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And then it startsputting in landfill to
cover the territorynotbeingmonitored
atall.A typical installationofaDCIM
Monitoringsolutionbeginswith
integrating thevariouscomponents
alreadybeingmonitored, and then
adding thevariousdeviceswhichare
currently “orphaned.” Insomecases, it
means retrofittingequipment, or
plugging it in toanetwork, so that it
canbemonitored.Andoften itmeans
lookingatwhatother information is
going tobeuseful.Veryoften there is
inadequate informationabout the
thermal characteristicsofadatacenter.
In theoldwayofmanagingadata
center, you’dsendsomeonearound to
differentpoints inadatacenter to take
manualmeasurementsof temperature.
ButwithaDCIMMonitoringsolution,
you’dput temperaturesensors (which
canbewired toanetwork, orwired to
intelligentpower strips, orwireless
usingWi-Fi technology, orwireless
usingRFID technology, etc.), in
strategic locationseverywhereyou
want to takeameasurement.ASHRAE
standards recommendputtingsensors
atevery third rack, inhigh,mediumand
low locations. Somedatacenter
managerswantgreaterdensity to
providemoregranular thermal view,
particularly if theyaregoing tobe
“pushing theenvelope” in raising
operating temperatures inorder to
reduce thepowerconsumption ina
datacenter.And then therearevarious
other sensorsyoumaywish to install so
thatyouknow thehumidity,water
leakage, statusofaccessdevices, even
the levelofdiesel fuel in the tanksso
thatyouknowhow longyourbackup
generatorscan run incaseofutility
power failure.
It is fundamental thataDCIM
Monitoringsolutioncanspeakevery
protocol, can talk toeveryvendor’s
equipment, canconnect toanysensor,
can interrogateanyBMS,EPMSor
othermonitoring tool andcan “poll”
anypieceofequipment. If itdoesn’t, it
will fail in itsbasicmissionofbeing the
“singlepaneofglass”—which isa
primaryaspectofDCIMMonitoringand
why it isa foundational layer. So ifa
companysellingyou temperature
sensorsorpower strips tellsyou that
theyhavea “DCIM” toolbut that it
primarilymonitors theirequipment
only—theymaybecalling itaDCIM, but
it’s in fact justonemore independent
“islandofmonitoring.”Byallmeans,
purchase that tool aspartofmanaging
thatvendor’sequipment—but then
integrate itasonemore island that is
beingbridgedbyaproper, vendor-
agnostic, protocol-independent,DCIM
Monitoringsolution.
DataAggregation, Presentation and
Sharing
But simplycollectingdata isnotall a
DCIMMonitoringplatformdoes.You
need tomake thisdataavailable to
varioususers. Theusers includestaff (IT
Operations, Facilities, IT, executive, etc.)
aswell asapplications (CRAC/CRAE
control, powercontrol, ITSystems
Management,VirtualMachine
management, aswell asDCIM-related
applicationssuchasdynamic/adaptive
cooling, powercapping, loadshedding
andothers).
Forhumanusers, aDCIMMonitoring
platformprovidesavarietyof
dashboardsand reports, aswell asa
query tool thatallows “drillingdown”
into thedataatany levelofdetail—from
lookingat the totalpowerconsumption
acrossmultipledatacentersworld-
wide, down toone location, down to
onedatacenter, down toone floor,
down toone room, down toonecage,
down toone row, down toone rackor
onebranchcircuit, down toperhaps
even themotherboardofaserver.You
need tobeable toshowbothcurrent
statusandhistorical trends.Youneed to
beable toanalyze thedata, andengage
incapacityplanning,whether inside the
DCIMMonitoringsystem, or inan
analytics tool, orcapacityplanning tool
(including today’smuch-hyped “big
data” tools).Youmayalsohave
dashboardswhicharedesigned for the
OperationsCenter—showingstatusof
alarms, andcurrentcriticalmetricssuch
asPUE.
Fornon-humanusers (other
applications), aDCIMMonitoring
platformneeds tohaveasimpleand
effectivemechanism for sharing the
collected, normalized, data. Thereare
two fundamental typesofdata that
need tobeshared: real-time, active
data,where time isof theessence, and
historicaldata,whichcanbe
voluminous, butaccessing it isnotas
time-critical.ADCIMMonitoring
solutionmayoffer twodifferentAPIs
(ApplicationProgramming Interfaces)
forconnecting to itsdatabase: one
which isoptimized forquickaccessof
specificdata, andasecondwhich
efficientlyhandles largedataqueries.
DCIMMonitoring screen
ITAssetManagement screen
