According to new IDC research, CA Technologies, Emerson Network Power and Schneider Electric hold prominent positions within the “Leaders” category of the data centre infrastructure market (DCIM) for 2013, while several others, including Cormant, FieldView Solutions, iTRACS, Nlyte Software, Panduit and Raritan all hold strong positions as “Major Players”.
A new IDC MarketScape report reveals that the DCIM market is hitting its stride, with several providers realising strong growth and adoption and others struggling to survive in a competitive market.
Data centres are expanding to power the Third Platform, a new era of computing built on mobile devices and applications, cloud services, big data and analytics, and social technologies.
Expansion into new geographies, improvements in disaster recovery, and expansion of workloads beyond current power and processing capabilities of current data centres has challenged data centre managers to find ways to manage resources and change.
As data centres continue to evolve, managers must address a growing list of pain points.
“Data centre facilities and IT executives are dealing with delays in application rollouts, disrupted service to customers, unplanned spending for patches, an inability to roll out new products or services, and unplanned downtime,” says Richard Villars, VP: data centre and cloud at IDC.
“DCIM solutions can help manage these issues by providing consistent and complete information about data centre infrastructure.”
Data centre managers have many choices in how to best approach infrastructure management, and implementing a DCIM solution is a critical step in supporting business agility.
“Decisions on which provider to choose should transcend tactical capabilities such as asset management and environmental and power monitoring, and include strategic capabilities such as advanced analytics to ensure the long-term success of the implementation,” says Jennifer Koppy, research manager: data centre infrastructure at IDC.
Additional findings from IDC’s latest DCIM MarketScape report include:
* DCIM addresses a number of needs in data centre management – from change management and capacity planning to the efficient usage and allocation of resources;
* More than product functionality and even price, exceptional customer service is a key deciding factor in many DCIM purchase decisions; and
* A good DCIM solution offers an open architecture that supports full upstream and downstream transmission of data.