The Role of DCIM Coupled with ITIL/ITSM
By Ed Higgins
As a rule of thumb, the more integral your Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) solution is to your existing critical management processes , the more strategic and successful your DCIM investment will be. The more flexible and integration-worthy the DCIM solution is, the larger the population of DCIM users (stakeholders) will be.
When many stakeholders with diverse disciplines utilize DCIM to its fullest, by enabling those individual stakeholders to "work and think within their own disciple" yet share the work they do transparently to the other business stakeholders, the greater the consequential financial benefits will be from the DCIM for your enterprise business.
DCIM is a relatively new category of IT management and unfortunately it has many interpretations depending on which vendor you are talking to. By generally accepted researcher definitions, DCIM is defined as the integration of information technology (IT) and facility
management disciplines to centralize monitoring, management and
intelligent capacity planning of a data center’s critical systems.
Achieved through the implementation of specialized software, DCIM enables a common, real-time monitoring and
management framework for bringing together formerly disparate management systems spanning the entirety of the IT and Facility infrastructures.
Analysts’ definitions vary and in general are very broadly defined
which has created an atmosphere where new vendors are arriving every day with
their own interpretation. Power strip manufacturers are claiming a stake in the DCIM market. So are diesel generator manufacturers. These are point-solutions and should be properly reconciled by the Analysts. The DCIM market promised great growth. Couple this with the fact that the big power equipment providers and a few well-funded startups pay tens of millions of dollars per year to these analysts. Now you might see why there is so much confusion and conflict among the DCIM market.
Many potential DCIM customers start their
research and investigation of available DCIM solutions in a very
hands-on tactical mode. DCIM comes in all shapes and sizes, and in fact
includes everything from sensors and power monitoring, to
life cycle management suites. Each potential customer looks at the
pieces that appear to have the most relevance to their management goals
today. They start their DCIM journey looking for solutions that fit into
their existing ways of doing business. New tools applied to obsolete approaches is a waste of your time and money.
Fortunately for astute customers, they are beginning to see the much greater opportunity and their former tactical thinking is quickly transitioning towards strategic value, wider audiences, and having broader impact on the entire picture in alignment with the requirements of the business. We've seen a similar positive transformation in the storage market where tiered storage concepts are considered. The same transformation and cost-to-value appreciation is represented in the hot, cloud market.
Even the role of the CIO has transformed from a "deliver ALL
services at ANY cost" approach to a cost-to-value approach, provide the right level of service, based on VALUE to the enterprise, where cost tolerance, resilience, reliability, longevity, growth and/or reduction are now vital criteria.
DCIM Becomes a Strategic Investment When Connected to ITIL/ITSM
We are beginning to see a fundamental shift in discipline and
accountability. Everyone wants to look forward rather than backward, and
relatively few are defending their previous methods. ITIL-like approaches (anything that enables discipline and
accountability) are much more the operational standards in this new climate.
It is within these transformational shifts that DCIM thrives. DCIM solutions must
complement and integrate with existing management applications and DCIM vendors cannot force their preconceived methodology upon any established enterprise. Some DCIM solutions boast workflow and ticket management processes, which should infuriate the DCIM customer. While most DCIM vendors can bring a lot of best-practices to customers, many have become so enthralled with their own ideals they make claims that they cannot back up.
IT Service Management or ITSM is the process-based practices intended
to align the delivery of information technology services with the
business needs of the enterprise.
DCIM when implemented strategically marries the physical infrastructure required to ITSM.
When DCIM is aligned closely with ITSM, it becomes embedded with change management.
When the role of DCIM is successful, then the gaps between facilities, IT and the business will radically close, the determination of "who pays the power/utility bill" will be self-evident, previously hidden areas for cost reduction become clear, planning and deployment operations become transparent,
DCIM directly supports optimization and transformation, which is already occurring across your IT structure whether you are part of the equation or not.
I hope you enjoyed this article, and I hope it was helpful.
Until next time,
Ed
