Voice Of The Customer: The Good, The Bad, And The Unwieldy Of DCIM Deployments

Data center infrastructure management (DCIM) is rapidly emerging as a solution to help IT infrastructure and operations (I&O) professionals improve data center operations and management. As multiple vendors release solutions and joust for early market share, all promise easy installation, rapid return on investment (ROI), and significant energy savings along with unmatched visibility into the innermost workings of the data center. To test these promises, Forrester interviewed 11 DCIM customers plus reviewed seven vendor case studies, in environments from 2,000 to more than 1 million square feet of data center floor space. The results validate the basic value propositions of DCIM technology. But customers struggle to integrate legacy configuration data into DCIM solutions, which increases the overall time to implement. I&O professionals should use these findings to assess the applicability of DCIM solutions to their current and future data center environments.