How Modern DCIM Addresses CIO
Management Challenges within
Distributed, Hybrid IT Environments
White Paper 281
Version 3

by Patrick Donovan

Executive summary
The role of today’s CIO is expanding and becoming morechallenging. The days of managing a single enterprise data
center are over. Business requirements are forcing CIOs tohybridize their data center and IT portfolio architecture byplacing IT capacity in colocation facilities and building out
capacity at the local edge – sometimes in a big way. In addition to managing and maintaining resilient and secure operations at all these sites, they are now being asked to report on the sustainability of their IT operations. Software
management tools need to evolve in order for CIOs to dotheir jobs effectively. Through examples, the paper explains
how modern DCIM platforms are a critical tool for making
hybrid enterprise IT more resilient, secure, and sustainable.

RATE THIS PAPERSchneider Electric – Energy Management Research Center White Paper 281 Ver 3 2

Introduction

It is widely reported 1, 2 that the role of a Chief Information Officer (CIO) is experiencing a sea change. IT is now at the center of business strategy as digital technologies power and sustain the global economy. The criticality of IT in every aspect ofbusiness has driven CIOs from just filling the tactical role of deploying, operating,and maintaining IT to also focusing on business strategy. CIOs increasingly have aleading role in driving business innovation, aligning IT projects with business goals,
digitalizing business operations, and leading corporate organization change programs, for example. This role expansion has made their job more critical and complex.
What has not been as widely reported, however, is that the traditional CIO role of IT
service delivery has become more critical and complex as well. After all, a CIO’s
impact on business strategy and execution depends on continuous IT service delivery. As shown in Figure 1, the success of a CIO is ultimately rooted in a solid foundation of maintaining resilient, secure, and sustainable IT operations. But, in an environment of highly distributed hybrid IT, this becomes harder to do.
CIO successdepends on asolid foundation

Figure 1

CIO success in both theirbusiness and traditionalroles of IT service delivery
are dependent on maintaining resilient, secure,and sustainable IT operations. DCIM is a critical
tool for building and sustaining that foundation.

IMPACT ON CUSTOMERS,PARTNERS, INVESTORSBusiness
Role
Innovate &digitalize

IT Service Delivery Role
Workloads, apps & services•

Offers & services•

Business models•

Engagement•

Experience•

Brand / image

Servers, storage & networking
Power & cooling infrastructure

RESILIENTSECURESUSTAINABLE

Modern data center infrastructure management (DCIM) software, optimized for distributed environments, plays an important role in maintaining this foundation for hybrid data center environments with distributed IT infrastructure. In this paper, wefirst describe the evolution of enterprise IT portfolios and the management challenges that result. We then explain how DCIM software has also evolved and provide real-world examples to demonstrate how DCIM improves resiliency, enhances
both physical and cybersecurity, and drives progress on environmental sustainability goals.

Evolution ofenterprise data
center and IT
portfolios

Fro m c e n tra lize d , o n -p re m is e to d is trib u te d , h yb rid IT
From the 1990s through the early 2000s, for a given enterprise corporation, IT portfolios tended to be contained in a few centralized, on-premise data centers. Thischanged, of course, when cloud computing and data center colocation providers
emerged and became widespread. Today enterprises increasingly have both
1
2

https://www.digital-adoption.com/cio-role/

https://mitsloan.mit.edu/ideas-made-to-matter/cio-role-changing-heres-whats-horizon

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Schneider Electric – Energy Management Research Center White Paper 281 Ver 3 3
owned and leased IT physical and virtual assets spread across many more locations. This is referred to as “hybrid IT” or “hybrid computing environments”. This
growing sophistication complicates operations and maintenance by making it moredifficult for CIOs and their operations teams to maintain visibility and control over all
assets and view them in aggregate.
This geographic distribution of IT infrastructure and assets is further intensifying
due to the growth of critical IT deployments at the edge of networks. Digitalization,
the need to reduce network latency, and the desire to reduce network bandwidthcosts, are working together to drive more enterprise IT compute and storage capacity deployments at the ends of the network, closer to users. White Paper 226,
The Drivers and Benefits of Edge Computing, delves further into this. These edge
computing deployments are being done by cloud and colocation providers, as well
as by enterprises themselves. Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) predicts (see Figure 2) that by 2025, 50% of enterprise compute will be at the edge of the networkwith only 20% in core, on-premise data centers and the rest in the public cloud 3.
This means the typical enterprise now exists in a very complex hybrid IT environment with power & cooling infrastructure systems and IT assets highly distributed
across an increasing number of sites, many of which are small, unstaffed, and operated in a “lights out” fashion.
In 2000…
The core-driven enterprise

By 2025…
The distributed enterprise

Figure 2

HPE predicts a highly
distributed, hybrid IT
environment forenterprises

100%

20%

30%

50%

Note, all of this is further complicated, of course, by the fact that CIOs must also
keep track of and manage IT assets increasingly used for work-from-home (WFH)
and other remote work scenarios. Although this is generally outside the scope ofdata center infrastructure management (DCIM) software tools today, and so is outside the scope of this paper, some more advanced residential UPSs are able to collect and report energy information that could be used for sustainability metrics
across the WFH population. The additional complication of managing widely distributed WFH IT makes effective software management tools more of an imperative
since good tools simplify and automate management tasks.
This complex environment creates unique management challenges for your IT infrastructure management team. Table 1 lists some of the more common difficulties
that arise.

3

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IouhGfmHSZEHow Modern DCIM Addresses CIO Management Challenges within Distributed, Hybrid IT
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Challenge

Description & impact

Vis ib ility o f mu ltip le ,g e o g ra ph ic a lly d is pe rs e d
s ite sInability to see all assets in aggregate and remainsituationally aware of what is happening particularly
with adds, moves, changes, and security patch/firmware updates. Not knowing aggregate environmental sustainability impact or security status of infrastructure assets.

La c king o n -s ite s ta ff

Lack of on-site visibility and an inability to respond toproblems; Being unaware of who might be accessing equipment. Increased likelihood of unplanned
downtime, cost to maintain, and time to resolve issues.

Re c e iving la rg e nu mbe rs
o f a la rms a nd s ta tu s
c h a n ge no tific a tio n s

The need for “eyes and ears” at all locations means
potentially thousands of environmental and device
sensors are reporting status and alarm notifications.
The alarm “storms” can overwhelm users and resultin missed critical notifications and wasted effort.

Ma in ta in in g a la rge fle e t o f
d is pe rs e d e q u ip me n t a nds o ftwa re

The distributed, “lights out” nature of the smallersites makes cost-effective maintenance a challenge
as it is likely not practical to have trained staff at
every site with replacement parts.

Table 1

Common management
challenges that result
from complex hybrid IT
environments that include
multiple local edge sites

These challenges can present themselves in many ways. Here are some examples
we have heard…
• Having to calculate the carbon footprint of IT operations• Trying to remotely troubleshoot a problem with a store clerk or security guard• Making sense of a storm of “UPS on battery” – “UPS online” alarms• Getting a call that “something” is beeping or flashing its lights• Figuring out how to deploy security patch updates to dozens or hundreds ofsites• Servers unexpectedly rebooting at a site while service personnel perform
maintenance, but no way to know for sure if they caused it• Trying to forecast power capacity needs during budget cycle time
• Wondering who is accessing remote IT installations• Having enough IT staffing resources to manage all these tasks (without software management tools)• Having visibility into IT infrastructure at colocation sites

Evolution of CIO
focus in their traditional role of IT
service delivery

There has been a shift in CIO focus and in the management priorities of their operations teams. New management priorities and responsibilities in turn, places new requirements on DCIM software tools today. CIOs must focus more on maintaining resiliency and security in more places, as well as tracking and improving environmental sustainability of IT operations overall. It is not that these topics were unknown or
unimportant before, but the complex, distributed nature of hybrid IT along with theenterprise’s increasing dependence on all IT make these tasks more challenging
and imperative today.

How Modern DCIM Addresses CIO Management Challenges within Distributed, Hybrid IT
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Schneider Electric – Energy Management Research Center White Paper 281 Ver 3 5“Bo u n d a ryle s s d a ta c e n te rs ” d rive s n e e d fo r re s ilie n c y e ve rywh e re
“The traditional four walls and a ceiling no longer contain the datacenter. The logical datacenter construct now extends to cloud providers, colocation facilities, edge
devices, and edge computing. Today’s datacenter exists without clear boundaries,
creating growing complexity. The new hybrid computing environment is now muchharder to operate as performance, reliability, compliance, and security are all moredifficult to manage 4.”
As stated by the quote shown above from CIO.com, as traditional data centerboundaries break down, IT operations are occurring everywhere now essentially.
And this means that IT infrastructure, wherever it is located, needs to be treatedmore as a traditional data center power and cooling infrastructure would be treated,i.e., as mission critical. As more and more IT service delivery is driven remotelyfrom the edge, the reliability and uptime of those distributed assets becomes morecritical to the business. This is not to say, of course, that all IT infrastructure, applications, and workloads have the same level of criticality. But, in general, IT installations found outside the traditional “brick n’ mortar” data centers are just as critical
today and, therefore, require improved infrastructure and management practices.
As explained in Schneider Electric white paper 256, “Why Cloud Computing is Requiring Us to Rethink Resiliency at the Edge”, small, remote on-premise IT installations have commonly been seen lacking security and redundancy, with unorganized
IT enclosures or racks, and typically run without dedicated cooling or DCIM monitoring. Since any one of these conditions presents a threat to availability, CIOs must
address these conditions where they exist. A best practice for mitigating these risks
is to deploy IT at the edge using micro data centers. These all-in-one enclosures
securely contain servers, networking, and storage along with an uninterruptable
power supply (UPS), rack power distribution, cooling, environmental monitoring,and DCIM monitoring. How DCIM itself helps ensure IT resiliency is explained in thenext section.

Dis trib u te d IT m a ke s s e c u rity a to p c o n c e rn
Obviously, if critical IT assets are widely deployed outside the confines of tightly
controlled and staffed data centers, security is going to be a serious concern. A
2020 IDC survey 5 confirms that it is a top concern for CIOs (Figure 3). This worry
spans both physical and cyber security. The Allianz Risk Barometer report published in 2022 ranked “cyber incidents” as the top business risk for enterprises today with “business interruption” ranked closely behind in second place.

4
5

CIO.com, Don’t be left behind. Dramatic change is impacting datacenters and people

Source: IDC White Paper, Succeeding at Connected Operations with Edge Computing

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Figure 3

A 2020 IDC survey
shows that security ofedge IT installations is a
top concern for CIOs
and IT operations
teams.

Compared to highly controlled purpose-built data centers, remote unstaffed IT installations are naturally going to be more vulnerable to having unauthorized people
access the installation either intentionally or unintentionally (e.g., cleaning crew
plugging vacuum in to a rack plug strip) that leads to business interruptions. So,
finding and implementing a secure location for every installation is a challenge.
Also because of hybrid IT, protecting against cybersecurity threats becomes agreater challenge. Larger numbers of network connections that result from decentralized IT installations provide cyber criminals with larger numbers of attack vectors to exploit. The more outside network connections there are, the more security
monitoring that must be done, and the greater the likelihood of a human error occurring that exposes a system vulnerability. Security software tools, including DCIM,
are required to remotely monitor and automate security best practices as much as
possible.

CIOs in c re a s in g ly a s ke d to tra c k e n viro n m e n ta l im p a c t o f IT
While CIOs and their operations teams are struggling to maintain resiliency and security of their expanding universe of IT, there is growing pressure to track, measure,report, and reduce the environmental impact of their enterprise IT operations. Thispressure is coming from governments, investors, customers, and internally, perhaps, out of a sense of having a shared responsibility to address climate change.
Schneider Electric white paper 64, Why Data Centers Must Prioritize Environmental
Sustainability: Four Key Drivers, explains in detail why CIOs will have to focus much
more on this in the future.
However, CIOs are struggling today to answer even the fundamental sustainability
questions such as, how much energy does my IT consume and what is the carbon
footprint? What can the IT department do alone to reduce emissions? For IT outsourced to the cloud or located in colocation providers, the onus can, to some degree, be put on the vendor to provide data for the relevant metrics. For on-premiseIT, however, the CIO will be tasked with collecting the disparate data. While perhaps for some enterprises, this portion might be very small and seemingly inconsequential, for many, CIO owned on-premise IT assets represents a much larger
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Schneider Electric – Energy Management Research Center White Paper 281 Ver 3 7
portion of their overall portfolio. A Schneider Electric analysis 6 (Figure 4) shows how
the share of energy consumed by IT will shift over time illustrating clearly that distributed IT is going to be a bigger sustainability challenge than traditional core data
centers (which includes centralized large cloud and colocation data center energy).
Cumulative global core & distributed IT data center energy (TWh)Figure 4

3,000Schneider Electric
TradeOff Tool 28, Data
Center and Edge Global
Energy Forecast, shows
what the share of energy
consumed by IT could be
between core data centers and edge computing
sites over time.

2,500Core center
Data Center
Data

Distributed IT Data Center
Edge

TWh

2,000
1,500
1,000
500
0

2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 2026 2027 2028 2029 2030 2031 2032 2033 2034 2035 2036 2037 2038 2039 2040

Year

How DCIM
makes hybrid IT
more resilient

Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) software tools communicate withpower, cooling, environmental monitoring devices, as well as with other facility andIT management software. DCIM has been fundamentally used to maximize the efficient use of power, cooling, and space resources. Well-implemented, DCIM improves the availability and resiliency of physical infrastructure systems and the IT
workloads they support. Most DCIM suites offer 2 core functions:• Monitoring & device management – awareness of device/environmental
health and security status changes, trends, and alarms• Planning & modeling – simulating adds, moves, changes; risk analysis, capacity optimization
Both functions work to improve and sustain resiliency of the IT.

Ho w m o n ito rin g & d e vic e m a n a g e m e n t im p ro ve s re s ilie n c yOperation of IT equipment – either in a core data center or a remote edge IT site depends on stable electrical power, sufficient ventilation (or active cooling), as well
as a secure location that is safe from unauthorized access or exposure to otherphysical and environmental threats. These dependencies mean that a highly resilient IT installation requires monitoring and management of the infrastructure equipment with DCIM software tools. This is particularly so for remote, unstaffed sites.
You cannot effectively manage something that cannot be seen, after all. Waiting toolong to discover there’s a problem with the supporting power and cooling infrastructure will lead to business interruption. DCIM software provides that remote visibility and early warning in conjunction with device and environmental sensors andcameras. These are summarized in Table 2 below. White Paper 280, Practical
Guide to Ensuring Availability at Edge Computing Sites, goes beyond the DCIM
system and describes specific actions to take to improve availability of the powerand cooling systems that support small, remote IT installations.

6

Source: Core & Distributed IT Data Center Global Energy Forecast TradeOff Tool

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Table 2

Resiliency benefits of DCIM monitoring and device management functions

Function

Description

Resiliency impact

De vic e &e n viro n me n ta l
mo n ito ring

Provides a “read only” connection to all criticalinfrastructure devices (e.g., UPS, rack PDU,
cooling, etc.) – regardless of vendor – to monitor status, access & alarms in real time.

Awareness of status changes, trends, and alarms
prevents issues from becoming critical incidents
that could lead to IT service interruptions. Monitoring for unauthorized access to equipment reduce
physical security risks.

De vic ema n a g e me nt

Provides a means by which infrastructure devices can be configured (e.g., alarm thresholds, communication settings) and their firmware updated.

Configuration & updates ensures equipment performs as expected and helps secure the overallsystem from cyber security threats.

As s e t tra c kin g

Provides a holistic view of all assets, including
their location, name, status, etc.

IT resiliency requires having an asset inventory
and understanding their attributes and resource
dependencies, particularly when conducting
maintenance activities.

Da ta a na lytic s &vis ua liza tion

Presents useful and actionable information on
device status, alarms, and the health of the infrastructure systems and their environment
through simple dashboards and reports.

Raw device data, frequent status change notifications, and “alarm storms” can overwhelm users;
analytics and clear visualization of data makes
DCIM use simpler and more effective to ensure
critical alerts do NOT go unnoticed. Predict battery
failures ahead of time to avoid unplanned outages.

3 rd p a rty p la tfo rm
in te g ra tion

Allows DCIM data to be shared with a remotemonitoring and management (RMM) tool orbuilding management system (BMS) using application programming interfaces (APIs) or an
SNMP management information base (MIB).

Managed service providers (MSPs) commonly
manage edge computing IT and use their own
management platforms; sharing DCIM data withthese tools solves “lack of staff” challenge by enabling trusted partners to manage it for you. Ensures visibility even when you do not have the staff
to do it.

Particularly with highly distributed IT portfolios, resiliency depends first on using
DCIM to monitor critical power and cooling systems and the environmental monitoring sensors that support the IT. Next, we show how DCIM planning and modeling
functions improve resiliency to sustain business operations.

Ho w p la n n in g & m o d e lin g im p ro ve s re s ilie n c y
Hybrid IT environments make for a challenging operations environment given theircriticality to business operations. Careful coordination and planning are required
between facilities and IT when it comes to adds, moves, and changes. The potential
impact on system availability can be so severe that each operational task must be
carefully evaluated in terms of its net effect on availability. DCIM planning and modeling modules provide the means to do this careful evaluation.
This function begins with creating and maintaining an accurate map of all infrastructure assets and IT equipment along with their interdependencies with each other.
Once setup, the software will map a given virtual machine (VM) to a specific:• Physical host server and network port
• U space• IT rack• Power path(s) (i.e., path A and/or B showing Rack PDU, UPS, PDU, switchgear)• Cooling units

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In 2D and 3D views, DCIM planning & modeling modules will show real-time capacities of all resources (e.g., power, cooling, rack space, network switches, and cabling). Policies can be set down to the workload level to ensure workloads receive
the required level of criticality (e.g., the VM can only reside on a host with 2N power
redundancy or a UPS with xx minutes of runtime).
By creating, in effect, a “digital twin” (in both 2D and 3D, typically) of your portfolioof data centers and edge IT sites, this DCIM function simulates adds, moves, andchanges so that operators understand the potential impacts before real action istaken. By first performing actions virtually, the risk of an unplanned interruption in IT
service, as maintenance is performed, is minimized. Particularly when there’s no onsite IT staff, having this digital visualization of all assets and their interdependencies
is important. Note, with all assets fully documented (type, serial number, rack location, network port, power path, etc.) and mapped to each other, this information
could also serve as a basis for a disaster recovery (DR) plan.
Imagine needing to “swap and replace” all your remotely located UPSs. With DCIM
planning and modeling functionality, you would understand – without being on site which physical servers, virtual workloads, and applications were dependent oneach of the UPSs. Turning the UPS off and switching to a redundant power path
could be simulated to understand what the impact would be on connected workloads and applications. Affected critical workloads could be identified and safely
migrated to another server or site before the UPS replacement takes place. This information and the ability to run simulations makes it easier to plan and execute theactual transition while reducing the chances of an unexpected outage.
The following bullets summarize some example ways that DCIM planning and modeling functions can improve resiliency of the IT:• Prevent VMs or physical servers from being moved or added to locations withinsufficient power and cooling capacities that could otherwise result in system
downtime.

• Be alerted to an unexpected change in power capacity to avoid a sudden outage when the circuit becomes overloaded and trips a breaker.

• Reduce risk of human error during maintenance activities through fault simulations.
• Integrate with virtual machine management software to initiate VM migration
once the UPS reaches a low battery state or fault condition to avoid an unintended loss of service.
• Use work order management tools to better ensure critical maintenance isproperly scheduled, assigned, defined, and carried through before a failure
occurs.

• Simulate a replacement of a UPS to understand what workloads would be affected during the changeover so that they can be moved proactively to a location that meets its requirements.

How DCIM
improves
security

As mentioned previously, widely distributed, hybrid IT means an increase in thenumber of networked devices and in overall network connections to the outside
world. This increase provides more opportunity for cybercriminals to attempt tobreach security measures to access the IT and/or the physical infrastructure systems that support them. In recent years, according to the CyberEdge Group’s recent Cyberthreat Defense Report, there has been a 40% increase (over 7 years) incompanies that have been compromised by a cyber-attack, going from 61.9% to

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86.2% of surveyed enterprise companies 7. Choosing cybersecurity-conscious vendors, implementing, and maintaining the right technologies and network architecture, along with constant vigilance by the operations team is an imperative today.
White Paper 216, Cybersecurity Guidance for Data Center Power and Cooling Infrastructure Systems provides an in-depth framework for preventing the supporting infrastructure managed by DCIM software from becoming a successful target forcyber-attacks.
It is often said that cybersecurity begins with physical security. Particularly for remote, unstaffed edge computing sites, maintaining physical security can also be achallenge without having the right software tools. Given the criticality of the IT, it isimperative for operations teams to secure and control access to the IT enclosures, if
not also to the rooms that they are housed in and have remote visibility to the locations where the IT is housed through security cameras.
DCIM software has not traditionally been the tool to turn to for either cyber or physical security functionality. With the development of hybrid IT and edge computing,however, modern, and effective DCIM solutions evolved to incorporate these capabilities. The next two sub-sections explain what those capabilities are.

Ho w DCIM re d u c e s c yb e rs e c u rity ris ks
Devices monitored by DCIM – ie, Rack PDUs, UPSs, cooling units, and environmental monitoring appliances, etc. - all have built-in network management cards thatenable the device to communicate on the network. All of these devices, as well as
the DCIM server and gateway must always be kept up to date with the latest firmware or software patches. Note that a network-connected infrastructure device contains both device firmware and network management card firmware and/or software. It is important that both are kept up to date. Cyber criminals are constantly
working to find vulnerabilities in existing code in order to hijack devices to steal
data, control devices, cause outages, etc. New firmware and software patches not
only fix bugs and provide additional performance enhancements, but they often address known security vulnerabilities. These code updates should be installed or applied as soon as they become available from the vendor. This requires on-goingdiscipline from the operations team.
The security features and settings that were enabled and configured during the initial setup and installation, also need to be maintained throughout the life of the infrastructure device, network appliance, or management server/gateway. By minimizing
the number of users with the ability to change these settings, you reduce thechances of unintended or non-permitted changes being made. Beyond that, thesesettings should be checked regularly to ensure they remain set properly over time.
DCIM tools with a security assessment feature as shown in Figure 5 can simplify allof this work described above significantly, at least, for power and cooling infrastructure devices. These assessments will scan all connected devices across the entire
IT portfolio to provide a report highlighting out of date firmware and compromised
security settings. Some DCIM tools will also automate the updating of firmware andprovide a means to perform mass configurations of security settings across multiple
devices at once to greatly simplify the process.

7

https://cyber-edge.com/cdr/

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Figure 5This screenshot shows an example of a DCIM security assessment feature from
Schneider Electric’s
EcoStruxure Data Center IT
Expert software tool. The feature assesses which devices
are not meeting security
standards in terms of firmware
being up to date and whether
there any vulnerable configurations.

Ho w DCIM re d u c e s p h ys ic a l s e c u rity ris ks
Data center environmental monitoring appliances can be used to not just detect/tracktemperature, humidity, fluid leaks, smoke, and vibration, but they also typically integrate with security cameras, door sensors, and access cards. Monitored and controlled
through DCIM software, these appliances help remote operations teams monitor andtrack human activity around critical IT as well as environmental conditions that could
equally threaten the resiliency of business operations. Figure 6 shows an example environmental monitoring appliance and camera system interface as part of an overall
DCIM implementation.

Figure 6

This is a screenshot of aSchneider Electric NetBotz 750,
an example environmental
monitoring appliance and camera system, to show how devices like this can be used tomonitor and track unmanned
distributed sites.

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How DCIM helps
achievesustainability
goals

Throughout much of the 2010s, the data center industry was very focused on energy efficiency centered around the power usage effectiveness (PUE) metric. Most
traditional DCIM solutions offer the ability to report PUE. Although widely adopted,
PUE is fundamentally only an energy efficiency measurement of the supporting
power and cooling infrastructure for the IT. It does not address greenhouse gas(GHG) emissions, total energy consumed, or anything to do with circularity or landuse. A similar metric was developed for water use, called WUE, that has had more
limited traction in the industry.
Now that there has been a global shift in awareness and focus on addressing climate change more broadly and with a sense of urgency, the data center and IT industry is responding by making its products more sustainable. This means less embodied carbon, higher energy efficiency, and greater circularity and recyclability of
its products and solutions. For enterprise CIOs who are under growing pressure to
track and show progress on corporate sustainability goals, this also means that industry vendors should be providing the product information and data CIOs need for
tracking and reporting sustainability metrics. Schneider Electric white paper 67,
Guide to Environmental Sustainability Metrics for Data Centers, defines a range of
metrics for data center and distributed IT owners to strive to measure depending onwhether you consider yourself to be “a beginner”, “advanced”, or a “leading” organization in terms of operational maturity.
Referred to as Environmental Sustainability Management (ESM) software, enterprise-level platforms exist for collecting data and reporting virtually all environmental sustainability metrics across an enterprise including energy, GHG (including
Scope 1, 2 and 3 emissions), water, waste, and land & biodiversity metrics. Thesesystems rely on data collected from meters, sensors, invoices, and via APIs, fromother management software tools, such as DCIM. ESM software then aggregates,
normalizes, and presents the data and metrics for reporting and goal-tracking purposes. Effective solutions ensure accurate, auditable, and transparent non-financial
reporting of environmental sustainability data and metrics at an overall, global enterprise level.

Me tric s a n d re p o rtin g
But for CIOs who are trying to get a grasp of the basics for their domain of on premises data centers, colocation assets, and edge computing sites, modern DCIM software tools can help. Some DCIM (“out of the box”) offers today will collect data andreport for individual sites and in aggregate:• PUE: current and historical• Energy consumption: usage at sub-system level to show in both real-time andhistorical trends of total consumption, IT consumption, and power losses• Carbon footprint (scope 2 emissions) based on local carbon emissions factors
in total and by subsystem including IT, power, and cooling.
For these metrics to be meaningful, of course, it is important for the DCIM software
to be able to communicate with and normalize data from all power and cooling infrastructure devices, regardless of make or model. This ensures a complete pictureof environmental impact. So DCIM tools and infrastructure devices that embracecommon, open protocols (e.g., SNMPv3) and that accommodate the use ofAPIs/web services should be used.

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For CIOs required to track their Scope 3 emissions of the enterprise IT, which islargely the embodied carbon in the IT and supporting infrastructure, DCIM can also
help. The first step is to take inventory of what is installed at all sites. DCIM’s asset
management functionality can be used to map out all devices in data centers oredge IT installations including the IT, networking, storage, power distribution andcooling infrastructure. Embodied carbon data obtained from device manufacturers
can be stored as attributes of the devices in the DCIM asset management tool.
DCIM can be used to track equipment age to differentiate between new equipment
and existing to assist with Scope 3 emissions accounting, as well. Note, some
DCIM tools can integrate with IT discovery and inventory software tools (IT asset
management, or ITAM) and configuration management database (CMDB) systems
which potentially could be used in a similar way to track embodied carbon of all
physical assets, including those devices monitored by DCIM.
At the time of this writing, DCIM is in the early phase of its evolution towards becoming an environmental sustainability reporting management tool for data center
white space and edge computing, in addition to being a tool for improving resiliency and security. We can foresee DCIM providing the means to collect and reporton more of the metrics that are summarized in Table 2 of Schneider Electric White
Paper 67 referenced above. Embodied carbon data of the infrastructure hardwarethat is documented in an environmental declaration form or product environmental
profile (PEP) file could be autoloaded into the DCIM software as new devices areadded to the network so that their scope 3 emissions can be properly accounted formore easily. Data related to product end-of-life such as recyclability could also be
stored and presented by DCIM software in the future to help with improving circularity.
While standard offers are limited today, some vendors offer engineering services tocustomize the output of a DCIM system and/or integrate the DCIM software withother data sources (e.g., emissions factor libraries) or platforms (e.g., ESM, ITAM,CMDB software) to address environmental sustainability reporting needs. Figures 7
and 8 show examples of custom dashboards made to show energy consumption,
cost, carbon emissions, PUE, power losses and capacity utilization. And for thoseenterprises who are using an ESM platform, energy data from your on-premise data
centers and edge computing IT sites can be sent from your DCIM software to the
ESM tool via an API to provide enterprise sustainability teams with a consolidated
view of the impact of your on-premise IT portfolio, for example.

Figure 7

This screenshot shows an example custom dashboard from
Schneider Electric’s IT Advisor
planning and modeling software that shows energy consumption, cost, and carbon
emissions for various infrastructure systems of a data center.

How Modern DCIM Addresses CIO Management Challenges within Distributed, Hybrid IT
Environments

Schneider Electric – Energy Management Research Center White Paper 281 Ver 3 14

Figure 8

This screenshot shows anexample custom dashboard
from Schneider Electric’s IT
Advisor planning and modeling software that shows
the current, real-time PUE,
power losses by subsystemand capacity utilization.

Re d u c in g e m is s io n s
The use of DCIM in your day-to-day operations can directly serve to reduce energy
consumption and, thereby, lower your emissions today. The following bullets list
some of the ways this can be done. Note, not all DCIM offers are capable of performing these actions.
• Design energy-efficient floor layouts for expansion/consolidation projects that
optimize airflows and ventilation pathways to minimize cooling energy.

• Use built-in computational fluid dynamics (CFD) analysis tools to reduce cooling energy by testing increasing temperature set points, enabling economizer
mode, and changing other cooling parameters.

• Take advantage of IT optimization tools in DCIM that monitors server utilizationand power consumption at a rack and individual server level to help reduceoverall IT energy consumption by avoiding overprovisioning and underutilization.
• Use built-in CRAC/CRAH AI-based optimization tools in DCIM to automaticallyregulate unit airflow speeds or turn off cooling units when cooling energy is
overprovisioned.

• Use DCIM energy consumption data (via rack PDUs) as a department chargeback mechanism to drive more energy efficient behavior.
Put more simply, DCIM functions can be used to better match power consumption
to the IT load by turning down or turning off idle infrastructure resources. Or by consolidating the IT load to reduce both IT energy consumption as well as power
losses from the supporting infrastructure.

How Modern DCIM Addresses CIO Management Challenges within Distributed, Hybrid IT
Environments

Schneider Electric – Energy Management Research Center White Paper 281 Ver 3 15

Conclusion

As the role of enterprise CIOs expands to driving business strategy, digitalization,and innovation, their traditional role of IT service delivery remains critical. However,this has become much more challenging as IT portfolios have become more distributed geographically and spread between cloud, colocation, and the edge. IT resiliency and security must be constantly monitored and maintained across their entire
portfolio of IT assets. At the same time, there’s growing urgency and pressure to
track, report on, and improve environmental sustainability. The distributed nature ofHybrid IT portfolios today makes all this challenging to do. Modern DCIM softwaretools designed for distributed IT environments help address these management
challenges. This paper has described in detail how DCIM monitoring & alarming aswell as planning & modeling functions serve to make Hybrid IT more resilient, secure, and sustainable.

About the author
Patrick Donovan is a Senior Research Analyst for the Energy Management Research Center at

Schneider Electric. He has over 27 years of experience developing and supporting critical powerand cooling systems for Schneider Electric’s Secure Power Business unit including several awardwinning power protection, efficiency, and availability solutions. An author of numerous white papers, industry articles, and technology assessments, Patrick's research on data center physicalinfrastructure technologies and markets offers guidance and advice on best practices for planning, designing, and operation of data center facilities.

How Modern DCIM Addresses CIO Management Challenges within Distributed, Hybrid IT
Environments

Schneider Electric – Energy Management Research Center White Paper 281 Ver 3 16

Resources

The Drivers and Benefits of Edge Computing
White Paper 226

Why Cloud Computing is Requiring Us to Rethink Resiliency at the Edge
White Paper 256

Why Data Centers Must Prioritize Environmental Sustainability: Four Key Drivers
White Paper 64

Practical Guide to Ensuring Availability at Edge Computing Sites
White Paper 280

Cybersecurity Guidance for Data Center Power and Cooling Infrastructure
Systems
White Paper 216

Guide to Environmental Sustainability Metrics for Data Centers
White Paper 67

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Contact us
For feedback and comments about the content of this white paper:
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How Modern DCIM Addresses CIO Management Challenges within Distributed, Hybrid IT
Environments© 2022 Schneider Electric. All rights reserved.

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