What is data center infrastructure management (DCIM)?

Data center infrastructure management (DCIM) encompasses the processes and technologies used to monitor, measure, and manage the physical and virtual infrastructure of a data center. DCIM utilizes tools, software, and applications to track a variety of key areas within data centers, such as:

• Physical infrastructure: This type of monitoring employs methods that include sensors, cameras, and facility management software to verify the health of equipment and the status of security threats, equipment failures, and other potential anomalies.
• Capacity Management: A reliable and always available power supply is a crucial requirement in a data center. DCIM software tracks power capacity, network bandwidth, rack space, and cooling capacity. This helps data center operators understand when server racks are running out of space and deploy new equipment when necessary. It can also help investigate the causes of high power consumption and improve cooling efficiency.
• Security: DCIM monitors various aspects of security in data centers, such as:

1. 1. 1. Physical security: This includes preventing unauthorized access and malicious activity, blocking the use of cameras, monitoring door locks and other sensors to detect intrusions and provide alerts.
      2. Environmental safety: Environmental conditions such as dust, humidity, and temperature can be hazardous and threaten the smooth operation of data centers. DCIM systems help reduce the risk of equipment being exposed to these hazards. Equipment in data centers consumes a significant amount of energy, therefore it is crucial to ensure that airflow in a data center is cooled and monitored to prevent equipment overheating. Humidity in a data center must be within a specific range to prevent corrosion.
      3. Asset security: DCIM monitors data center assets, such as storage devices, network equipment, and servers, to identify unauthorized activity on critical assets.
      4. Logical security: System logs, network traffic, and other data are monitored by DCIM to alert personnel to suspicious activity, data breaches, and network breaches.

What can a DCIM monitor?

Data center infrastructure management, or DCIM, uses monitoring tools to gather asset data to help improve operational efficiencies across the organization. These can be divided into different levels, including:

1. IT (Information Technology) Equipment:

• Servers: Monitors operational status, temperature, CPU utilization, memory, and storage.
• Storage devices: Controls available space, performance, and data integrity.
• Network switches: Monitor connectivity, bandwidth, data traffic, and network performance.
• Routers and Firewalls: Manage network connectivity, security settings, and traffic monitoring.

2. Security and Access Control:

• Access Control Systems: Monitors the entry and exit of authorized personnel, records access events, and controls access to restricted areas.
• Security Cameras: Monitors security activities and events in real time, records videos, and captures images for later analysis.

3. Physical Environment:

• Temperature and Humidity Sensors: Monitors environmental conditions to ensure they are within acceptable limits.
• Water Detection Sensors: Detects leaks or flooding to prevent damage to equipment.
• Smoke and Fire Sensors: Monitors the presence of smoke and triggers alarms in case of fire.

4. Asset Management:

• Equipment Inventory: Maintains a detailed record of all IT assets and data center infrastructure, including location information, status, and maintenance history.

While DCIM (Data Center Infrastructure Management) systems play a crucial role in the efficient management of a data center's physical and logical resources, there is still a need for a more detailed, innovative, and complementary approach to certain infrastructure levels that elevates operational intelligence to a new level, such as:

Electrical Infrastructure:

• PDUs (Power Distribution Units): Monitoring and prediction of problems in power distribution, load, consumption, and power supply status.
• UPSs (Uninterruptible Power Supply Systems): Monitoring of battery capacity, power status, runtime, early identification of anomalies.
• Generators: Controls operational status, fuel level, and availability for operation in case of power failure, as well as condition-based maintenance control of the equipment.

Refrigeration Infrastructure:

• Air conditioning units: Monitors ambient temperature, humidity, airflow, compressor temperature, voltage, and current for early problem prediction.
• Fans: Controls operating status, rotation speed, and airflow.
• Cooling towers: Monitoring and control of pumps and compressors, including inlet and outlet water temperature, voltage, current, humidity, temperature, and vibration.

What are the main differences between a DCIM and a Bridgemeter?

1. Focus on Anticipation and Prevention: Bridgemeter goes beyond simply monitoring and managing physical infrastructure. By using advanced intelligence algorithms, it anticipates potential failures and anomalies, enabling proactive interventions to prevent disruptions and maximize operational availability.
2. Additional Intelligence Offering: In addition to monitoring physical parameters such as temperature and humidity, Bridgemeter offers additional intelligence through predictive analytics. It identifies patterns and trends, providing valuable insights to optimize energy efficiency, plan future capacities, and improve data center resource utilization.
3. Interaction with the Maintenance Team: Bridgemeter streamlines and reduces the time to correct identified problems by directly communicating with the field team, generating corrective tasks with relevant documentation for the equipment in question.
4. Adaptability: With its ability to adapt to new conditions and environments in real time, Bridgemeter allows for a rapid response to operational changes. This ensures that data center operators can make informed and agile decisions, whether regarding service or changes in monitoring intelligence/configuration.
5. Seamless Integration with DCIM: Bridgemeter doesn't replace existing DCIM systems; rather, it enhances them and excels in connectivity and data integration by supporting over 150 different communication protocols. This means it can connect to any sensor, PLC (Programmable Logic Controller), or existing equipment in the data center, adding DCIM connectivity and allowing for the collection of denser and more varied information. This capability facilitates rapid system deployment, providing a smarter, more comprehensive view of data center operations. Furthermore, Bridgemeter acts as middleware for multi-sector connectivity, enabling seamless data integration from different systems and equipment throughout the data center environment.
6. Raising the Standard of Efficiency: By offering a complete and integrated solution for data center management, Bridgemeter raises the standard of operational efficiency and reliability. Its ability to provide real-time insights and support strategic decision-making makes it an essential component for any modern data center environment.

In short, Above-Net 's Bridgemeter not only differentiates itself from traditional DCIM systems, but also elevates their effectiveness and usefulness by adding intelligence and advanced analytical capabilities to data center environments. By adopting Bridgemeter, organizations can achieve a new level of operational excellence and ensure maximum availability of their critical services.

Thermal monitoring as a data center monitoring tool

Thermal monitoring is the process of collecting and analyzing data about the temperature of critical electrical assets in a data center.

Thermal monitoring is used in data centers to monitor the temperature of equipment and electrical infrastructure to prevent overheating and, therefore, equipment failure. This is an important element that contributes to power availability and system uptime.

Increased temperature, especially at electrical joints and busbars, is a warning sign that potential problems may exist, such as a loose or compromised connection. If left unchecked, there is an increased risk of electrical equipment failure, which can put personnel working in the vicinity of these critical electrical assets at greater risk. Monitoring the temperature of electrical joints and busbars helps not only to avoid downtime and damage to critical infrastructure that could otherwise lead to reduced efficiency, corrupted data, or equipment failure, but also helps to keep personnel safe around the assets.

Data center operators face several challenges, but equipment overheating is one of the most critical. Equipment overheating can lead to unplanned downtime, which has a detrimental effect on service reliability for customers and leads to significant financial and reputational costs. As data reliance increases, there is a greater need for technologies such as continuous thermal monitoring to help prevent disruptions and avoid unplanned downtime.

The adoption of thermal monitoring in data centers is accelerating because it is helping engineering teams minimize damage to equipment and reduce the likelihood of outages that can result from undetected failures.

Thermal monitoring methods in data centers

Thermal monitoring can be implemented in data centers in several ways, including:

1. Continuous Thermal Monitoring (CTM): CTM is a condition-based monitoring approach that can replace periodic inspection using thermal imaging (IR) cameras. It's a proactive way to monitor the temperature of electrical infrastructure in data centers and other industries that utilize critical infrastructure. It involves using sensors to continuously measure and monitor the temperature of various electrical assets throughout the data center, providing real-time data on the health of the monitored assets. The sensors provide real-time temperature data, alerting personnel to temperature increases before they exceed safe limits. The data from these sensors can then be collected and analyzed to make informed decisions and identify potential failures. These sensors can be integrated into intelligent IoT monitoring systems providing alarms, notifications, trends, and analytics, aiding in predictive maintenance.
2. Thermal Imaging Cameras: The use of thermal imaging cameras, or IR thermography, is another method of thermal monitoring. These cameras capture images of the heat emitted by electrical equipment. Hot spots and other problems that may not be obvious to the naked eye can be found using thermal cameras. This approach was historically popular, but is rapidly being replaced by more predictive approaches, such as CTM, described above.
3. Audits and maintenance: This is a preventive maintenance approach that is carried out at regular intervals to ensure that refrigeration, HVAC (Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning) systems and other critical infrastructure are operating optimally.

Benefits of thermal monitoring for data centers

• Preventing overheating: Hot spots and overheating are major causes of data center equipment failures. Strategically positioned sensors continuously take temperature readings at various locations, including server racks and bus or bus distribution systems. The system indicates when temperatures exceed set limits. Thermal monitoring helps prevent data center equipment from overheating.
• Increasing equipment longevity: Critical data center equipment, such as server racks, distribution frames, and storage devices, can benefit from an extended lifespan when asset temperature and facility humidity are monitored and controlled. Over time, this results in reduced maintenance costs for critical equipment.
• Preventing unexpected power outages: Power outages are often unplanned, and downtime is detrimental and costly for data centers. Implementing continuous thermal monitoring of critical assets alerts personnel to potential risks before failure occurs.
• Improving productivity: With early detection of compromised joints and connections in electrical assets, power outages are reduced. Data centers depend significantly on power availability. Monitoring the temperature of critical electrical connections improves equipment reliability, helping to improve performance and productivity.

Building greater resilience in data centers is fundamental for owners and operators to run reliable and sustainable facilities that meet future demands. Maintaining electrical efficiency and safety is essential; therefore, monitoring the temperature of critical assets helps to understand where potential failures in critical equipment are likely to occur before an outage. Alerts from temperature monitoring provide information that can be used to schedule predictive maintenance and a more proactive approach for operational personnel.

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