The Features you can expect from “Data Center Management Solution”
Today’s data centers are becoming very very complex and managing the assets of the data center is also becoming a laborious task. Data center holds the nerves of modern online business & if we do not manage the data center resources properly then it can affect business agility.
From last few years some evolutionary changes occurred in data center components and one of the important evolved area is virtualization in cloud. Due to such a new evolutions NOC engineers needs deep control on assets of data center for efficient operations & maintenance. This need leads to entry of data center management solutions in software market.
Datacenter Management Solution also called DCIM(DC infrastructure Management solutions).
DCIM is a software that helps to collect information from deployed data center assets and assist in managing-monitoring networks, servers, storages & different assets of IT infrastructure.
Let’s see some basic features that you can expect from Data center management solutions.
For getting end to end visibility & control on data center you need following features in DCIM software solution:
1] Inventory/Asset Management & Tracking
Managing different hardware & software from diverse vendors is a tough job.
Asset management module takes care of managing central repository of data center assets. Right from serer rack to small screw- everything is managed & tracked by this module. Just by fetching reports you can spot the exact location of any asset say RAM from the huge data center.
Through this module you can add/edit device components, Software components, rack rows, locations, Stock etc. It can also maintain MRNs(Material Request Notes) & MINs(Material Inward notes). Some DCIM solutions provides track report & reminder of pending MRNs through emails .
Stock reports provides great help when you have a big implementation order & you are running out of resources.
2] Change Request Management System
We all know that ”Change is Inevitable“ . Same is applicable to server configurations. If client asks for change in configuration then there should be a system to keep track of the changes made in server. It is very essential to keep record of all changes made. Change management system should keep records like change request description, reason for change, priority ,technical & business impact analysis etc.
Before making any change it should be approved by respective manager or client, so request approval & rejection system should also be there in DCIM software. Some of DCIM vendor offers ITIL change management process & practices integrated in the system.
3] Virtualization
If you want to minimize cost on hardware, administration ,power ,cooling then Virtualization in data center is must.
Virtualization have changed the life of data center & DCIM software should take care of this aspect also. DCIM should support different virtualization platforms like VMware ,Windows-Hyper-V, esds – eNlight etc. It should interact with the services/API provided by vendors. Control Panel should support VM operations like Create, Remove, Reboot, Shutdown VM.Complete management of VMs should possible from DCIM software.
4] Network Management & Monitoring
Monitoring data center resources is critical & important part for better operations in data center. Smart monitoring helps for maintaining availability & uptime. DCIM software should help in various device monitoring activities like Service Monitoring, Performance Monitoring, Process monitoring, Logs monitoring etc. It should monitor different services, ports, RAM, CPU, Temperature, bandwidth, CPU ,power supply, cooling system syslog monitoring etc.
DCIM should provide notifications & alerts depending on rules defined at the time of monitoring. Alerts can be email alerts or SMS alerts.
For easy network management there should be facility of Rack Deployment layout, network diagrams. IP & subnet management is also present in network management module.
In network management there are 5 major deployment types: Routers, Switches, Servers, Firewalls, Storages.
5] Dashboard
Dashboard of DCIM software should provide a Quick Overview of the entire System and its Components.
It should show graphs & stats of Power Utilization, Rack Space, Device Deployment, ISP Bandwidth Usage, Subnet Report, Logs, System Alerts etc.
Dashboard should be fully customizable as per your requirement.
DCIM software helps to improve infrastructure visibility, asset utilization, staff productivity. It also helps to reduce time to plan & implement changes, downtime, power consumption.
There are few DCIM solutions present in market like eMagic which provides all the necessary features required to manage multi tier data center.
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