Managing Change?
The biggest challenge facing all technical infrastructure managers is the ability to efficiently manage and implement change whether it is expansion to meet business growth or consolidation to achieve savings. Many of the required changes will impact the technical infrastructure in a data centre so it is important that these change requirements can be viewed and tracked in relation the actual site infrastructure components.
A single view of a data centre’s infrastructure and the IT assets and how they relate (connect) significantly improves the efficiency in planning and implementing change. Documentation systems that can relate all components involved in change and track change will aid ITIL and ISO process compliance.
Benefits
The benefits of adding a DCIM tool such as dcTrack™ as a key component for evaluating potential infrastructure changes and their impacts and documenting all changes include:
- Identifying key capacity constraints before they impact operations
- Identifying components likely to be affected by change in core infrastructure components such as power circuits, UPS systems etc.
- Automate work orders saving time and improving communication and accountability
- Improve compliance
- Bridge silo’s of information that adversely affect the efficiency of planning and implementing changes
ROI
Assessing the ROI on improved management systems can be difficult. However, the immediate returns from having a system such as dcTrack™ which enables the impact of maintenance on power circuits to be related not just to the cabinets affected but to the IT systems installed in those cabinets with identification of single powered devices is obvious.
Typical savings would be:
- Improved handling of infrastructure maintenance requests
- Reduced trips to site to audit and review infrastructure
- Reduction in time required to generate and manage work orders
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