In the data center world there has been hype on DCIM. Multiple start-ups have tried to build businesses on DCIM. The electrical equipment supplier have added DCIM solutions. Yet DCIM has not taken off. I have had the pleasure or pain of seeing some DCIM implementations first hand and seen how they work or don’t.
So here are some of the reasons why I think DCIM has not lived up to its hype.
- Given the limited deployments many systems don’t scale well.
- Usability is not there yet. Main focus has been to just get things to work.
- Manual data entry is required too many times.
- Decision makers who choose DCIM are not the operations staff, so there is a disconnect from expectations and reality. Many people don’t know the operating expense of running a DCIM system.
- The data center market is actually a decreasing market from the total number of companies who are running data centers even though overall capacity is increasing.
- The big players have tried many of the services, and none is the killer app.
Given the hype is dying down it is pretty hard to launch a start-up targeting DCIM. I would expect DCIM teams within electrical suppliers is finding it harder to get more resources and money given the limited sales.
If a DCIM solution scaled to 100K+ of servers, was easy to use, automated data entry, bridged the reality of operations with executive expectations, a standard at the big data center users, then it would be the killer app.
I don’t see this happening any time soon. Do you? If you do which one of these can do it?