Data center management

Data center management<ref>GigaOm (May 3, 2009). "What Startups in Amazon's Ecosystem Should Learn From VMware". The New York Times. Archived from the original on January 20, 2023. their existing data center management ...</ref> is the collection of tasks performed by those responsible for managing ongoing operation of a data center.<ref>"What is Data Center Management?". Sunbird DCIM. Archived from the original on December 14, 2021.</ref> This includes Business service management and planning for the future.

Historically, "data center management" was seen as something performed by employees, with the help of tools collectively called data center-infrastructure management (DCIM) tools.<ref>Ann Bednarz (May 24, 2018). "Data-center management: What does DMaaS deliver that DCIM doesn't?". Network World. Archived from the original on October 28, 2018.</ref>

Both for in-house operation and outsourcing, service-level agreements must be managed to ensure data-availability.<ref>Taylor, Christine (April 17, 2017). "Cloud Computing and Service Level Agreements (SLAs)". Datamation. Archived from the original on October 13, 2022.</ref>

Competition

Data center management is a growing major topic for a growing list of large companies who both compete and cooperate, including: Dell,<ref>Hardy, Quentin (August 21, 2012). "Dell Makes Moves to Survive in Cloud-Centric World". The New York Times. Archived from the original on January 16, 2023.</ref> Google,<ref name=Goog.IBM>Lohr, Steve (October 8, 2007). "Google and I.B.M. Join in 'Cloud Computing' Research". The New York Times. Archived from the original on October 24, 2023.</ref> HP,<ref name=HIY3>Perez, Juan Carlos (July 29, 2008). "Yahoo, Intel and HP Form Cloud Computing Labs". The New York Times. IDG News Service. Archived from the original on January 16, 2023.</ref> IBM,<ref name=Goog.IBM/> Intel<ref name=HIY3/> and Yahoo.<ref name=HIY3/>

Hardware/software vendors who are willing to live with coopetition<ref>"Coinages That Last". The New York Times. August 9, 2003. Archived from the original on January 17, 2023. Many buzzwords, like coopetition and thought-leading,</ref><ref>Tedeschi, Bob (November 7, 2005). "The Online Travel Landscape Is Getting Crowded". The New York Times. Archived from the original on January 17, 2023. ... which Internet analysts love to call "coopetition."</ref> are working on projects such as "The Distributed Management Task Force" (DMTF)<ref>Fontana, John (October 27, 2008). "Meeting virtualization management challenges". The New York Times. IDG. Archived from the original on January 17, 2023.</ref> with a goal of learning to "more effectively manage mixed Linux, Windows and cloud environments."

With the DMTF a decade old, the list of companies is growing, and also includes companies much smaller than IBM, Microsoft, et al.<ref>The Times article mentions "a crop of next-tier vendors, start-ups and open source players."</ref>

Focus

Among the topics currently being explored are:<ref>"Data Center Management". The Data Center Journal. Retrieved October 28, 2018.</ref> scalability, securing data center networks, disaster recovery, government restrictions.<ref>Matt Hancock (October 26, 2018). "Power struggle". Computer Weekly. a row is brewing over an EU plan to curb datacentre energy use</ref>

Another major area is the cost of downtime regarding customer dissatisfaction & business loss,<ref>"Flights Cancelled for more than 75,000 passengers". Reuters. May 29, 2017.</ref> and also the "astonishing" yet hidden cost and effect regarding personnel & productivity.<ref>David Gewirtz (May 30, 2017). "The astonishing hidden and personal costs of IT downtime (and how predictive analytics might help)". ZDNet.</ref>

Business-service management

Business-service management (BSM) treats IT as part of the larger enterprise strategy,<ref>"What is business service management (BSM)?".</ref> and helps fill the gap between business and IT.<ref name=IBM.BSM>Jenko Gaviglia. "Business Service Management" (PDF). IBM.com.</ref>

IBM notes that major problems often happen in the grey areas, particularly due to errors in the interfaces, and focuses on critical failures. Sufficient redundancy should allow failures in non-critical areas to protect the business from being affected.<ref name=IBM.BSM/> BSM, which is positioned above IT Service Management (ITSM), promotes a customer-centric and business-focused approach to service management, aligning business objectives with IT or ICT from strategy through to operations. Tools that help BSM include a modeling language,<ref>Ghose, A. K.; Lê, L. S.; Hoesch-Klohe, K.; Morrison, E. (2011). "The Business Service Representation Language: A Preliminary Report". Towards a Service-Based Internet. ServiceWave 2010 Workshops. Lecture Notes in Computer Science. Vol. 6569. pp. 145–152. doi:10.1007/978-3-642-22760-8_16. ISBN 978-3-642-22759-2.</ref> and a common dashboard, which together allow data center personnel to see problems before business customers do.<ref>Bednarz (June 2010). "Targeting hybrid IT environments". Computerworld.</ref>

Newer developments

Remote data center management<ref>"Remote Data Center Management".</ref> allows offsite experts to watch for situations needing their timely intervention at a lower cost than having such staff be onsite 24/7/365.

While some requirements for on-site hardware have been reduced,<ref>Quentin Hardy (November 17, 2012). "Hard Times Could Create a Tech Boom".</ref> spending in other hardware areas such as UPS may have to increase.<ref>"In 2014, Proactive UPS Maintenance is Essential for all Data Center Managers" (PDF). UPS-redundant configurations, providing backups for backups that have their own backups.</ref>

Data center asset management

Data center asset management (also referred to as inventory management)<ref>or IT asset management (ITAM)</ref> is the set of business practices that join financial, contractual and inventory functions to support life cycle management and strategic decision making for the IT environment. Assets include all elements of software and hardware that are found in the business environment.<ref>"IT Asset Management (ITAM)". Gartner. May 18, 2013. Retrieved January 15, 2019.</ref>

IT asset management generally uses automation to manage the discovery of assets<ref name=ForgetMeNot.NYT/> so inventory can be compared to license entitlements. Full business management of IT assets requires a repository of multiple types of information about the asset, as well as integration with other systems such as supply chain, help desk, procurement and HR systems and ITSM.

Hardware asset management

Hardware asset management entails the management of the physical components of computers and computer networks, from acquisition through disposal.<ref name=ForgetMeNot.NYT>Brent Bowers (March 13, 2008). "It's Easy, and Expensive, to Forget About Old Equipment". The New York Times.</ref> Common business practices include request and approval process, procurement management, life cycle management, redeployment and disposal management. A key component is capturing the financial information about the hardware life cycle which aids the organization in making business decisions based on meaningful and measurable financial objectives.

Software asset management

Software Asset Management is a similar process, focusing on software assets, including licenses. Standards for this aspect of data center management are part of ISO/IEC 19770.

Data center infrastructure management

Data center-infrastructure management (DCIM) is the integration<ref>"Tracking All the Data: Data Center Infrastructure Management ..." ECmag. (DCIM) software enables ... integration ...</ref> of information technology (IT) and facility management disciplines<ref>"Data Center Infrastructure Management – Data Center Handbook".</ref> to centralize monitoring, management and intelligent capacity planning of a data center's critical systems. Achieved through the implementation of specialized software, hardware and sensors, DCIM enables common, real-time monitoring and management platform for all interdependent systems across IT and facility infrastructures.

DCIM products can help data center managers identify and eliminate sources of risk<ref>"Measure and manage the risk inherent in your IT infrastructure". Network World. August 13, 2010.</ref> and improve availability of critical IT systems. They can also be used to identify interdependencies between facility and IT infrastructures to alert the facility manager to gaps in system redundancy, and provide dynamic, holistic benchmarks on power consumption and efficiency to measure the effectiveness of "green IT" initiatives.<ref>Tom Coughlin (September 9, 2018). "Green Computing And Storage". Forbes.</ref><ref>"Mission: Green Computing" by Supermicro Introduces Total Cost". The New York Times. August 20, 2018. Archived from the original on November 30, 2018. Retrieved December 3, 2018.</ref>

Important data center metrics include those regarding energy efficiency and use of servers, storage, and staff. In too many cases, disk capacity is vastly underused and servers run at 20% use or less.<ref>"Measuring Data Center Efficiency: Easier Said Than Done". Dell.com. Archived from the original on October 27, 2010. Retrieved June 25, 2012.</ref> More effective automation tools can also improve the number of servers or virtual machines that a single admin can handle.

DCIM providers are increasingly linking with computational fluid dynamics providers to predict complex airflow patterns in the data center. The CFD component is necessary to quantify the impact of planned future changes on cooling resilience, capacity and efficiency.<ref name="gartner">"Computational-Fluid-Dynamic (CFD) Analysis | Gartner IT Glossary". gartner.com. Retrieved August 27, 2014.</ref>

Operations

Information technology operations, or IT operations (ITOps), are the set of all processes and services managed by IT staff<ref>"Computer Operators".</ref> for use by internal or external clients. The term refers to the application of operations management to the technology used to run the business.

Operations work can include responding to support tickets generated for maintenance work or customer issues.<ref name="SRE">Site Reliability Engineering: How Google Runs Production Systems. O'Reilly. 2016. ISBN 978-1-491-92912-4.</ref> Some operations teams provide on-call support, responding to incidents outside of normal business hours.<ref name="SRE" />

As lights out<ref>"Premier 100 Q&A: HP's CIO sees 'lights-out' data centers". Informationweek. March 6, 2006.</ref> operations increased, less of the staff are located near corporate headquarters.<ref>"From Manhattan to Montvale". The New York Times. April 20, 1986.</ref><ref>Ashlee Vance (December 8, 2008). "Dell Sees Double With Data Center in a Container". The New York Times.</ref> Gartner defines IT operations as "the people and management processes associated with IT service management to deliver the right set of services at the right quality and at competitive costs for customers."<ref>"IT Operations – Gartner IT Glossary". gartner.com. February 8, 2012.</ref>

Technical support

Technical support (often shortened to tech support) refers to services. Within a corporation, these are also known as help desks<ref name=CorpHelp>Quentin Hardy (October 30, 2012). "An Update for the Corporate Help Desk". The New York Times.</ref> often arrange their technical support structure as a three-tier (plus two) system:<ref name=BMC>Joe Hertvik (July 7, 2016). "IT Support Levels Clearly Explained: L1, L2, L3, and More".</ref>

Tier 1: Basic help desk – initial point of contact, including software opening a trouble ticket. Information available to its personnel include FAQ and a basic knowledge base.
Tier 2: In-depth technical support
Tier 3: Expert product and service support.

The extra tiers are:<ref name=BMC/>

Tier 0: Self help (i.e. by the end user)
Tier 4: Outside support for "items not directly serviced by the organization"

Access to varying levels of support for products and services to in-house employees and corporate customers, providing information and troubleshooting<ref>"IT Help Desks Not Just For Large Enterprises". Archived from the original on July 18, 2012. Retrieved May 12, 2019.</ref> is via various channels such as toll-free numbers,<ref>"Students – Information technology – Calvin College" (PDF). Calvin College. Retrieved March 23, 2018.</ref> websites, instant messaging, or email.

Help desk professionalism

An ITIL-compliant help desk is usually a part of a bigger Service desk unit, which is part of ITSM<ref>"Help Desk vs Service Desk vs ITSM".</ref>

As the incoming phone calls are random in nature, help desk agent schedules are often maintained using an Erlang C calculation. Companies with custom application software may also have an applications team who are responsible for the development of in-house software. The help desk may assign to the applications team such problems as finding software bugs. Requests for new features or information about the capabilities of in-house software that come through the help desk are also assigned to applications groups. The help desk staff and supporting IT staff may not all work from the same location. With remote access applications, technicians are able to solve many help desk issues from another work location or their home office. While there is still a need for on-site support to effectively collaborate on some issues, remote support provides greater flexibility.

AT&T Mobility previously provided technical support for some of its mobile phones through Device Support Centers.

Some companies and organizations provide discussion boards for users of their products to interact; such forums allow companies to reduce their support costs<ref>"How to Use Online Forums". Inc. April 22, 2010.</ref> without losing the benefit of customer feedback.

Some fee-based service companies charge for premium technical support services.<ref>"Technical support for the neighbours". BBC News. March 28, 2005. Retrieved March 6, 2008.</ref>

Outsourcing technical support

Many organizations relocated their technical support departments or call centers to countries or regions with lower costs. Dell was amongst the first companies to outsource their technical support and customer service departments to India in 2001, but then reshored.<ref>Dell moves outsourced jobs back to U.S. shores</ref> There has also been a growth in companies specializing in providing technical support to other organizations. These are often referred to as MSPs (Managed Service Providers).<ref>Berkley, Susan; Maggie Klenke. "Call Centre Trends". The Great Voice Company. Retrieved May 2, 2008.</ref>

For businesses needing to provide technical support, outsourcing allows them to maintain a high availability of service. Such need may result from peaks in call volumes during the day, periods of high activity due to introduction of new products or maintenance service packs, or the requirement to provide customers with a high level of service at a low cost to the business. It allows businesses to use specialized personnel whose technical knowledge base and experience may exceed the scope of the business, thus providing a higher level of technical support to their employees.

Scams

A common scam typically involves a cold caller claiming to be from a technical support department of a company like Microsoft. Such cold calls are often made from call centers based in India to users in English-speaking countries, although increasingly these scams operate within the same country. The scammer will instruct the user to download a remote desktop program and once connected, use social engineering techniques that typically involve Windows components to persuade the victim that they need to pay for the computer to be fixed and then proceeds to steal money from the victim's credit card.<ref>Arthur, Charles (July 18, 2012). "Virus phone scam being run from call centres in India". Guardian. Retrieved March 31, 2014.</ref>

Preventive maintenance

Preventive maintenance (or preventative<ref name=TaTive.NYT>Ben Zimmer (April 18, 2010). "Wellness". The New York Times. Complaints about preventative go back to the late 18th century ... ("Oxford English Dictionary dates preventive to 1626 and preventative to 1655) ..preventive has won"</ref> maintenance (PM)) is ongoing scheduled<ref>"What is Preventive Maintenance?". MicroMain.com.</ref> inspection<ref>"What is preventive maintenance?". BusinessDictionary.com. Archived from the original on November 19, 2018. Retrieved November 18, 2018.</ref> intended to detect and correct incipient failures either before they occur or before they develop into major problems such as downtime.

Managing the capacity of a data center

With the increasing use of "the cloud" and what has been called "the Era of Infinite Capacity",<ref>Samir Mehra (September 11, 2018). "Capacity Planning in the Era of Infinite Capacity".</ref> there is still a need for professional Data Center Capacity Planners.<ref>"Data Center Capacity Planner Jobs, Employment". indeed.com (job search). 293 Data Center Capacity Planner jobs available on Indeed.com</ref>

There is a need to know what will be needed, and when.<ref name=CaPlanTips>Thomas A. Limoncelli; Strata R. Chalup; Christina J. Hogan. "Room to grow: Tips for data center capacity planning". Computerworld.</ref> Data must continually be collected regarding usage of power/energy, computing power, data storage and networking/telecommunications. Plans must include awareness of cooling and space requirements.

Sometimes analysis of this data, and comparison to industry norms, can be outsourced.<ref name=CaPlanTips/> The balance for the need to focus more on data collection<ref>since this consumes both computing and storage resources</ref> or analysis depends on current use levels: prior to 50%, the focus can stay more on data collection. Beyond 75%, the focus must shift to analysis, in preparation for upgrades, replacements and expansions. The data center is a resource in its own right.<ref>J Xu; M Zhao; J Fortes; R Carpenter (2007). "On the use of fuzzy modeling in virtualized data center management". Fourth International Conference on Autonomic Computing (ICAC'07). p. 25. doi:10.1109/ICAC.2007.28. ISBN 978-0-7695-2779-6. S2CID 16153431.</ref>

Top data centers and service providers

According to Cloudscene's Leaderboard for Q1 2018, data center operators are ranked "based on both data center density (total operated data centers)", as well as "the number of listed service providers in the facility". Cloud service providers are ranked based on "connectivity (the total number of PoPs) for the region." Chosen from a pool of more than 6,000 providers, the rankings are as follows:<ref>"Cloudscene Rankings: Top Data Centers & Service Providers Worldwide". Cloudscene. Archived from the original on October 26, 2018. Retrieved November 9, 2018.</ref>

Q1, 2018 Top Data Center Operators Worldwide

Rank	North America	EMEA	Oceania	Asia
1	Equinix	Equinix	Equinix	Equinix
2	Digital Realty	Interxion	NextDC	Global Switch
3	CoreSite	Telehouse	Vocus Communications	NTT Communications
4	Zayo	Digital Realty	Global Switch	GPX Global Systems
5	Level 3 Communications	Global Switch	YourDC	ST Telemedia Global Data Centres
6	Cologix	Level 3 Communications	Macquarie Telecom	Netmagic Solutions
7	Cyxtera	itconic	iseek	AIMS
8	TierPoint	Colt Technology Services	Interactive	Digital Realty
9	Netrality Properties	Nikhef	Datacom	Telstra
10	QTS Realty Trust	Orange Business Services	Data Centre Limited	OneAsia Network

Q1, 2018 Top Service Providers Worldwide

Rank	North America	EMEA	Oceania	Asia
1	Zayo	Colt Technology Services	Telstra	Colt Technology Services
2	Level 3 Communications	EuNetworks	Vocus Communications	PCCW Solutions
3	Verizon	Cogent Communications	PIPE Networks	Tata Communications
4	Crown Castle	Zayo	Optus	PCCW Global
5	AT&T	Level 3 Communications	NextGen Group	Telstra
6	Cogent Communications	BT	AAPT	NTT Communications
7	CenturyLink	Interoute	Megaport	Superloop
8	XO Communications	Verizon	Superloop	Zenlayer
9	Comcast	Orange Business Services	Zencross Connect	China Telecom
10	TW Telecom	NL-IX	Uecomm	Singtel

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Competition