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Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) software is one of the hot topics of the day in the data center industry, with much of the talk on booths, platforms and in the aisles about the transformational potential of DCIM. Already this year, we’ve seen projections from 451 Research forecasting DCIM sales to grow at 44% CAGR to reach $1.8bn in aggregate revenue in 2016 (ahead of earlier estimates), while Schneider Electric has been named as a leader in the DCIM landscape by influential analysts, IDC.
When I met with Philippe Diez, VP of Schneider Electric France and Europe Cluster, at Data Centres Europe 2013, he explained to me some of the reasons why DCIM is increasingly important, and why it is becoming so popular amongst data center owners and operators.
Philippe said, “DCIM is of course is very important. Everyone talks about DCIM, but now it becomes more – I would say – at the time where people decide to implement that or not, I think some good testimonials of customers who have gained real benefits by using DCIM so, yeah these are also key ideas that are, I would say, mainstream in the industry.”
It appears then, that the relevance of DCIM to the market is established and now companies are at a tipping point of whether to implement it or not. As a company Schneider Electric has been focused on Data Center Management Software for some time now. Last year at this show, I conducted interviews with executives from Telecity and Interxion, two of Europe’s best recognised co-location data center names and even ahead of targeted offerings for the service provider segment, the value of DCIM was clear. However, I was interested whether there was any difference between companies which run their data centers as a business (i.e, it is the main asset for generating revenue), and those for whom the data center ensures available IT operations and therefore indirectly supports the business model.
Philippe said, “Well in a way if you build a plant you are going to have a ERP, if you build or if you start a customer service you are going to have a CRM, so I think DCIM becomes kind of the backbone of data center operations and the more complex it (the data center) becomes the more important it is to have an industrialised solution rather than, I would say, an Excel spreadsheet to run it. So yes I think you see more and more people, even in the corporate data center moving away from customised solutions to industrialised software – DCIM. So I would say yes, the solution has become mainstream for data centers.”
Schneider Electric is leading the way in providing the physical IT infrastructure necessary to successful implement DCIM solutions for businesses across the world. Additionally, the company’s StruxureWare for Data Centers software is providing businesses with unparalleled control over the physical equipment in their data centers. For more information on StruxureWare software click here
