DCIM: A Need to Power Sustainable Data Centres

Data centre infrastructure management (DCIM) could be a great vehicle to improve the sustainability of data centres moving forward.

DCIM software supports data centre infrastructure and is often used to measure, monitor and manage IT equipment. As a result, data centre operators are able to run operations more efficiently and work to improve design planning.

Data centre customers around the world are already leveraging DCIM alongside other tools, including IT service management, configuration management databases, security information management, software asset management (SAM) and workflow management. Moving forward, it is expected that enterprises will continue to leverage these capabilities across an even wider footprint than traditional data centres - harnessing cloud and edge infrastructures, or the Internet of Things (IoT).

However, during a time of unprecedented business demand, data centres must find new ways to cope with growing technologies whilst minimising excessive power consumption. 

How data centre infrastructure has evolved

In the past, data centres were typically centralised for specific organisations. As these operations expanded, cloud computing and data centre colocation providers began to emerge, leading to businesses spreading physical and virtual IT assets across multiple locations.

Known commonly now as ‘hybrid IT’ environments, data centre management continues to grow more complex as new technologies develop.

In 2022, Schneider Electric’s Marc Garner told Data Centre Magazine that the emergence of hybrid IT and edge computing resulted in “data centre software [having] to evolve again to meet the new challenges posed to owners, operators and CIOs.

“HPE states that while in 2000, enterprise software was entirely hosted at the core of the network, by 2025, 20% of IT will be hosted in the core, 30% in the public cloud and 50% at the edge.”

Today, DCIM is evolving to meet greater visibility and monitoring needs within the data centre industry, working to centralise monitoring, management and intelligent capacity planning of a data centre’s critical systems.

These solutions are designed to add greater intelligence to the data centre to gain insights for data centre operators on equipment, connectivity, power usage and power capacity.

Its products can help data centre managers identify and eliminate sources of risk and improve the availability of critical IT systems. Additionally, it can identify interdependencies between facility and IT infrastructures to alert facility managers to gaps in system redundancy. This means that DCIM can provide dynamic benchmarks on power consumption and efficiency to measure the effectiveness of ‘green IT’ initiatives.

Michael Marinelli, Former Product Director, Data Center Infrastructure Monitoring (now Director, Product Management, Data Center Services at Digital Realty) previously said: “To help give customers the relevant, actionable operating data they demand, colocation providers are increasingly turning to data centre infrastructure monitoring (DCIM) solutions.

He added: “The DCIM tools of the future will enable efficiency analytics at scale with very low demand on-site staff, unlocking their time to do more value-added work. They will also provide actionable intelligence about how the site is operating at a very granular level, with clearly actionable takeaways.”

The building blocks of a sustainable data centre

As the data centre industry continues to evolve, so does technology. Facilities now have more possibilities than ever before, with their customers eager to harness artificial intelligence (AI), the cloud and 5G to power their industries.

With these opportunities, however, comes inevitable environmental concerns.

“Data centre users are increasingly concerned with their carbon footprint,” Shahid Rahman, EMEA Data Centre Strategic Account Lead (Engineered IT Cooling Solutions) at Mitsubishi Electric, tells Data Centre Magazine. “This has created increasing pressure for data centre developers and operators to provide robust, fault-free services while reducing energy use and emissions – a difficult balancing act.”

Sustainability is currently one of the main concerns for the industry, with multiple leading data centre companies like Digital Realty, CyrusOne, Schneider Electric and Iron Mountain investing in more energy-efficient solutions.

Data centres are now considering myriad new ways to be sustainable – with one solution being heat reuse. The technology could contribute to organisations being more energy efficient as they seek to make good on their sustainability and Net Zero pledges.

“Shifting the focus onto the reuse of heat energy actually gives data centres the potential to decarbonise further and build a greener future,” Shahid comments. “In fact, excess heat from data centres can be used to heat other nearby buildings – including homes – and provide them a more sustainable heating source.”

He adds: “Framing the data centre sector as part of the solution for our decarbonised future, rather than simply an energy user, has clear benefits for future development and growth.”

Likewise, Ian Jeffs, County General Manager at Lenovo, highlights how advancements in hardware design, including energy-efficient chips and liquid cooling solutions, will further contribute to the sustainability of data centre infrastructure.

He adds: “As the demand for computing power continues to grow, AI will play an increasingly important role in driving innovation and sustainability in the data centre industry.”

How DCIM can drive future-proof innovation

In order to create more sustainable, energy-efficient data centres, organisations can benefit from harnessing DCIM today.

For instance, DCIM can harness real-time monitoring and machine learning technology to make adjustments to environmental systems within a facility to improve energy use. It can identify where warmer areas are located and predict when and where cooling will be required based on historical trends. 

Likewise, the software can prevent data centres from overcooling by monitoring temperature sensor data and transform it into insights. As a result, it can optimise workloads for data centre operators and reduce unnecessary downtime.

Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) is becoming increasingly important for data centres as they seek to limit their carbon footprint. DCIM can track this in real-time so that operators can focus elsewhere, improving both energy and workplace efficiencies.

With transparent sustainability, comes greater visibility for data centres. DCIM could prove to be a worthy solution as the world seeks to pivot towards a future governed by renewable energy.

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