DCIM is getting the IT infrastructure layer and the physical infrastructure layer to operate as one.  It's essentially virtualizing the physical infrastructure, just like what has happened to the IT infrastructure layer.  Covering this gap is very broad, so in order for that to happen you still need to draw boudaries.  What is your DCIM strategy?

The DCIM market is moving full steam ahead.  Steve Hassell, president of Emerson's DCIM division, Avocent, and Kevin Brown, VP of Data Center Global Offer at Schneider Electric, put their top DCIM questions to each other in this Data Center Infrastructure Management discussion.

Check out the questions below.

What are you hearing from CIOs as to the critical needs driving them to better manage their physical infrastructure and integrate that with the logical systems infrastructure?

How does a customer get started with a DCIM implementation?

Traditional data center design practices have involved several levels of power margins resulting in stranded capacity and lower efficiency.  How can DCIM help recapture some of that capacity without compromising availability?

>View the full discussion now" target="_blank">>>View the full discussion now

What is your DCIM strategy?

The Data Center industry is in need of of a solution that bridges the IT and facilities systems and provides data in appropriate interfaces across IT and facilities groups.  A holistic DCIM strategy is a data center manager’s best partner in meeting the stringent business demands in a modern-day data center environment. To successfully implement a DCIM strategy, data center managers must be on the lookout for the best family of hardware, software and services that allows them to address the critical infrastructure gap.

A new perspective on managing the critical infrastructure gaps is emerging that recognizes:

• The importance of real-time data to understand the true capacity of available infrastructure
• The criticality of interdependencies between logical and physical layers
• The need for holistic management capabilities and visibility of IT and facilities infrastructures
• The need for more powerful management tools that offer a rich, visual view of the infrastructure and can guide design and change management

What are economizer systems and how do they improve energy efficiency?

This is the year that discussions around using outside air economization will be heard at many seminars.  The introduction of Liebert’s DSE, as well as ASHRAE’s proposal to increase the server air inlet temperatures, will certainly allow considerable energy cost savings to those early adopters. Don Beaty, DLB Associates, recently conducted a US Government seminar on Data Centers speaking to how efficient we can become utilizing outside air as an economization strategy, as well as (dare I say it) primary means of cooling a Data Center.  ASHRAE has recently released a study on areas of the United States where outside air, properly filtered and metered for gaseous and particulate contamination, can be considered as your primary source of cooling. Does your outside environment play a role in this decision?  Absolutely.  A thorough site assessment with a knowledgeable company is well worth the cost.  We all need to ask ourselves why Facebook, Microsoft and others are choosing locations conducive to utilizing outside air.

Published on March 7, 2012 | Richard Werner, Comcast, 7x24 Exchange

What energy savings can be expected for different types of economizers?

Alternating current (AC) power is ubiquitous in data centers, and it's hard to change the status quo. But a direct current (DC) power demonstration project conducted by the Lawrence Berkely National Laboratory produced some interesting results: a 7% energy savings over top-notch AC technologies.

SearchDataCenter.com recently reported on an experiment in using DC power in a data center at Syracuse University, furthering the practical research into this data center power option. While total DC power infrastructure for data centers isn't quite ready, these investigations are putting the concept on the top of mind for data center professionals concerned about power consumption.

Will DC Take to the Data Center?  DC Power could save a bundle, but tech managers are just exploring it.  

More than a century after DC bowed to AC as the most efficient method of electrical distribution, DC is getting a second look. But this time around, the ambitions of DC supporters are more narrowly focused. They're touting DC over AC as a way to make the facilities that house massive and power-ravenous data computing, storage, and communications systems more energy efficient. In a replay of the original AC-DC fight, however, AC supporters counter that tried-and-true AC, especially if it's optimized for efficiency, still reigns superior.

The battle is taking place against a backdrop of the surging "green" movement and an increased awareness of how much energy data centers use (and waste) because of how they're configured. Electrical engineering conferences, white papers, and demonstration projects that assess the comparable benefits of AC and DC for data centers have been proliferating. They've accelerated since 2006, when Congress directed the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Energy to oversee efforts to mitigate spiraling data center power consumption.

Has AC met its match?

DC has emerged as one possible fix, primarily because it would eliminate one of the biggest sources of energy loss and waste with AC - the multiple back-and-forth transformations and conditioning needed to step voltage down for use by IT equipment. By converting high-voltage AC to DC earlier, keeping it in DC form, and delivering it directly to rack-based servers, energy loss from conversion and the resultant heat that must be removed with cooling that also requires energy could be reduced. In fact, some studies peg energy savings as high as 30%.

>>Tell us your thoughts - send in a comment.

>>Join DVL's Users' Group

All signs point to 10 Gigabit and 40 Gigabit Ethernet gathering steam in the coming year. 

Tidbits and predictions include 10 Gigabit and 40 Gigiabit Ethernet. Expect to see plenty of 10 Gigabit on server motherboards. You can even expect to see some 10 Gigabit Ethernet LAN-on-a-motherboard by early next year. All of which means 10 Gigibit at the edge and the start of 40 Gigabit in the core.

10 Gigabit Ethernet is a good starting point at the edge. It increases the bandwidth capacity for the backbone, and reduces network latency. And because it’s Ethernet, there’s built-in plug-and-play with existing equipment, reducing administration and operating costs.

Moreover, with 10 Gigabit Ethernet, there’s a clear roadmap to 40 Gigabit and 100 Gigabit Ethernet, which will be vital in meeting the growing bandwidth requirements that come with cloud computing.

>> Read more now

How to tame these high density racks with containment data center design?

10 Data Center Predictions For 2012

The Ever Greener Data Center

>> Read more now