Many data centers have grown larger and more complex in recent years as the trend has been towards data center consolidation. With increasing size and complexity, there is an increased need to drive intelligence to the domain of IT devices.

A data center, whether a room or an entire building, is all about what is happening at the rack. Obviously, this is where the actual computing is taking place. It is also where the vast majority of the power is being consumed, or should be. It is the web of communications within the data center, within the organization and for communications with the rest of the world. If this kingdom of IT is not properly protected and maintained there can be very serious consequences.

Data center infrastructure management (DCIM) is the integration of IT and facilities management to enable seamless monitoring of all systems across IT and facility infrastructures to improve the data center energy efficiency. DCIM is driven by power consumption, heat densities, virtualization, and consolidation of data centers, cloud computing, and increasing dependency on IT systems. With increasing demand in data center virtualization, enterprise migration into private clouds and optimization of operational costs, DCIM market has emerged as the key market for IT and facilities management vendors. Growth in cloud computing and enterprise virtualizations increases demand for data centers, which leads to new and innovative technologies to reduce power consumption and reduce cost of ownership for managing the data center infrastructure, worth millions of dollars. This growth is expected to accelerate within the next five years benefiting information technology as well as facilities vendors. DCIM software products will include a variety of ...