This was overheard last week from a seasoned data center veteran: DCIM largely failed to live up to its past promises...
What do you think? Another over-hyped hype cycle?
The technologies of modern, “smart” infrastructure management weren’t available a decade ago — or were rare and unaffordable –or seen as unnecessary — or certainly not in the sense of seconds of real-time immediacy. As a result, adopters of DCIM a decade ago — often themselves without a clear understanding of the business problems they wished to solve –- dove head-first into a “boiling-the-ocean” approach.
First, the term Internet of Things (IoT), coined in 1999, hadn’t yet been extrapolated to include DCIM. By anyone. Second, “Industry 4.0” notions weren’t articulated until 2011 as part of German government industrial policy. Even then, what was meant by it was vague, at best. No one ever has thought (to our knowledge) about DCIM as the data center manifestation of the Industrial IoT or the larger encompassing of digitally transformative Industry 4.0.
However, we at Modius now believe that’s just what it is.
The present term of art — “digital infrastructure” — places facilities infrastructure as being integral to, and inseparable from, IT infrastructure. The hype-cycle curve has now leveled. Smart DCIM now fits the modern context of hyperscale and hyperconvergence — real-time telemetry-gathered data — harmonized, orchestrated and presented for real-time operational insight – and importantly, for AI/ML analyses. Autonomously delivering real-time, intuitive end-to-end visibility and actionable knowledge. At any scale. With agility.
The true software-defined data center (SDDC; aka the Data-Driven Data Center) — first articulated in 2012 by former VMware CTO Steve Harrod, is well on its way to reality.
While we’re still a step away from full lights-out autonomy in the data center (and we may elect to remain that way for some indeterminant time), remote, real-time discovery, with executable, repeatable knowledge is now available.
What’s been missing is the right software solution to take advantage of all of this data.
Modius OpenData has been designed from the ground up to thrive in these environments. The heart of OpenData is built on data collection at scale. It just works. And our customers prove it every day for themselves and for their customers. OpenData can work together, independently, or integrate with your existing systems to deliver flow and capacity optimization, resilience, and component asset health.
And it’s why we are coming to DCW/Austin this year -and several other shows – to help people understand that Vertiv’s unplugging of Trellis wasn’t the end of DCIM but, instead, the validation of thoroughly modern DCIM.
Please let me know if this is a conversation you’d like to have with us —- the one where Modius OpenData epitomizes the smart convergence of OT physical facilities infrastructure management with IT infrastructure management to create the true present state of smart, integrated digital infrastructure management.
What we’re calling Data Center 4.0.
See us at Booth#936 at Data Center World (DCW) – Austin 2022. Or, better yet, let’s set up an appointment. We’ve got some great news to share with you.
