ASHRAE Journal - June 2019 - 52

TECHNICAL FEATURE

Evolution of Data
Center Infrastructure
Management Tools
BY DUSTIN W. DEMETRIOU, PH.D., MEMBER ASHRAE; ANDREW CALDER, ASSOCIATE MEMBER ASHRAE

ASHRAE's forthcoming Datacom Series book Advancing DCIM with IT Equipment
Integration1 aims to demystify and extend the implementation of data center infrastructure management tools in the data center.
Data center infrastructure management or DCIM is
the supervision, administration, and operational control of data center assets and resources with the goal of
reducing data center operational cost and increasing
overall resiliency. When properly implemented and
maintained, DCIM and their software tools can help
data center owners and operators:
* Prevent or reduce the impact of critical events;
* Improve asset, change, and workﬂow management;
* Help match resource supply and demand for
greater operational and energy efﬁciency;
* Improve capacity planning through key performance indicators (KPI), resource tracking, and trend
analysis; and
* Facilitate reporting, auditing, compliance, and
general performance monitoring.
The complexity of a data center's processes has driven
wider adoption of DCIM throughout the data center
industry to provide a more efﬁcient approach to supporting the data center's assets (IT servers, etc.) and
resources (space, power, cooling).
There are many DCIM software tools on the market
and tool sets can vary in terms of their scope (e.g., a
white space vs. facilities focus), functions, and features. Furthermore, there is often overlap between tool

sets. While it can be a challenge for users to navigate
the menu of choices, the ability to select individual
tools from a DCIM suite can be a sound strategy for
incrementally adopting a DCIM system over time as
resources and budget allow.
In writing Advancing DCIM with IT Equipment Integration,
the 14th book in the ASHRAE Datacom Series, ASHRAE
Technical Committee 9.9 (TC 9.9) focused speciﬁcally
on how DCIM systems can help data center owners and
operators lower their risk of downtime and improve
the efﬁciency of mechanical cooling systems in the data
center. This column serves as an introduction to the
newest book in the ASHRAE Datacom Series.

ASHRAE DCIM Compliance for IT Equipment (CITE)
The ﬁrst step on the journey to a DCIM deployment
is to identify the range of data sources available in the
data center environment. DCIM tools are well positioned to enable the integration of many disparate data
sources - everything from IT equipment to Internet of
Things (IoT) devices. However, this level of integration
has failed to garner wide-spread adoption due to the
shear effort required to program and implement the
large number of proprietary protocols, nomenclatures
and implementations on the market. ASHRAE DCIM

Dustin W. Demetriou, Ph.D., is a senior engineer at IBM Corporation, Poughkeepsie, N.Y. He is vice chair of ASHRAE Technical Committee 9.9. Andrew Calder is a principal engineer
at Panduit, Chicago.
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ASHRAE Journal - June 2019

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