Modius Data Center Blog

Early last year, Gartner published a short research note that has since had an unexpectedly significant impact on the vocabulary of data center management professionals.  Prior to March 2010, which is when Dave Cappuccio published “Beyond IT,” the term ‘data center infrastructure management’ (or DCIM) was rarely ever used.  Instead, the most common terms describing software to manage power and cooling infrastructure were ‘data center monitoring’ or ‘data center asset tracking’ or ‘BMS for data center.’  We know this, because here at Modius we use an inbound analytics application to track the search terms by internet users to find our web site. 

By end of last month (April 2011), the simple search term DCIM has outpaced all of them!  Go to any web site keyword tracking service (e.g. www.hubspot.com) and see for yourself.  In April, there were over 10,000 queries for DCIM on one of the major search engines alone.  As a longtime software vendor for the enterprise, I find it hard to remember ever seeing a new title for a software category emerge so suddenly and so prominently.  Now everyone uses it.  Every week it seems there is a new vendor claiming DCIM credentials.

From our perspective here at Modius, we find this amusing, because we have been offering the same kind of functionality from our flagship software product OpenData since long before the term DCIM has been around.  Nonetheless, we know find ourselves in a maelstrom of interest as this new software label gains more buzz and credibility.  So what is exactly is DCIM? 

The graphic below is my summary of the major points from the original research note.  Note that DCIM was originally positioned as filling a gap between the major categories of IT Systems Management and Building Management or Building Automation Systems.

As more and more software vendors have jumped on the DCIM bandwagon, we have noticed that 4 distinct sub-categories, or segments, have emerged:

1. Monitoring tools for centralized alarm management and real-time performance tracking of diverse types of equipment across the power and cooling chains (e.g., Modius OpenData)
2. Calendar-based tools for tracking equipment lifecycles (i.e., particularly with respect to recording original shipment documentation, maintenance events, depreciation schedules, etc.)
3. Workflow tools specifically designed around data center planning and change management (e.g., “If I put this server in this rack, what is the impact on my power & cooling systems?”)
4. Tools for control and automation of cooling sub-systems (e.g., usually computer room air conditioning systems or air-handling units)

At Modius, we focus on segment #1.  We find the challenges to connecting to a diverse population of power and cooling equipment from a range of vendors is a difficult task in and of itself.  Not only are the interface challenges non-trivial (e.g., translation across multiple communication protocols), but the data storage and management problems associated with collecting this much data are also significant. 

Moreover, we are puzzled at the number of segment #3 applications which position themselves as DCIM tools, yet don’t have any real-time data capabilities of any significance.  We believe for those systems to be the most effective, they really need to leverage a monitoring tool in segment #1.

So, in conclusion--and not surprisingly--we define the DCIM software category as a collection of different types of tools for different purposes, depending on your business objectives.  But one point we like to stress to all of our customers is that we believe that real-time performance tracking is the foundation of this category, and we are looking to either build out new capabilities over time, or to partner with other software companies that are pursuing other areas of DCIM functionality.  After all, improving the performance of a facility is the ultimate end goal, and we before we do anything else, we can’t manage what we can’t measure.

Any data center manager can rattle off the standard list of critical facility equipment in the data center: generator, transfer switch, UPS, PDU, CRAC, fire system, etc. At times, however, one must take a step back and broaden one's view when determining what is critical. Unfortunately, too often we don't realize we're missing something important until after disaster strikes. In the hopes of heading off some future disasters, I share with you the following cautionary tale. I'll give you the take-away message in advance: "Look up!"

Scene:  A corporate office tower in Anytown, USA. A data center consumes the bulk of one floor. It is an efficient, well-maintained data center, with dual, dedicated utility feeds supplying a 2N-redundant power system, backup generator, and redundant chillers. It also boasts a years-long history of non-stop 100% reliable operation.

The office floors above the data center all have essentially identical layouts, consisting of conference rooms, cube farms, and the occasional honest-to-goodness office.  Centrally located on each floor is an efficient, well-maintained kitchenette. In each kitchenette is a water cooler. Like many of its kind where the tap water is potable, this water cooler is plumbed directly to the sink. The ¼-inch white plastic tubing is anchored in place with small brass ferrules. This system has been doing yeoman's work for years, reliably delivering chilled, filtered drinking water to the employees with better than 99% up time, allowing for scheduled maintenance.

Action:  Disaster strikes, in accordance with Murphy's Law, late one weekend night. The water cooler’s plastic plumbing finally succumbs to age and stress. Water streams onto the floor unchecked, quickly covering the linoleum surface and finding its way into the wall. There it heads in water's favorite direction, down, passing easily through the matching kitchenette walls in the identical floor plans below.

The water continues until reaching a floor with a dramatically different layout. Temporarily stopped in its pursuit of gravity, the water gathers its forces, soaking into the obstruction until eventually, like the plastic tube, the ceiling tile succumbs. The next obstruction happens to be a PDU and a couple of neighboring server racks in the data center. They too succumb, we assume rather spectacularly.

Meanwhile, back in the kitchenette, the leak is discovered during a security sweep and the flow is cut off, but human intervention has come too late for the electronics down below. Power redundancy saved all servers that were not directly water-damaged, so only a few internal business applications took an uptime hit, along with the kitchenette. Over $100,000 of damage, thanks to the failure of a few pennies of plastic tubing in a “non-critical” part of the facility.

Solution:  One could easily focus on the data center itself and protecting its equipment:  Place catch basins in the ceiling and extend the raised-floor leak detection system into them. That would help, and perhaps give a bit more warning. Not a bad idea in any case, if you have the time and money. Better solution? Inexpensive, off-the-shelf, floor leak detectors come in kits with automatic shut-off valves. Available online or in your local hardware store for home use in laundry rooms. An audible alarm is nice, but does an alarm make a noise if no one is there to hear it? Definitely get one with a second, normally-closed contact closure to link into your monitoring system. (You do have one, don’t you? Consider OpenData ME, SE, or EE!) Stop the leak early, and get advanced notice.

While you're at it, pick one up for that efficient, well-maintained, and oh-so-convenient second-floor laundry room in your home!

I hope you've enjoyed this tale. In the coming weeks, I'll share additional stories from the field as well as my musings on monitoring, instrumentation, and metrics. Visit my blog next week for insights on metering total energy for PUE—and a tip shared about the ATS.

Over the course of meeting with perhaps 100 customers over the last 6 months, it has become painfully clear to me that there is widescale and growing confusion about Real-Time Data Center Monitoring.

I would suggest that Real-Time monitoring which answers MOST customers' needs MUST have a number of specific capabilities which the vast majority of what's available today do NOT:

1. Scale. Most shipping Data Center Management and Monitoring solutions fail to realize that SCALE is a big deal. Monitoring 100 devices on a trade show floor demo is entirely different that deploying true monitoring across 20 sites, each with thousands of devices. You simply can't use the same ARCHITECTURE, and all the marketing fluff in the world won't solve this fundamental structure issue. The ONLY way to scale this is using a DISTRIBUTED architecture.

2. Device Coverage. These same vendors will tell you that they speak SNMP and that everything you need to monitor speaks SNMP. Nonsense! Firstly, there are many protocols including Mod-Bus, SNMP, BACnet, WMI, Serial, etc, etc. Secondly, just supporting the protocol doesn't get you much closer to the device knowledge. Each device has to be specifically understood to read the required values. In most vendor's proposals, this shows up as "Professional Services" which means 'We'll figure it out on the job, on your dime'.

3. Real-Time Monitoring MUST store observed metrics and KPIs over long periods of time. I would suggest that while there are many reasons why most customers want to see real-time monitoring, the vast majority of these reasons are TIME-BASED. The monitored values or metrics need to be collected, time-stamped, stored, and available openly to run analysis upon. While customers may want to know that the data center is consuming 350kW this instant, what they REALLY want to know is that the data center WAS consuming 275kW 3 months ago, 310kW last month, 350kW today, and then PROJECT the future date of the wall that they will hit of the 500kW feed from the power utility.

The road ahead will continue to be littered with failed deployments of real-time management solutions which do NOT realize the dream of Data Center Monitoring. Customers should challenge their vendors to answer ALL of the tough questions. Consider the old-school 'Get it in Writing' approach, and then be very specific about your expectations, needs, and acceptance criterior...

Let's ALL win this GREEN game!