A New Chapter
Despite being a tool desperately needed by a market expanding at an exponential rate, DCIM [Data Centre Infrastructure Management] – in its familiar form – was officially declared “dead” by automation specialist RiT Tech last month.
The Israel-based company used the promotional panels of its exhibition stand at the Data Centre World event in London to inform industry attendees of the innovation’s expiration and the requirement for a “rebirth”.
RiT Tech’s assertion of DCIM’s obsoletion will have come as little shock to those with experience of past iterations of the ailing management solution.
Indeed, while the concept may have limped on for some time, many an obituary has previously been written and there is certainly no need for an extensive post-mortem.
The reasons behind DCIM’s demise are well known and plentiful, with the platforms failing to grasp the entirety of the data centre environment and the contribution each component within it makes to performance and optimisation.
Frequently derided for being needlessly elaborate asset registers with limited management and automation capabilities, DCIM tools took many forms and, while widely used, were far from universally popular.
The marketing collateral used by RiT Tech in England’s capital was not, however, intended to be revelatory.
“We knew we weren’t saying something people didn’t really already know,” explained the company’s chief technology officer Jeff Safovich. “DCIM technologies have – in the main – disappointed but, as we suspected, there remains a magnetism around the term among data centre operators.
“People wanted to talk to us about DCIM even if it was just initially to share their frustrations about solutions that promised so much but delivered very little.
“From a company perspective, everything we heard was confirmatory of our own thinking and as attendees described their problems – the things DCIM failed to address – they recognised the many merits of our solution and were keen to learn more.”
RiT Tech used the industry event to demonstrate XpedITe, its Universal Intelligent Infrastructure Management (UIIM) tool – an innovation CEO Assaf Skolnik is confident will quickly put to rest any period of mourning.
“The need for a comprehensive management tool exists but that need has matured significantly, businesses need orchestration and optimisation of services and resources more than ever to deliver both profitable and sustainable operations,” he added.
“To address current industry needs, solutions should provide comprehensive integration with a broad diversity of devices and software systems; bridge the gaps between ‘grey’ and ‘white’ space, planning and network operations centres, and asset provisioning and quality of service. Furthermore, infrastructure and operations leaders expect tools to provide intelligence and automation to increase efficiency, optimise resource utilisation and improve the quality of service.
“To address these challenges, we believe it is time for DCIM to reincarnate as UIIM.”