CASE STUDY
Computacenter Cloud Computing’s Data Centre A Cloud in Sight By Samantha Slater, Contributor, NETCOMMS europe
Samatha Slater reports on the adoption of DCIM tools in data centres, looking to cut the time that it takes to perform common tasks.
With more than 10,000 employees and revenues of over £2.5 billion, Computacenter is one of Europe’s leading independent providers of IT infrastructure services. The company advises customers on their IT strategy, implements solutions and manages their technology infrastructures, helping them to reduce costs, complexity and barriers to change. In January 2011, the company
launched Computacenter cloud computing (C3) to offer organisations the ability to adopt the cloud, using an optimal blend of onsite and offsite IT delivery models. Computacenter first started to
think about data centre infrastructure management (DCIM) when the company acquired Digica, a provider of data centre services, at the end of 2006. Digica focused on providing SAP outsourcing services and had data centres in Warrington, Leeds and Nottingham, plus an off shore operation in Cape Town, South Africa. Simon Brickett, Head of Data
Centre Services at Computacenter, was responsible for managing the integration of all of Digica’s data centres into the existing Computacentre estate. This was a challenge because Digica did not have effective data centre management systems in place so could not tell him centrally what assets or capacity availability they had. “Being successful in the
managed services business is all about driving down the cost of delivery by managing space, power, cooling and capacity while continuing to offer excellent service” explained Brickett. “This meant that I had to integrate the Digica estate and make it effective very quickly.” Brickett wanted a tool
Instant audit reports are available for each data centre.
that would enable him to plan and forecast the most effective use of both new and existing data centres to meet growing business demand. He also needed to track and manage the ever increasing costs of power through accurate metrics rather than manufacturers’ specifications.
52 NETCOMMS europe Volume II, Issue 1 2011 Decisions, Decisions
Brickett felt sure that there must be a better solution than the Microsoft Excel spreadsheets they were currently using, and he started to research DCIM tools. His research led him to a short-list
of three possible solutions – continuing to use Excel, Vista from Aperture and nlyte’s DCIM suite. According to Brickett, nlyte’s solution stood out through its ease of use, visual representation, flexibility for integration with existing toolsets and rapid implementation potential. The new solution has drastically cut
the time it takes to do many common data centre tasks. Computacenter no longer has to undertake a manual two week audit every time maintenance work needs to be scheduled. Maintenance can be planned and scheduled immediately using accurate and up-to-date information. Full data centre estate audit time has been cut from three weeks to less than one week, which resulted in a cost saving. Instant Key Performance Indicator
(KPI) audit reports are available for each data centre, giving staff complete confidence in the status of all their data centre equipment and enabling more effective planning and decision making while cutting the risk of error. The data is accurate because it is
based on real-time rather than static
information.The capacity planning and management functionality enables rapid understanding of hall thresholds and ensures that cabinets and floor standing assets are placed in the most suitable locations. With this level of information, plans can be made for optimum data centre utilisation while drawing the minimum amount of power and cooling. Having access to power draw and historic power information over a period of time through integration with power strips enables the company to have an almost real-time (30 minute) view of the running cost of each asset in the data centre. Usage and lifecycle replacement can be planned accordingly. Immediate visibility of data centre
power and floor space capacity gives the company the ability to map capability against overall revenue and revenue per rack. Customers can be
charged for their actual power usage rather than an estimated share of overall data centre power consumption. This will become even more important when data centres have to start paying their share of the UK Government’s Carbon Reduction Commitment Energy Efficiency Scheme (CRC EES) carbon tax bill. Bespoke reports for each customer also highlight potential issues and areas where improvements can be made, and facilitate discussion of service and planning at an individual customer level. In addition, data centre staff have
been freed from spending hours producing management reports. The solution provides immediate access to a wide range of tailored graphical reports including real time power, remaining cooling, cabinet heat load and free space. “With nlyte, and its advanced
analytic capabilities, we have been able to gain control over our data centres. The ability to view, model and predict our data centre power, cooling and space requirements in near real-time enables us to make the most effective use of our distributed estate” said Brickett. “In addition, we can deliver to our customers services tailored to meet their exact requirements, and help them to minimise their data centre energy usage and carbon footprint.” Brickett’s message to anyone looking
to implement DCIM is to treat it as both a solution and a process change. To ensure success, a company must have the right processes in place to support DCIM adoption and must also make sure that the solution and accompanying processes are adopted by everyone involved. “It never ceases to surprise me
that there are major data centres in operation today that don’t have a DCIM tool.” he concluded. “Many data centres are designed using theory by data centre architects who use manufacturers’ specifications. Unlike people operating those data centres, we know what is really happening in our data centres. This means that we can run them to the optimum efficiency and pass these benefits on to our customers.”
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