eWEEK content and product recommendations are editorially independent. We may make money when you click on links to our partners. Learn More.
Almost half of IT managers don’t know what is happening under the hood of their data centers, according to a survey from Intel DCM and Dell.
The survey found that only 53 percent of IT managers use data center infrastructure management (DCIM) systems, which can provide critical information about power and thermal usage, while also offering tangible ways to save money.
Additionally, on a weekly basis, 44 percent of IT managers experience power issues, and 37 percent experience cooling issues in their data centers.
“Outside of budget as one of the main roadblocks to implementing any new technology within IT, we also see that the actual ease of implementation is one of the biggest challenges,” Jeff Klaus, general manager of data center solutions at Intel, told eWEEK. “IT managers and data center operators are often overwhelmed by the thought of integrating a new solution, concerned with everything from how well, if at all, it will integrate with existing solutions or tools; how long it will take them to get up and running; the learning curve of the technology itself; and finally, [whether] the product will work as well as promised.”
Klaus explained this then perpetuates the idea that existing, typically manual, methodologies are good enough for measuring and forecasting power usage within the data center.
The survey also found that 55 percent of IT managers plan to reduce energy consumption by support infrastructure and 62 percent currently use power-management tools.
More than half (51 percent) use detailed power monitoring, and 54 percent said they plan to improve usage monitoring.
Forty percent said they raise the ambient air temperatures of their data centers, and 45 percent said they plan to reduce idle resource energy usage.
“As the survey data revealed, just over half of IT managers currently leverage DCIM solutions, revealing a large opportunity for data center solution providers, like Intel, to continually refine product offerings and concurrently educate the market on the depth and breadth of the products,” Klaus said. “Personally, I believe there is still a bit of work to accomplish on the education side, and with that we’ll continue to see more widespread adoption of DCIM technology in the coming year.”
He added that he thinks this is especially true since more organizations are rethinking their ecological footprint and looking to solutions that can help reduce costs while also increasing efficiencies.