Market Overview - Data Center Infrastructure Management Solutions

7/28/2019 Market Overview - Data Center Infrastructure Management Solutions

1/19

Forreter Reearh, I., 60 Aor park drive, cabrige, mA 02140 UsATe: +1 617.613.6000 | Fax: +1 617.613.5000 | www.orreter.o

Market Overview: Data CenterInfrastructure Management Solutionsby Rihar Fihera, marh 29, 2012| Uate: Ari 3, 2012

FOR: Iratruture

& Oeratio

proeioa

Key TaKeaWays

unrlntn prr dr Cntnl prt o ortnl

efcnc

Te undamental pressures driving I I&O groups have not changed or many years.Pressures on raw operational e ciency continue, with increased emphasis on both

labor cost containment and power reduction. oday a solid and unctional DCIM

solution is needed more than ever to manage complexity and drive operational

excellence in the data center.

T dCiM slr Lnc i dmnt B Tr Mjr T o

slr

Te DCIM supplier landscape is complex because DCIM has its roots in multiple

technologies rom a ragmented vendor landscape. Forrester sees three distinct

clusters o vendors: data center acility and inrastructure vendors; I management

vendors; and systems hardware vendors. Tereore, I&O groups must take a close

look at existing solutions to understand how their requirements may evolve over time.

Nw dCiM sltn Wll a Cmlxt T T i&o prnl Rl

Survey data shows that the I&O job will be more challenging in the uture. As

DCIM solutions advance beyond basic unctionality, I&O proessionals will have to

deal with complex and intertwined tasks. By accepting the complexity o the new

solutions, they can deliver more robust, e cient, and cost-eective data centers to

the business.


2/19

2012, Forreter Reearh, I. A right reerve. Uauthorize reroutio i trity rohibite. Ioratio i bae o bet avaiabereoure. Oiio reet juget at the tie a are ubjet to hage. Forreter, Tehograhi, Forreter Wave, RoeView, TehRaar,a Tota Eooi Iat are traeark o Forreter Reearh, I. A other traeark are the roerty o their reetive oaie. Tourhae rerit o thi ouet, eae eai [email protected]. For aitioa ioratio, go to www.orreter.o.

FOR InFRAsTRUcTURE & OpERATIOns pROFEssIOnAls

Why Read This RepoRT

Tis report is part o the data center inrastructure playbook and should be read by I inrastructure and

operations (I&O) proessionals. Data center inrastructure management (DCIM) is a comprehensive

approach to managing the physical aspects o the data center. DCIM is the convergence o previous

generations o purely acilities-oriented power management, physical asset management, network

management, and nancial management and planning solutions or data centers. I used properly, DCIM

solutions can help I&O proessionals address steadily ratcheting pressures to meet business SLAs, lower

costs, and improve resource and energy eciency and long-term acilities planning. Te steady drumbeato escalating requirements will drive DCIM oerings rapidly, with increased integration with other

enterprise management tools. I&O groups will have to become adept at matching their requirements to

the rapidly changing oerings but will need some orm o DCIM solution to remain competitive.

Tabe O cotet

prr dr Cntnl prt o

ortnl efcnc

Mjr Fnctnl Crtr dfn dCiM

sltn

Tr Mjr T o slr dmnt

T dCiM slr Lnc

REcOmmEndATIOns

dtrmn i an Wn T int in a dCiM

sltn

WHAT IT mEAns

Nw dCiM sltn Wll Mk T i&o Jb

Mr Cllnn

slmntl Mtrl

note & Reoure

Forreter iterviewe 14 veor a uer

oaie, iuig Atte syte, cA

Tehoogie, corat, Eero network

power, Hp, IBm, Iovot, Iterxio, IO, yte

sotware, pauit, Rooet, sheierEetri, a Vatage data ceter.

Reate Reearh douet

server A data ceter preitio For 2012

February 6, 2012

Orae Veru Hp: cutoer loe; Orae

A x86 liux Veor Wi

Jauary 3, 2012

Uate Q3 2011: power A cooig Heat

U The data ceterseteber 21, 2011

Mrkt orw: dt Cntr inrtrctrMnmnt sltnmaturig soutio Aow Itegrate phyia maageet O Thedata ceter

by Rihar Fiherawith doug Wahbur a miroaw liera

2

4

9

14

15

15

mARcH 29, 2012 | UpdATEd: ApRIl 3, 2012
http://www.forrester.com/go?objectid=RES61442http://www.forrester.com/go?objectid=RES61134http://www.forrester.com/go?objectid=RES61134http://www.forrester.com/go?objectid=RES60817http://www.forrester.com/go?objectid=RES60817http://www.forrester.com/go?objectid=BIO2625http://www.forrester.com/go?objectid=BIO1950http://www.forrester.com/go?objectid=BIO1950http://www.forrester.com/go?objectid=BIO2625http://www.forrester.com/go?objectid=RES60817http://www.forrester.com/go?objectid=RES60817http://www.forrester.com/go?objectid=RES61134http://www.forrester.com/go?objectid=RES61134http://www.forrester.com/go?objectid=RES61442http://www.forrester.com/


3/19


market Overview: data ceter Iratruture maageet soutio 2

2012, Forreter Reearh, I. Reroutio prohibite marh 29, 2012 | UpdATEd: ApRIl 3, 2012

pRessuRes dRive CoNTiNuaL puRsuiT oF opeRaTioNaL eFFiCieNCy

Te undamental pressures driving I I&O groups have not changed or many years (see Figure

1). Pressures on raw operational eciency continue, with increased emphasis on both labor cost

containment and power reduction. Additionally, the continuing metamorphosis o I into business

technology (B) continues as more enterprises realize that not only does their business rely on

technology, but in many cases, technology completely dominates their ability to deliver products

and services.1

With this transormation comes even more emphasis on the entire technology management chain,

including areas that have been relatively invisible in the past, notably the integrated management

o the physical acilities, power, and cooling elements o the data center throughout their entire lie

cycle using tools that Forrester characterizes as data center inrastructure management (DCIM)

solutions. Based on Forrester survey data and interviews with both vendors and buyers, I&O

proessionals are investing in DCIM to:

Improve availability. Eciency cannot come at the expense o resiliency. Te ultimatemeasure o success or an I&O group is the availability o services that meet increasingly

stringent service-level agreements (SLAs). As one vendor said, quoting a customer, I our

data center becomes more ecient, then we get a pat on the back. I the data center goes down,

we get red. As it turns out, Forrester nds that power ailure is the most common cause

o signicant disaster declarations or major business disruptions not extreme scenarios

like terrorism or severe weather conditions.2 DCIM solutions help prevent critical problems

that can threaten availability by improving the visibility o potential bottlenecks in the

inrastructure, particularly critical power and cooling, and by providing the means to rapidly

alert operational sta to problems, as well as mediating responses.

Manage capacity constraints. Virtualization and cloud computing bring a new dimension toI operations: a choice in how services will be delivered to the business. However, new data

centers are expensive and disruptive, and being orced to move prematurely to the cloud or an

outsourced service provider can be disruptive. Capacity planning must change to reect this

evolution: It now becomes a key part in delivery platorm selection. Te ability to understand

the impact o uture workloads and inrastructure changes on potential capacity requirements

is extremely valuable or many organizations. DCIM can help by providing the ability to model

proposed changes and allow I&O groups to look at changes in cost and resources required. Te

ability to deer a data center acquisition cycle can pay or the DCIM investment.

Lower operating costs. Optimizing energy consumption is important both or nancialreasons and to assuage emerging regulatory pressures (more so in Europe than North

America, currently). While the overall design o the data center has a signicant impact on

overall energy eciency, a DCIM solution will allow any data center to gain insight into,

and potentially the ability to improve, its energy consumption. DCIM can help by analyzing


4/19




and recommending optimum equipment placement or maximum eciency. One customer

reported a savings o approximately 30% in cooling costs just by implementing control o

variable-speed ans on the computer room air conditioner (CRAC) units.

Improve capital resource eciency (capex management).Nonvirtualized servers and moststorage are poorly utilized in the average data center, and I&O groups are under continual

pressure to maximize resource utilization. For example, 30% o servers in data centers are

considered dead that is, servers consuming energy but with utilization rates at 3% or below.3

Virtualization has become a widely accepted improvement to resource utilization, but planning

and understanding the impact o large virtualization initiatives has been complex, time

consuming, and ofen inexact. DCIM can help by providing accurate models or virtualization

deployments, including both physical resources and detailed cost models.

Provide detailed nancial modeling. Legacy data center management has ocused on themajor operational problems assets, power, cooling, and control. In addition to improving

these aspects o I operations, there are increasing pressures to understand the ne-grained

cost structure o the data center. Beyond costs, I&O executives are increasingly pressured to

connect costs in the data center to business value delivered, since much o overall spend is

allocated to MOOSE the cost to maintain ongoing operations, systems, and equipment

that typically consume about 70% o budgets.4 DCIM can help by providing very accurate cost

models or actual and proposed data center investments.

Manage their carbon ootprint. A consideration that varies by geography, industry, andorganizational priority, and one that is not a top-tier driver yet, carbon ootprint management

looms as a potential regulatory issue as more countries begin to scrutinize carbon emissioncaps, osets, and trading. With enterprise carbon and energy management (ECEM) solutions

that measure and manage energy across the entire enterprise, DCIM can provide data or

carbon ootprint monitoring in the data center.5 Tis is particularly important or services-

based organizations, such as nancial services, where the data center is a signicant portion o

overall enterprise energy consumption.


5/19




Figure 1 Te Q3 2011 Hardware Survey Conrms Te Importance O Inrastructure

Source: Forrester Research, Inc.70581

Base: 650 North American and European enterprise IT hardware decision-makers

Source: Forrsights Hardware Survey, Q3 2011

Which of the following initiatives are likely to be your firms/organizationstop hardware/IT infrastructure priorities over the next 12 months?

(Percentage of respondents who answered critical priority and high priority)

Implement a bring-your-own-PC program foremployees

Embrace employee self-provisioning of hardwareand software

Develop a comprehensive plan to add touchscreentablet options for employees and/or customers

Use cloud infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) at aservice provider

Build an internal private cloud operated by IT(not a service provider)

Develop a comprehensive cloud strategy for ITinfrastructure

Implement or expand use of desktop virtualization,thin client, and application streaming technologies

Automate the management of virtualized servers togain flexibility and resiliency

Significantly upgrade your security environment

Purchase or upgrade disaster recovery and businesscontinuity capabilities

Maintain or implement broad use of server virtualizationas the standard server deployment model

Consolidate IT infrastructure via server consolidation,data center consolidation, or server virtualization

Critical priority High priority

2%

5%

7%

10%

13%

12%

15%

16%

19%

29%

29%

7%

14%

26%

24%

26%

30%

42%

48%

41%

43%

50%

52%

2%

MaJoR FuNCTioNaL CRiTeRia deFiNe dCiM soLuTioNs

Because DCIM is an emerging solution space, the unctionality o DCIM solutions is rapidly

changing as oerings mature and user requirements drive vendors to ne-tune their oerings.

While we have roughly grouped the solution capabilities into two main clusters, core unctions

and emerging capabilities, potential DCIM users must assume the responsibility or mapping their

requirements to these unctional clusters, since individual requirements will dier and the tools are

changing rapidly.


6/19




et Cr Fnctn dfn Bc dCiM Fnctnlt T . . .

DCIM solutions consist o tools that ocus on the management o the physical data center

inrastructure power, cooling, physical layout, and inventory. More advanced DCIM

incarnations attempt to bridge the gap between traditional acilities management and operational

I management by including workload management, generally in the orm o VM-aware power

analysis and placement advice. Although products and vendor alliances are rapidly evolving,

Forrester denes the ollowing rough taxonomy o unctions or DCIM sofware that I&O

proessionals should seek out:

Inventory and discovery. Cited as one o the top-level drivers or DCIM implementation,an asset management unction is something that all DCIM solutions have, but initial

implementation is ofen messy and labor-intensive since the majority o organizations still

have most o their conguration data embodied in spreadsheets. Most vendors claim some

level o automated inventory capture and import rom existing conguration managementdatabases (CMDBs), and in some cases, spreadsheets. But buyers should expect the initial

loading o the asset database or their DCIM installation to be relatively labor-intensive, such

as sta walking the rows o the data center to manually collect data or the initial installation.

Once installed, realize that asset management is not a passive unction. As the assets are

discovered, the DCIM solution must be able to construct the necessary relationships and

dependencies between them, such as the relationship between circuits and power distribution

units (PDUs), and the relationship between PDUs and racks and connected equipment. Tese

relationships are vital or power and cooling management and planning. Integration with

mobile or handheld devices is a highly desirable eature or the asset and management unctions

o a DCIM solution.

Maintenance and change control. Once the data is correctly collected, the ongoingmaintenance and change control is vital. DCIM vendors vary in their ability to perorm change

control, but at a minimum they need to be able to: 1) update their own congurations based

on operator actions; 2) create a list o change actions as a result o any what-i scenarios they

generate; and 3) allow the generation o work orders in existing ticketing systems. With that in

mind, an obvious requirement or successul asset management and change management is the

ability to communicate with other enterprise asset management systems.

Data collection. Once the DCIM sofware is installed, it needs to collect data rom theenvironment. Te solution collects real-time physical inrastructure data, including physical

rack and equipment location, circuit capacities, CRAC and cooling data, and thermal data

rom the equipment o multiple, and, in many cases, competing vendors, along with data

rom other sources including other CMDBs. Te granularity o the data collection, the type

o database in which its stored, and the extent to which it can be used or other analyses are

characteristics that dierentiate the vendors. One major juncture in product design is whether


7/19




the data is collected continuously in real time as it is generated by the monitored devices or

whether it is polled by the sofware. Prospective users need to understand the dierences in

these approaches and the implications or the kind o management capabilities enabled by each

method (see Figure 2).

Consolidated monitoring and display dashboard. One o the earliest unctions o DCIMsofware was as a unied dashboard display or report that showed a single-source view o

power, physical, and thermal inormation. Tis initial bridging o the worlds o acilities and I

operations was one o the initial selling propositions o the rst generation DCIM applications

and continues to be a ocus o many DCIM products. For example, I&O proessionals are

interested in the rack locations and power consumption o individual I components, while

acilities management is accustomed to a line diagram that displays a simplied rendition o

the power chain, rom utility eed through intermediate UPS and distribution to the nal rack-

level PDUs. All comprehensive DCIM solutions can be expected to provide these and other

views on demand.6

Alerts. In addition to the display o status and dashboards, the generation and display oalerts is a critical unction and addresses a critical set o DCIM unctions, the processing

and interpretation o the data. Te data volumes involved in DCIM solutions are high, and

even more importantly, the interpretation o the results o this data collection so that it can

be presented in an easily consumable ormat is one o the most critical aspects o the DCIM

solution. Data must be aggregated, ltered, and then correlated across multiple sources, and

over time present actionable knowledge to the operators. Te intelligence behind the ltering

and correlation and the ability to easily generate complex custom rule sets is one o the major

competitive areas among DCIM vendors. Needless to say, all claim to do this very well, andit is incumbent upon I&O groups to dene the conditions or which they anticipate needing

alerts and displays.7

Control. Te ability or the DCIM console to reach out directly and control the inrastructureelements is not required but is desirable.8 All products provide some level o control, and the

granularity o the control unctions and the breadth o elements controlled are dierentiators.

One o the strengths o some o the major inrastructure providers such as Emerson Network

Power and Schneider Electric is that they supply many o the critical data center inrastructure

elements, and their libraries are correspondingly rich. Teir understanding o their own

devices should also be optimal.

With that said, Forrester has observed a denite gap between the ability o emerging DCIM

solutions to provide active closed-loop control o inrastructure, in some cases even down to the

level o scheduling VMs, and the willingness o consumers o DCIM solutions to enable these

capabilities. In many ways this mirrors the early days o VMs, when advanced tools such as

VMwares vSphere Distributed Resource Scheduler (DRS) were available but users were initially


8/19




leery o allowing them to run without human intervention. DCIM or most organizations is a

long march, starting with DCIM as an organizing principle to get a single view o assets then

progressing through use o aggregate displays and monitoring through more elaborate use o

trend analysis and planning tools, with ull-blown automation a vision as opposed to reality ormost customers today.

rend analysis. Te next major step in unctionality is the ability to display trends or powerand cooling as well as predict and diagnose conditions that have exceeded preset limits.

Historical trend data is largely a unction o what data is collected and the exibility o the

interace. Most products allow some exibility in collecting and displaying data. Te details

o any predictive displays can be complex, since the robustness o the underlying orecasting

algorithms can be hard to discern. Forecasts based on simple statistical models, with or

without periodicity, are much less useul than models that take input rom a workload

planning unction that understands uture inrastructure changes.

Te ability to model uture solutions or implementation.Tis is still a work in progress ormost vendors, but the ability to model potential solutions to power and workload problems

is one o the areas where the systems vendors and inrastructure equipment suppliers are

intersecting. o eectively propose an optimal set o allocations, the sofware needs to

understand the behavior o the system at a granular level, the potential workloads, and the

details o the power and cooling environment. Tis capability has traditionally been supplied

by systems vendors and high-end I systems management independent sofware vendors

(ISVs) such as HP, CA echnologies, and BMC Sofware, and it is now appearing in many

o the DCIM oerings as well. Te degree to which the potential solution simulations are

aware o the underlying workloads and the accuracy and granularity o the simulations are alldierentiators.


9/19




Figure 2 Understanding Te Dierences Between Polled Data Versus Real-ime Data

Source: Forrester Research, Inc.70581

Data collection method Advantage Disadvantage

Polled data collection at intervals of severalminutes to several times per hour will allowfor the development of accurate trendingdata, an understanding of patterns of datacenter heating and cooling, and theadjustment of CRAC and chillers for mostenvironments.

One advantage of pollingschemes is that they can beimplemented in purely softwaresolutions that talk to installedhardware with no additionalequipment required.

It will not allow for rapidresponse to transient events.

Real-time data collection is event-drivenand requires additional hardware elementsin the form of dedicated data collectionmodules, usually implemented as smallservers with extensive I/O interfaces.

Allows for the ability to performcontinuous monitoring and theability to perform all of thetrending functions of a pollingsystem plus the ability torespond to rapid transients.

In addition to being more costly,real-time collection oftenamasses too much data, andusers must specify filtering andaggregation policies or usevendor-supplied defaults.

. . . Bt K an e on emrn Fnctn Tt Wll dr drnttn Tmrrw

In addition to the core unctions detailed above, additional capabilities are being added by vendors

to satisy advanced user requirements and establish competitive dierentiation. Among the

advanced unctions Forrester sees emerging are:

Power planning and capacity based on actual, not rated, usage. In most cases, the powerconsumption and planning inormation that basic DCIM oerings provide is nominal

inormation, based either on the nameplate rating o the component rom a library or rom

the users conguration les. A ar more useul method o reporting and planning power is to

use actual consumption. Actual power consumption can be read at a number o levels o the

inrastructure, rom PDUs down to actual individual systems. Ideally the DCIM solution can

reach into the system and get granular data on actual power usage and workloads to enable

more accurate global power management. Te ease o collecting this low-level data and the

exibility in aggregating, reporting, and acting on it will be dierentiators.

Workload-aware modeling. Te ability to see actual workloads running on the individualservers in a data center and to make intelligent modeling decisions based on assumptions

about sofware workloads as opposed to physical systems is a desired eature on a DCIM

solution. Its implementation varies widely across vendors, and currently there are only a ewvendors that have a comprehensive ability to make inerences about the loads imposed by VMs

o specied sizes. Tis will be an opportunity or strong dierentiation among vendors since

many o the vendors, notably HP, CA, and IBM, have extensive perormance modeling tools

or allocating VMs across servers that are not yet integrated into a complete DCIM oering.


10/19




Network capacity modeling. Only a ew vendors, notably Panduit and Emerson, oer anykind o network capacity planning capabilities beyond simple inventories o ports. A deeper

integration with data rom the switches in the inrastructure would extend the capabilities o

DCIM solutions in conjunction with workload-aware modeling. Among the unctions that are

highly useul in the network realm are the ability to discover network devices and connections

and collect inormation on network trac. Te desirability o embedding selected network

management within the DCIM ramework seems to be controversial, both among users and

vendors. One side argues that control o network devices beyond simple power management

unctions is a natural extension o DCIM, while the other side o the argument is that network

management unctions are already implemented in an existing ramework, and having

multiple touchpoints or network management is a potential operational and security exposure.

Integration o DCIM with conventional I management tools.Te integration o DCIM

with conventional system, application, and network management tools is a work in progress,and the competitive battle among DCIM vendors will likely be dened by the degree to which

this integration can be made seamless and useul or I&O proessionals. Currently CA stands

out as having integrated a multiple o its management sofware modules along with selected

acquisitions into a very comprehensive DCIM sofware oering.

ThRee MaJoR Types oF suppLieRs doMiNaTe The dCiM suppLieR

LaNdsCape

Te supplier landscape or DCIM solutions is dierent rom that o many previous technology

cycles. Unlike many other technology solutions, DCIM is not a niche problem and has its roots

in many interlocking technologies, ranging rom chillers and CRACs through systems to theunderlying semiconductor manuacturers. As a result, Forrester identies three distinct clusters

o vendors: data center acility and inrastructure vendors; I management vendors; and systems

hardware vendors. As DCIM vendors and their oerings mature, this taxonomy is subject to airly

radical change over time, and in some cases vendors may occupy more than one niche.

Forrester has listed the primary DCIM vendors with a short description o the primary product

oerings. In addition to vendors oering standalone DCIM suites, we have also included several

hosting providers whose hosting oerings incorporate either proprietary o third-party DCIM

solutions as examples o potential end-state target data center environments.

dt Cntr Fclt an inrtrctr vnr Wt dCiM orn

Te traditional power and cooling system vendors, notably Emerson and Schneider/APC, have been

early players in DCIM. Tese generally have tight integration with the inrastructure side o the data

center and oer very high-capacity data collection capabilities. Tis group also includes successul

but relatively low-prole specialty suppliers such as Panduit. Forrester believes that Emerson


11/19




Network Power and Schneider Electric are currently the dominant suppliers in the DCIM market as

it exists today. Key inrastructure vendors that I&O proessionals should consider include:

Emerson Network Power. Emersons rellis platorm is a new real-time inrastructureoptimization platorm that enables the unied management o the data centers I and

acilities inrastructure. Te core component is the Avocent Universal Management

Gateway, a multipurpose appliance that connects to acility and I equipment or both

data collection and control unctions. Te Gateway is the core component o the Emerson

solution stack. oday, the closed loop control is supported through DSView Management

Sofware, but in the uture will be available in the rellis platorm. Te Gateway combines

the unctions o KVM over IP, serial console over IP, rack PDU, SP, and environmental

management in a single chassis. When used in combination with DSView Sofware, the

solution provides remote access and control to any device that can be controlled by any o

the consolidated unctions. Te rellis platorm also provides network management and

control capabilities as a result o its Avocent IP content, and can manage capacity, track

inventory, plan changes, visualize congurations, analyze and calculate energy usage, and

optimize cooling/power equipment and enablement or virtualization.

IO. Originally a dedicated hosting and colocation provider, IO is branching out intomanuacturing its own custom modular data center products that included IO.OS, its own

DCIM solution. IO is now oering IO.OS as a standalone oering, either as a conventional

sofware installed on customer premises or as a cloud-based service. IO.OS is ocused on

physical inrastructure management, reporting, and control, and is one o the products that

has opted or an abstracted schematic interace as opposed to a visually realistic representation

o the physical data center equipment. Our views o IO.OS in a demonstration were enoughto convince us that it has hit on an almost Apple-like ease o use in its interace, which allows

extremely uid navigation and control o a distributed inrastructure.

Panduit. Physical Inrastructure Manager (PIM) sofware platorm is a physical inrastructuremanagement system or tracking the allocation and utilization o I assets. PIM documents

physical assets, tracks moves, adds, and changes (MACs), and can integrate with external

management systems. Panduit emphasizes PIMs centralized collection and representation o

asset attributes, such as connectivity, space, port availability, and power plus environmentals,

the use o this data to optimize the data centers space, power, and cooling resources. PIM does

not appear to have strong predictive and scenario modeling capabilities.

Schneider Electric. Schneiders agship product, StruxureWare or Data Centers, is anintegrated DCIM oering with strong real-time data collections capabilities as well as

simulation and control capabilities. In many ways mirroring much o the unctionality o rival

Emerson, StruxureWare had its origins in data collection, power and cooling analysis, and

management and has added complex scenario analysis planning, VM-aware analysis, and


12/19




detailed nancial modeling. Schneiders acquisition o Veridity is expected to extend Struxures

reach urther up the system sofware and VM-layer stack.

iT Mnmnt vnr Wt dCiM sltn

Established sofware I vendors such as CA, along with entrants such as nlyte Sofware, specialized

vendors like Romonet, and others have varying degrees o sofware-only oerings that oer DCIM

unctionality. Likewise, Microsof has added basic power management capabilities to Windows

management and will probably improve them over time. Key management solution vendors that

I&O proessionals should consider include:

CA echnologies. CAs ecoSofware oers a very rich set o DCIM products integrated intoa common console. CA appears to have integrated IP and product modules rom selected

portions o its broad portolio o management products, and as a result oers an impressive

menu o capabilities in a pure sofware-based product. Te product extends rom core data

center inrastructure to network and desktop integration and has rich reporting, planning, and

probably the most comprehensive set o ltering and correlation capabilities o the group, most

likely due to CAs extensive network management portolio. CA ecoSofware also oers excellent

integration with both CA and third-party enterprise system and networking products.

Cormant. CableSolve emphasizes asset management and documentation, with a strengthin understanding cabling and network assets at a logical as well as physical layer. CableSolve

provides complete visibility into the physical layer, including all assets and connectivity along

with live, logical layer data rom SNMP, WMI, and XML devices. CableSolve also has strong

mobile device integration capabilities.

nlyte Sofware. In business since 2003, nlyte oers the basic DCIM unctions and has a verystrong patented scenario planning capability with the ability to reserve capacity and generate

work orders against the planned scenario, as well as nancial analysis and thermal modeling

capability. Nlyte also has an entry oering or smaller data centers and oers its product on a

perpetual or subscription basis.

Rackwise. Rackwise Data Center Manager (DCM) is a comprehensive DCIM suite consistingo data center essentials, data center intelligence, and data center optimization. Te suite o

sofware appears to deliver all o our basic criteria and many o the emerging capabilities

reviewed above.

Romonet Sofware. While not a ull DCIM product per se, Romonet oers a very exible andpowerul nancial modeling tool tailored or data center operational calculations spanning

the entire supply chain. Romonet uses a database o vendor-specic inormation combined

with a exible modeling capability to enable calculations such as build versus buy, eects o


13/19




inrastructure changes, virtualization/consolidation decisions, and modeling in-house versus

cloud deployments. Romonet Sofware Suite is available as a standalone product and is also

licensed by other DCIM providers as an embedded module in their products. Romonet is

the only product Forrester is aware o that can model the costs o complex sofware serviceextending across the data center inrastructure, including models o its perormance and

power consumption.

Sentilla. Sentillas eponymous product is ocused on detailed data collection and analysis, withinteraces to multiple CMDBs and other enterprise management sofware. Sentillas strengths

appear to be in the analysis and planning, both o the physical inrastructure, applications,

and services, as well as the nancial aspects. Sentilla emphasizes both real-time and historical/

trend data collection. Sentilla does not, except via its ability to be invoked by other workow

and systems management products, directly control I inrastructure.

stm hrwr vnr Wt dCiM orn

All o the major systems vendors, including HP, IBM, and Dell, have at least point product oerings

in the DCIM arena. Tese oerings rom the major systems vendors are o varying degrees o

completeness and generally lag those o the specialized DCIM vendors. However, the major

vendors have a wide range o IP, ranging rom instrumented PDUs and racks to comprehensive

server management and workload-aware planning tools coupled with an extremely granular power

management capability at the enclosure level as well as complete suites o sofware management

tools that will give them powerul capabilities as they esh out their strategic visions. Intel has a

major initiative behind its power management solution as an embedded element in other solutions.

Key systems management vendors that I&O proessionals should consider include:

Dell. Despite having a number o point products or energy and system management, manygreatly enhanced in its most recent 12th generation PowerEdge Server product release, as well

as having a robust data center practice centered on high-density data centers, Dell does not

have a standalone customer DCIM oering.

HP. While HP does not yet have an integrated DCIM solution, its direction is clear. With itsmost recent Gen8 technology announcement, HP revealed a line o intelligent inrastructure

technology including location-aware racks and servers, intelligent PDUs that can report and

control power, and rack-level power capping. In addition, HP has a data center management

and optimization solution portolio, including a suite o workload planning tools in HP Insight

Management. Trough its Critical Facilities Services division, HP has consulting, design,

and implementation capabilities or DCIM solutions, incorporating in-house solutions or

in partnership with other vendors in the DCIM inrastructure space. While it currently has

productive partnerships with multiple other vendors in the DCIM and inrastructure space,

Forrester believes that HP is also working on a complete DCIM solution stack o its own.


14/19




IBM. Considering itscomprehensive data center business, which includes a ull range oservices, such as data center design, management, and construction, as well as hosting and

colocation, it is not surprising that IBM has a ully unctional DCIM suite. Maximo Data

Center Inrastructure Management claims to provide the ull suite o basic requirements

and many o the advanced unctions listed above. Note that it requires integration with IBM

ivoli Asset Management or I in order to provide ull unctionality. Like HP, IBMs services

organization provides a wide range o integration services or DCIM solutions along with a

portolio o data center operational services.

Intel. While not strictly speaking a complete DCIM solution, Intel deserves mention as akey enabler or server-level power management with its Node Manager and its Data Center

Manager sofware, both o which are licensed in multiple ashions to other vendors. Node

Manager is, as the name suggests, a chassis-level power management solution, and Data Center

Manager aggregates Node Manager and other power inormation to provide a comprehensivepower and thermal management solution.

T Rc ortnt Fr dCiM Wll attrct Mr vnr . . .

Te DCIM opportunity has come into view very rapidly, with cost, resource eciency, energy, and

carbon ootprint concerns interlocking with the underlying physics o large data centers increasingly

coming up against the limits o power and cooling capacity. DCIM represents a major new opportunity

or vendors, both or its revenue and or a way to establish control over parts o the inrastructure

chain that were previously disjointed and served by competitors or adjacent market suppliers.

In addition to the current suppliers, systems vendors, many o whom currently license componentsrom established DCIM suppliers and/or oer partial DCIM solutions, are rushing to establish a

presence. Forrester has seen positioning presentations rom major industry players that detail a

long-term vision o an integrated utility to workload-aware DCIM management stack. Intriguingly,

except or the logos, the presentations are almost identical. While amusing on the surace, this

consistency is an important indicator that the problem is well understood and that the oerings are

probably well-grounded in customer input as well as long-term experience in the data center.

In addition to the major systems vendors, we expect more o the hosting providers, both major and

niche, to increasingly look at unbundling their tools as both a protable oering and a way to attract

customers with the value proposition o a consistent management interace as they expand capacity

into a hosting environment rom their own data center, a value proposition that could be attractive

to enterprises provisioning hybrid cloud environments. We have already seen this rom IO, and


15/19




many o its competitors have also developed their own DCIM management stacks that they may

choose to bring to market.

. . . Bt T Wll ultmtl Mk T i&o prnl Jb en Mr Cmlx

Competition has been a wonderul thing in the I world, driving the industry to new heights o

excellence and oering consumers o technology continually better choices. But, like many blessings,

this choice comes with a cost in this case, the requirement that I&O groups devote considerable

time to tracking potential suppliers and understanding both their own requirements and the state o

the emerging oerings. I&O proessionals must, at a minimum, develop a set o criteria and models

that incorporates:

Future workload orecasts. Without a picture o uture workload requirements, I&O groupsare eectively ying blind when it comes to orecasting requirements. Unortunately, all

but the most sophisticated organizations do a poor job o workload orecasting, both on

a technical level and on a business level. I&O groups can solve the technical problems by

themselves but must work to build bridges to the business stakeholders so that they can get

better visibility into uture business requirements that will add workload to their data centers.

echnology strategy and strategic vendor road maps. Likewise, without a strategictechnology road map, I&O groups are at a disadvantage, although less so than i they do

not have any coherent picture o workload orecasts. Since most DCIM solutions, especially

those not rom a major systems vendor, can be assumed to be vendor agnostic, they will

accommodate changes in vendor alliances. Te advantage to having a strategic technology

plan is that advanced knowledge o vendor plans and capabilities will make overall data centerplans more accurate.

Financial constraints and resources. Cant aord it? Better to nd out sooner rather thanlater what nancial constraints are imposed by senior management. At the same time, proper

nancial modeling o proposed DCIM investments can be a strong weapon in the quest or

resources the case or a DCIM investment can be made with airly simple ROI calculations,

particularly i you have signicant decits in your preexisting asset management and/or energy

management programs.9

R e c o m m e n d a t i o n s

deTeRMiNe iF aNd WheN To iNvesT iN a dCiM soLuTioN

DCIM solutions are complex and thereore dicult to implement and will represent a signicant

investment in time, money, and management ocus, so not all I&O groups will want or need one. Te

ollowing are some basic guidelines that can provide you with context when deciding whether to invest

in DCIM technology:


16/19




You have more than 50 KW o data center capacity or 20 racks o equipment.

You are planning a new data center investment o any sort.

You are approaching the limits o an existing acility and you want to understand how to addcapacity.

You are under pressure to increase capital utilization and/or cut energy costs.

W H a t i t m e a n s

NeW dCiM soLuTioNs WiLL MaKe The i&o JoB MoRe ChaLLeNgiNg

Comprehensive DCIM solutions have really only emerged as robust commercial oerings during the

past 12 months, but they have now reached a threshold where they can demonstrate both usability and

strong nancial justication in a macro environment that will increasingly reward operators who are

energy ecient. Forrester expects an increased velocity o innovation and industry investment over the

next 12 months as established vendors try and convert large shares o a near-nascent market into major

revenue, and emerging challengers try to carve out a position in a product segment that will be both

rapidly growing and central to data center operations, aording considerable inuence to its providers.

Another nding that stands out is the increasing complexity o the I&O role in the uture. As DCIM

solutions are added to the milieu, the I&O proessionals job will become more complex. By accepting the

complexity o the new solutions, I&O proessionals will be able to deliver more robust, ecient, and cost-

eective data centers to the business.

suppLeMeNTaL MaTeRiaL

Mtl

Forresters Forrsights Hardware Survey, Q3 2011 was elded to 2,343 I executives and technology

decision-makers located in Canada, France, Germany, the UK, and the United States rom

companies with two or more employees. Tis survey is part o Forresters Forrsights or Business

echnology and was elded during July and August 2011. Te LinkedIn Research Network

elded this survey online on behal o Forrester. Survey respondent incentives include a choice ogif certicates or charitable donations. We have provided exact sample sizes in this report on a

question-by-question basis.

Forresters Forrsights or Business echnology elds 10 business-to-business technology studies

in 12 countries each calendar year. For quality control, we careully screen respondents according

to job title and unction. Forresters Forrsights or Business echnology ensures that the nal


17/19




survey population contains only those with signicant involvement in the planning, unding, and

purchasing o I products and services. Additionally, we set quotas or company size (number o

employees) and industry as a means o controlling the data distribution and establishing alignment

with I spend calculated by Forrester analysts.

We have illustrated only a portion o survey results in this document. o inquire about receiving ull

data results or an additional ee, please contact

[email protected] or your Forrester

account manager.

Cmn intrw Fr T

dcmnt

Attend Systems

CA echnologies

Cormant

Emerson Network Power

HP

IBM

Innovolt

Interxion

IO

nlyte Sofware

Panduit

Romonet

Schneider Electric

Vantage Data Centers

eNdNoTes

1 Forrester has been talking about the journey rom I to B (business technology) or a number o years

now the idea that a relentless shif is happening in which the business is sourcing and managing more

and more technology outside o Is control. Te shif to B redenes operations, support, and the delivery

o technology services but by no means suggests the death o corporate I. In act, Forrester predicts that I

will be more important than ever beore in the empowered era as CIOs build agile and nimble technology

organizations that can respond to these changing business needs. Forrester denes empowered B as a

technology approach where enabling technology innovation is embedded in the business while I provides

just enough centralized coordination and oversight or enterprisewide goals. See the July 18, 2011,

Empowered Business echnology Deined report.

2 Forty percent o respondents indicated that a power ailure was the cause o their most signicant disaster

declaration or major business disruption. See the May 18, 2011, State O Enterprise Disaster Recovery

Preparedness, Q2 2011 report.

3 o exploit your server eciency and energy savings potential rom virtualization, Forrester recommends
http://www.forrester.com/go?objectid=RES59200http://www.forrester.com/go?objectid=RES58926http://www.forrester.com/go?objectid=RES58926http://www.forrester.com/go?objectid=RES58926http://www.forrester.com/go?objectid=RES58926http://www.forrester.com/go?objectid=RES59200


18/19




three process improvements: 1) Increase your overall virtualization ootprint; 2) increase your virtual

machine (VM)-to-physical host and server utilization ratios; and 3) procure servers and architectures

that are more energy-ecient. See the August 26, 2010, Maximize Your Energy Savings From Server

Virtualization With hree Process Improvements report.

4 Tere has always been a need or I nancial management, and until recently I&O organizations have

been able to survive without mature I nancial management capabilities. Te changing business and

I landscapes, however, bring an end to such a slapdash approach to managing I&Os nances and

investment and ushers in the need to extend I nancial management to encapsulate the concept o value.

See the October 5, 2011, Five Steps o Improve he I Financial Management Maturity O Your I&O

Organization report.

5 Enterprise carbon and energy management (ECEM) systems represent a new market o dedicated solutions

that allow companies to manage their sustainability strategy and are ripe to be tackled by sofware vendors

and service providers. Forrester anticipates the ECEM market will grow at a compound annual growth rate

(CAGR) o 83%, reaching $903 million by 2013. See the December 21, 2010, he Evolution O Enterprise

Carbon And Energy Management Sotware report.

6 One o the major divisions in the world o DCIM user interace (UI) design is the debate between realistic

and schematic rendering. Some very capable packages, such as the DCIM oering rom IO, have very

abstract symbolic displays. Our impression in watching demonstrations o these is that they are very

suitable or expert users and allow very rapid navigation and considerable exibility in displaying and

ormatting inormation. On the other side o the debate are those who provide realistic pictorial depictions

o the data center as a primary interace or display and control along with some level o dashboard displays.

Teir proponents believe that these are more productive in that they show realistic renderings o equipment,

its placement, and status. Forrester believes that while interaces can be a great selling point or sofware, all

o the interaces we have seen are unctional, and users should drive their decisions rom the underlying

unctionality rather than the display.

7 All products appear to do an acceptable job o displaying and alerting thresholds or individual or

aggregated data items. Te dierence is how exible they are in dening, or example, a complex set o

rule or patterns that relate power consumption, network trac, and application-based sofware data to

determine that there is a spike in load and that an extra allocation o power is necessary, and that as a result,

a set o CRAC an speeds must be changed. Based on an initial review it appears that CA echnologies has

the most exible and extensible set o rules capabilities as a result o incorporating IP and components rom

its other management products.

8 Currently the majority o I&O groups are not ready to accept automated changes to the environment other

than existing closed loop control systems such as thermostats, but Forrester believes that over time the

combination o amiliarity and process maturity will result in an increased willingness to employ additional

automation o the data center environment, and the DCIM platorm should be ready to make this leap.

9 In some cases the exercise o justiying a DCIM investment may highlight critical process and/or

organizational aws that will need to be addressed along with the technology. For example, in many

organizations the electric bill does not go to the I&O group, but rather to acilities, so I&O has either

secondhand data and/or very indirect incentives to really economize on power.
http://www.forrester.com/go?objectid=RES57363http://www.forrester.com/go?objectid=RES57363http://www.forrester.com/go?objectid=RES60928http://www.forrester.com/go?objectid=RES60928http://www.forrester.com/go?objectid=RES56555http://www.forrester.com/go?objectid=RES56555http://www.forrester.com/go?objectid=RES56555http://www.forrester.com/go?objectid=RES56555http://www.forrester.com/go?objectid=RES60928http://www.forrester.com/go?objectid=RES60928http://www.forrester.com/go?objectid=RES57363http://www.forrester.com/go?objectid=RES57363


19/19

Forreter Reearh, I. (naaq: FORR) i a ieeet reearh oay that rovie ragati a orwar-thikig avie to

goba eaer i buie a tehoogy. Forreter work with roeioa i 19 key roe at ajor oaie roviig rorietary

h t i i ht ti t t ti F th 28 F t h b ki

Forrester Focuses On

Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

You are reoibe or ietiyig a jutiyig whih tehoogie

a roe hage wi he you traor a iutriaize your

oay iratruture a reate a ore routive, reiiet, a

eetive IT orgaizatio. Forreter ubjet-atter exertie aee uertaig o your roe wi he you reate orwar-thikig

trategie; weigh oortuity agait rik; jutiy eiio; a otiize

your iiviua, tea, a ororate erorae.

ian oliveR, client persona representing Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

About Forrester

A goba reearh a aviory fr, Forreter iire eaer,

ior better eiio, a he the wor to oaie tur

the oexity o hage ito buie avatage. Our reearh-

bae iight a objetive avie eabe IT roeioa to

ea ore ueuy withi IT a exte their iat beyo

the traitioa IT orgaizatio. Taiore to your iiviua roe, our

reoure aow you to ou o iortat buie iue

argi, ee, growth frt, tehoogy eo.

foR moRe infoRmation

o nd out how Forrester Research can help you be successul every day, please

contact the oce nearest you, or visit us at www.orrester.com, For a complete list

o worldwide locations, visit www.orrester.com/about.

client suppoRt

For inormation on hard-copy or electronic reprints, please contact Client Support

at +1 866.367.7378, +1 617.613.5730, or [email protected] . We oer

quantity discounts and special pricing or academic and nonprot institutions.
mailto:[email protected]://www.forrester.com/mailto:[email protected]

Documents

Market Overview - Data Center Infrastructure Management Solutions