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Soeren Brogaard Jensen, Vice President, Enterprise Management and Software, Schneider Electric, in conversation with Manu Sharma, dwells on how the Data Centre Infrastructure Management (DCIM) is driving energy efficiency
What kinds of changes do you observe in the DCIM space absorbing the IT managers interest?
The recent evolution in the 3D electrical software solutions has caught a lot of interest. Our StruxureWare Operations 7.0 software platform that brings 3D airflow analysis and smartphone support to enable improved data centre operations is the new trend for ensuring that energy throughput to the data centre provides greater efficiency. The StruxureWare platform combines these capabilities in a single product that drives ease of operations to drive energy efficiency. Virtualisation in the DCIM space is seeing traction. We are supporting the concept through campaigns including webinars, posting whitepapers, and holding customer-focussed events.
What is the adoption level of DCIM solutions amongst customers?
As per Gartners observation, DCIM space is growing at 40-50 per cent annually, and the global DCIM amounts to about $400-$450 mn. But the adoption rate is as low as one per cent in India. However, the indications are that the DCIM market will grow in the range of one to 40 per cent in the next four years, with increased awareness campaigns taking place in the space. The start-up companies have taken to DCIM is a big way.
How do industry verticals react to DCIM and how is it being leveraged to drive technological growth of the data centre?
As data centres become bigger and more complex, it is clear that the most adaptable, economically sustainable and eco-efficient facilities will be those using advanced infrastructure management software. Indian industry verticals like telco, banking and financial institutions and the government are looking at the DCIM solutions in a big way. Our approach is to simplify and give close to real-time information to our customers, to enable them to make quick decisions.
Going green has been the top concern for most enterprises as also driving down energy costs. However, in most countries, governments have made it mandatory to follow PUE (power usage effectiveness) as an established common denominator' for data centre energy efficiency, including the US, the European Union, and Japan. PUE has become the globally accepted method for data centre operators to measure and improve their data centre infrastructure energy efficiency. The Indian government would also standardise this in the next two to three years with the power costs shooting up.
Businesses are trying hard to find ways to manage their IT better. So what are the best ways to manage the IT infrastructure?
The vital initiative for an enterprise is to closely monitor the data centres and understand the cost implications. The second step is to start documenting the accurate data collected and calculate the energy related costs in maintaining the data. Taking stock of the cooling element is also imperative and working out the cost-efficiency model will address data centre challenges
How can enterprises manage the IT infrastructure better during a downturn? What kinds of strategies were offered to enterprises to add more value for money and manage their IT in a better way?
We witnessed most customers outsourcing their data centre maintenance or building to a third party service provider to drive down the cost. For instance, these customers looked at the existing infrastructure, started metering using the tools, and were able to get rid of 20-30 per cent of stranded waste. They ran their servers rack half-full and could not put more servers because of no cold air-cooling. They were able to sustain the in-house data centre for three years after which the need for outsourcing was felt.
Elaborate on the steps involved in reducing energy bills in a data centre. What solutions do you suggest IT managers need to follow?
Many data centre operators and services are aligning themselves to the ITIL framework of service management and delivery. They are using these tools to reduce the response time and be proactive in workflow.
A CFO or CIO should get involved in the management set-up and start making decisions with regard to adapting to such service management practices. This will help the IT managers in driving better energy efficiency. In fact, such a practice has increased the data centre lifespan by making it more efficient.
Mention the trends emerging in the DCIM space that fascinate IT heads?
The trends can be pruned down to four major ones in the DCIM space. IT managers are increasingly looking at efficiency, agility, availability and lowering maintenance cost.
What are some of the proven methodologies and standardised components in data centres that can help reduce design and implementation risks while lowering daily operating costs?
Everything we do is methodical and standardised. We do not believe in any unique designs and implementations. The need is to follow common set of best practices that allow the customers to benefit from the collective intelligence of a broad user-base. If you have an issue, then thousands also are facing it and that can be fixed quickly. This applies to both hardware and the software.
What are the present challenges faced by an enterprise in implementing/managing DCIM?
When customers start seeing the value of these tools, they realise that they do not have a change management process and they may lack critical metering in some locations. In addition, it is time consuming to keep the system up-to-date. Getting it all ready and running at the right time is a big challenge. If you do not set the right processes and governance around the change management process, your system quickly gets out of synch with reality.
Is your software available on a cloud platform?
Today it is not, but it is a subscription-based services. So you can buy a service, install it on-premises. We are moving to the cloud and some of our management services are cloud-based like energy metrics. However, this is still a rich client-based application that needs a lot of processing and live updates and hence, is somewhat tricky to move to the cloud as of now.
Is it true that companies can now scale up their data centres as business needs grow and use the 'pay-as-you-grow' model, tailoring a data centre solution to meet unique business requirements?
It scales with the equipment you want to manage in terms of the number of racks. It scales in many different ways, but you never pay for what you do not use. If you add a new rack and add a licence, it will completely scale up and down.
Can a data centre manage day-to-day workload with flexibility while servicing on-demand needs as they arrive for my company?
If you look at the utilisation and performance, it goes through cycles. The energy consumed or the CPU delivered is not the same. So if the cycle is down, you may be utilising only 20 per cent of the sources. It is important to shut it off or migrate to high efficient data centre that does not exit today. Industry is heading towards this.
Do DCIM solutions provide the trend analysis and intelligence needed for the team to deliver a comprehensive capacity management plan?
In my opinion, the DCIM is like spider web as a management tool. It depends upon how close one is to managing the cooling in a given time in a data centre that determines the efficient management process. The trend analysis gives information like growth rate, post utilisation and some very insightful metrics. These are the tools that every CIO needs. We use BI tools that are developed in-house along with testing and implementations.
Is the DCIM concept undergoing disruptive changes?
I think DCIM is somewhat disruptive and so I would say yes. Because it not mission-critical, it is more on the proactive side.
What are the cost benefit-analyses using DCIM solutions?
There have been several tangible and intangible benefits with the implementation of DCIM solutions. In some cases, it has helped in quantifiable benefits where there is drastic reduction in the IT spend. The intangible benefits for the IT manager is low time spent in planning with the tools and lower cost on people and equipment. Some of my customers have witnessed up to 25 per cent reduction in energy bills in 24 months. It is not software alone but a combination of virtualisation and the right infrastructure coupled with software that drives energy bills low.
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