The modern enterprise is an extended enterprise with facilities and operations spread out geographically in different zones. Business demands that data is available 24X7 and most importantly at the right time. The critical nature of a data center is widely recognized by executives, however not much is thought about monitoring of data center operations either on-premises or remotely.
What are the parameters for the smooth functioning of the data center?
- The Hard Facility – Building, IT & Non-IT equipment,
- The Soft Facility – Applications and related processes in terms of usage and redundancy
- Staff identity management and access control
With the current situation of accomplishing more with fewer resources, it is quite a challenge to have continuous monitoring on the premise by qualified staff. The ability to manage an infrastructure of data centers or servers across a wide geographical area through remote management is not only cost-effective but also highly feasible.
Monitoring – Assets and Process Compliance
The phased implementation of remote monitoring is dependent on the size and criticality of the data center to the entire business operations. The company can start monitoring the critical assets, to begin with, followed by non-critical or supporting assets.
Getting a list of the data center inventory – hardware, communications, and applications helps the executives to understand the assets deployed. The next
Having done that the next step is to digitize the asset information completely in the system. It allows management of the asset from the lifecycle perspective (procurement to end of life management) and the value derived from the asset – asset productivity & resources spent on maintenance. A yearly maintenance schedule for assets planned with provision for breakdown maintenance will ensure better asset productivity and long life. Implementing Helpdesk applications for managing support requests and task completion is highly recommended.
The first step is to plan and get the details of access points and ports for efficient and secure monitoring with proper authorizations, preventing unauthorized access and loss of data. The team should also plan for proper implementations of protocols like Remote Authentication, IP Security and other processes for secure data logging and getting event notifications in compliance with the company’s security policy.
Conclusion
Tools used for Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) are specific to data centers and helps in monitoring and managing the data center utilization and energy consumption of all the data center assets. As part of the Data Center Optimization Initiative of the Government of USA, automated infrastructure management is mandated.
What benefits can DCIM tools deliver?
- Manage Assets Effectively
- Streamline Information from All Assets
- Capacity Management
- Power Utilization & Efficiency
- Optimize Workload and Infrastructure Utilization
- IT & Non-IT Equipment Management
- Automate Tasks and Workflow
- Analytics, Reports and Compliance Information
Therefore, automated management of data centers enhances productivity and improves benefits significantly.
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