Maintenance Technology September 2017 - 41

SOLUTION FOCUS

DCIM Deployment
Drives Efficiencies
Data-center-infrastructure-management software helps Sandia National
Labs keep up with the growing scale and complexity of its operations.
FOR MORE THAN 60 years, Sandia
National Laboratories (sandia.gov, Albuquerque) has delivered essential science
and technology to resolve the nation's
most challenging security issues. As a
Federally Funded Research and Development Center (FFRDC), Sandia has the
vision "to be the nation's premier science
and engineering laboratory for national
security and technology innovation."
Efficient operations, including accurate
data-center tracking, play a crucial role in
making this vision a reality.

The challenge
In the past, Sandia was using manual
calculations and meter readings,
combined with field verifications, to track
its three data centers (spanning 6,000,
27,000, and 30,000 sq. ft., respectively).
As the scale and complexity of operations
grew, data-center managers sought an
accurate charge-back model to track
customer usage and keep tabs on longterm costs.
Dave Martinez, engineering
program and project lead with Sandia's
Infrastructure Computing Services, and
others in management had, for several
years, wanted to acquire a data-centerinfrastructure-management (DCIM)
tool to improve asset and power tracking,
perform trending and predictive analyses,
and, ultimately, reduce costs and manual
efforts. Sandia's customers needed
more transparency with regard to their
particular assets and power usage, and
SEPTEMBER 2017

Headquartered in Albuquerque, Sandia National Laboratories' vision is "to be the nation's
premier science and engineering laboratory for national security and technology innovation." Efficient operations are a key component of that vision. Photo courtesy of Sandia
National Laboratories library

FAQs: Sandia National Laboratories
■ Headquarters: Albuquerque
■ Products and Services:
U.S. national security

management needed a better cost model
for those customers.
With several different tracking systems
in place, difficulties associated with
fragmented data and system-specific
skill sets weren't unusual. According to
Martinez, a single, unified system that
the entire staff could use-a system that
would also enable knowledge transfer in
employee transitions-seemed to be the
right direction to take.
To ensure successful adoption,
Martinez engaged his staff to obtain
buy-in for a DCIM tool. His goal was to
empower the team to be self-sufficient
by giving them ownership of the solution
from the onset. The group came up with
the following criteria for the tool:
■ quick and easy to deploy
■ easy for appropriate personnel to learn
and navigate
■ capable of showing results in short
order to achieve a fast return on
investment.

■ Revenue: $2.9 billion (2015)
■ Employees: 10,000+
■ Website: sandia.gov

After product demonstrations by eight
potential vendors, Martinez and his team
narrowed the choices to four. Each finalist
was then given the opportunity to meet
the key criteria in Sandia's live environment. After research into all products,
Nlyte Software (nlyte.com, San Mateo,
CA) was selected.

The solution
As the Nlyte tool was deployed, Martinez
made sure his team was involved every
step of the way. The Nlyte team, in turn,
trained Martinez's team. This vital step not
only made the Sandia personnel comfortable with the solution, it helped them gain
the knowledge, skills, and independence
that led to future success. As hundreds
of people began using the tool to varying
degrees, a collective knowledge base was
formed and became easily transferable.
Gathering the information on the
assets and sensors in the data centers
took time, but was time well spent as it
MAINTENANCETECHNOLOGY.COM | 41

http://www.sandia.gov http://www.sandia.gov http://www.nlyte.com http://www.MAINTENANCETECHNOLOGY.COM

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