data centers will be faced with an overwhelming amount of data that will need to be synthesized, analyzed, and stored. As a data center operator, the manager may need to prepare for this by gaining a full understanding of how much capacity he actually has. This is where DCIM comes into play by providing an all-in-one planning, management, and reporting solution for understanding IT capacity across facilities, servers, and applications. Real-time capacity monitoring, trending, forecasting, and “what-if” scenarios that show impact on cooling, power and space can be shown, providing the information needed to align IT and facilities management business objectives. Finally, the size of the data center, from a space density perspective, this year the information will be denser and the user will be able to put a lot more information into a smaller amount of space. But, that doesn’t mean that he will need to manage any less. Continued focus and improvements will always need to be made, and DCIM can provide the management, monitoring and reporting layer to help ensure the strategy is successful.