Data centers play a fundamental role in our society and digital economy. It allows our digitized life to go on. A data center is the physical facility providing the compute power to run applications, the storage capabilities to process data, and the networking to connect the end clients with the resources needed to do their jobs.
We would learn how a physical facility provides the compute power to run applications, the storage capabilities to process data, and the networking equipments. On the other hand the power sources and the back up power controls the entire set up We need to study the importance of security in any datacenter. Bigger the setup, higher the security levels.
We would study about distributed DC's/Colos, along with edge data centers. Thus learning about large Datacenters for the Telecom, Media and cloud businesses to edge datacenters for manufacturing plants in remote corners of the geography.
We need to realise what service level agreements (SLAs/SLTs) need to be build for maintaining a large DC. The potential risk of service interruption can be lethal for any datacenter
Data Center SLAs are measured in 4 tiers: Tier 1: No more than 29 hours of potential service interruption in a calendar year (99.671% uptime). Tier 2: No more than 22 hours (99.741%). Tier 3: No more than 1.6 hours (99.982%). Tier 4 no more than 26.3 minutes (99.995%).
Finally we touch upon the Hyperscalers. Hyperscalers like AWS and Azure, as well as social media giant Meta are models of future growth.

DCIM is a mandatory tool with the US govt datacenters. From 2018 onwards, every federal DC has to have a DCIM tool, which can effectively support the datacenter. Infact the Data Center Optimization Initiative (DCOI) now requires all existing federal data centers to achieve a power usage effectiveness (PUE) of 1.5 or better.
Though the Indian govt has still not come out with any such mandate, the largest no. of DCIM tools sold in the world is in India. Pundits predict it to grow in the whole of ASEAN region till 2026 for sure and grow to about 38% of the world sales.
Medium-to-large data centers have to achieve PUE of 1.5 or lower by 2023. World order for newly constructed data centers are subjected to attain tighter guidelines, with a PUE of 1.4 for sure and a PUE of 1.2 encouraged. The Uptime Institute indicates that the average data center PUE is 1.7, in existing Indian Govt data centers. We should begin to implement DCIM and power monitoring immediately to meet these new requirements by end of 2023.
Any company that subscribes to ISO 27001, the global standard for IT security, must be able to track its assets and the people who have access and control to those assets. This is another parameter, which brings the costs of a DC further down.
Another critical concern is minimizing overall downtime of a DC. Here, a reliable and vendor-agnostic DCIM platform can provide insights into all key power paths, especially if they comprise of end equipments in the DC from multiple manufacturers. The ability to track dependencies (Impact Analysis), to minimize potential risks for a mission-critical environment from any single piece of equipment should be a must.
Factors expected to drive DCIM adoption includes the ability to drive streamline operational efficiency, to help end-user monitoring, reduce energy consumption and to maximize reliability – all while providing a tangible return on investment (ROI). The ability to manage large, disaggregated IT portfolios with ease. While DCIM proved a raging success for some data center managers, it failed to meet the expectations of others, and where some found major benefits others felt it was a wasted investment.
Reliability was, and is, the name of the game, and DCIM platforms offering simple installation, intuitive ease of use and real-time data-driven insights, certainly saw increased adoption. Even the 2021 Uptime Institute annual data center survey revealed that 76 percent of operators felt their most recent downtime incident was preventable with better management, processes or configuration.
Our own DCIM sits 6th in the world according to the Gartner's peer insight. We offer the most flexible DCIM and power monitoring solutions in the market. Currently deployed at UAIDI (ADHAAR), Delhi Police CCTNS, Oman Airlines, T2 & T3 @ BIAL Airport, Govt of Rajasthan, the Indian Air Force, DRDO and many other established organizations.

We use 2D and 3D views for make it easy for the "operator" to understand, any situation with only a few hrs of training. 2D views give out information about the rack formations, the equipments in the rack, the power used and cooling needed on the fly. The 3D view gives a "clear insight" of whats happening in the Datacenter - at any point of time. These 2 views help to navigate the entire hierarchy of any DC. From Power ports to Networking sub component to IT inventory, servers/VMs and ultimately the applications.
With enhanced visibility, control and governance - data center managers can improve capacity planning, energy consumption, RCA (root cause analysis) on problems, reducing the downtime.
Our DCIM's real time monitoring offers the ability to analyze server efficiency, power consumption and thermal conditions in the data center on the fly.

Don't you think - Ghost servers which are drawing power, but not performing as per the SLA's, should located and taken care off. The utilization of every single server has to be mapped. The Data center managers should get the analytics so that they can lower the power consumption and improve PUE to 1.5 or lower.
When creating your data center, you likely ran into the problem of how to size it.
How much does it cost to cool a data center? A cooling system is one of the most expensive parts of any data center. According to research, anywhere between 30% to 55% of a data center’s energy consumption goes into its cooling and ventilation systems — with the average hovering around 40%.
The cooling system may also have problems with bypass airflow, which is any conditioned air that does not pass through IT equipment before returning to the cooling system. This process may also be taking a big chunk of your data cooling costs, leading to you spending more than you should be. In short, a data center’s cooling costs can approach, equal or even surpass the cost of powering the IT equipment it houses.
Recent studies show that the traditional horizontal placement of servers on racks can result in the mixing of hot and cold air flows, which reduces the efficiency of any thermal management system. In contrast, airflow management and ventilation are more efficient when servers are placed with optimal spacing — vertically in racks. These racks can be either closed cabinets or open, vertically oriented racks. This arrangement allows for the maximum utilization of natural convection.
It’s also important to compare a data center’s projected energy consumption to the energy prices in different locations and climates. For instance, a data center in a rural location with a cooler, drier climate will cost less to operate than one in a more expensive urban location with a warmer, more humid climate.

Any critical tool, which is supposedly to be the life line of any datacenter, need to have tight security wrapped around the tool.
Few Roles are mandatory and other roles need to be configured in line with the Datacenter's need.
Separate roles would be created for Inventory management, Provisioning of racks, Analytics and reporting, etc
Any evolved DC would have a separate electrical and a HVAC team. Every role would be catered to from the DCIM ADMIN

What is multi tenancy? Why do we need Multi-Tenancy between DC's. How is Multi-Tenancy and Rack provisioning connected. We will learn about the importance of Rack provisioning in a Datacenter. Racks are the most important unit in any DC. Small or Large. All the IT equipments are parked on these racks. Based on the rated power's these racks carry, the entire datacenter is designed for airconditioning. All datacenter management accessories like Primary Power, backup power, fire fighting, fire suppression, Rodent repellent, Water leakage, etc along with various forms of airconditioning required to manage a datacenter have to be provisioned. The status of each and every equipment need to be tracked back to its location. So that, issues can be resolved, when the need comes up. Provisioning of racks is a must - Thats the ONLY way to keep the airconditioning design and usage in check, and thus the "PUE".
The DC business works across multiple cities of the world. Thus to provide rack services to customers worldwide we need the multi-tenancy feature. along with that we also need to give showcase

CMDB - Configuration management database. In any datacenter, there are huge no. of assets, which are generally scattered across the datacenter and some are kept also in the store as backup. Having said that over the time, the back devices are either forgotten or get end of life, without being used.
CMDB is a process within our tool, which keeps track of every inventory procured at some point of time in any particular project, till it either gets retired or fails during its lifecycle. It keeps the entire hierarchy of how various equipments are inter-twined in any project. Nomenclature of various equipment types, based on its location or project type. its warranty details, SLAs/SLTs, etc. CMDB also helps us in identifying the Impact of one product on another
The goal of a CMDB is to provide any Datacenter with the information needed to make better business decisions and run efficient processes to achieve that

Operations revolve around - * Datacenter Inventory and its maintenance management * Energy and Power management in any DC - DCIE and PUE * Process workflows - There are several processes like Data backups, Rack provisioning,etc, which work round the clock
A significant proportion of data center optimization takes place at the logical level. Operational workflows that govern the information flow, system design, engineering and business practices, and the end-to-end data center lifecycle procedures govern the effectiveness of the data center facility. Industry standards and organizations— including Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, The Green Grid, Open Compute Project, ITI and the TBM Council providing guidelines on managing data center operations.
These guidelines encompass the end-to-end lifecycle of data center operations, including: * Design and deployment * Management and troubleshooting * Decommissioning of data center components Organizations such as the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) provide guidelines on information systems and design architecture of the IT environment.

Global IT data center spending has reached $196 billion in 2021. Over 700 hyperscale data centers are operational around the world.
One of the most critical skills, which can often be overlooked, is the need to be able to define and follow process. In fact, this is a key customer requirement and fundamental customer expectation. Unless Data Center Managers are meticulous about process, they will be unable to succeed in the role.
These services are delivered to end-users at specific performance and dependency levels specified in the Service Level Agreements (SLAs). Additionally, these data center facilities operate in compliance with stringent global regulations such as ISO/IEC 27001, GDPR, HIPAA, and SOC 2, among others.

Assets in the store are more critical than those in production. Since ones in production are anyways under constant scrutiny. However the ones in the store would replace the failed pieces. and Incase the changed asset doesnt perform as well as the asset before. Pandemonium is likely.
We would keep a way of tracking the health of those assets also, which are not in production. The other areas of management would be -
- Asset identification and description.
- Hardware/software that resides in the data center, along with their configuration and asset lifecycle
- All physical data center infrastructure (racks, rack PDUs, patch panels, structured cabling, UPSs, with their hierarchical relationships with other tools
- Immediate availability of their physical location i.e. Store location, Rack location, U position and the most important being the rated power of all active assets

Data centers are among the highest consumers of electric power. Studies have shown that data center energy consumption continues to increase annually, with two identifiable trends.
Thanks to some good DCIM tool, Traditional data centers have decreased their energy demand globally, from around 97.6 terawatt-hours in 2015, to some 50 terawatt-hours in 2019, and a forecast indicated that this figure will reach nearly 30 terawatt-hours by 2023. On the other hand, hyperscaler data centers have doubled their energy demand in the same period of time. The total energy demand in 2015 was 190.7 terawatt-hours, while the demand in 2021 was 190.8 TWh. Possible only with a great DCIM tool

Artificial intelligence (AI) allows algorithms to play the traditional Data Center Infrastructure Manager (DCIM) role, watching power distribution, cooling efficiency, server workload, and cyber threats in real-time and to make efficiency adjustments automatically. AI can shift workloads to underutilized resources, detect potential component failures and balances resources in the pool. It does all this with little human interaction.

As in any other critical infrastructure, close to accurate capacity planning of any datacenter is a must. Thus data analytics is needed at all times. Too small and we could run out of space or power in a few years, rendering it obsolete. However oversize your data center, will decrease its overall efficiency and performance, leading to higher data cooling prices.
Continual maintenance will help your cooling system to stay up and running as efficiently as possible. Performance tends to fall off when filters are clogged or towers aren’t thoroughly cleaned. It is also wise to keep an eye on your internal heat loads and external ambient weather conditions, ensuring you’re optimizing them for high performance.
Computer room air handling systems are often coupled with air-side economizer units that can make use of cooler, drier outside air when the outside temperature is sufficiently low. The selection of a data center’s location — and subsequently its outside climate — will impact how much energy its cooling system will require for adequate heat transfer to occur

The traditional data center is built on a three-tier infrastructure with discreet blocks of compute, storage, and network resources allocated to support specific applications. In a hyper-converged infrastructure (HCI), the three tiers are combined into a single building block called a node. Multiple nodes can be clustered together to form a pool of resources that can be managed through a software layer. Part of the appeal of HCI is that it combines storage, computing, and networking into a single system to reduce complexity and streamline deployments across data centers, remote branches, and edge locations.