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THE DATA CENTER JOURNAL | 27 As modern data center operations quickly evolve past traditional design planning, the perfectly optimized utilization of IT resources becomes increasingly difficult to achieve. Varying life-cycle profiles of ICT assets, technical developments and facilities create a continuous gap, resulting in lost capacities. I n general, a data center is built to last at least 30 years. Facil- ities-management infrastruc- ture, however, is designed to last 10–20 years. By contrast, IT equipment in the white space shows a shorter depreciation period. e extreme variation in the time span of technical equipment creates serious challenges across the different do- mains of facility, utility and IT com- ponents, as they must be upgraded and aligned with changing business needs throughout the lifetime of the data center. To overcome operational chal- lenges and properly manage space, cooling, power, ITC equipment and cabling without investing in a full data center expansion, it's critical to implement a comprehensive DCIM tool that offers effective optimization measures. Continuous improve- ments to IT technology, IT assets and facilities will enhance all data center processes and operations to perform at full capacity. e first step is to gain detailed insights into your current infrastruc- ture by documenting it in conjunc- tion with interdependencies and connections. en you can start to align servers, racks and cables to meet your operational needs and specific infrastructure design. Implementing the best type of servers for your data center can boost performance and efficiency—but how do you know which option is the best? Start by using your monitoring data and perform long-term analy- sis of workloads to precisely predict increases in processing capacity and performance. By implementing servers that your data center infra- structure can properly support and maintain, you can achieve efficient used capacities. is step is particu- larly important to keep in mind when assessing additional factors such as power and cooling management. Will rack-mounted servers be easier to maintain and less expensive than blade servers? Will blade servers be more energy efficient and com- pact? Selecting the right type of server from a wide variety can be a head- ache. But from a business perspective, the choice of which servers are best for your data center should be based on a variety of factors, including cost, available space, the size of your orga- nization and your business needs. Design errors in the data center can also be properly managed and minimized when you have a DCIM solution in place. Overhead costs ow- ing to varying rack sizes and available cables per rack are just one chal- lenge that arises when a data center design is unsuitable for its operational model. Many traditional data centers experience these challenges, because at one time infrastructure was built first and technology was included aer the fact. Data center strategies must be scalable and easily expandable by adding more capabilities to meet specific business needs. For modern data centers, building design and infrastructure are constructed around the IT architecture, preventing design errors and lost capacities from occur- ring in the first place. Overall, achieving full transpar- ency throughout your data center involves more than just the manage- ment of resources. It also involves performance evaluations with regard to building construction and the average lifetime of equipment opera- tions. Documenting, monitoring and analyzing operations are critical to determining what technologies best suit your data center needs. To find out whether your facility still has available capacities, a professional DCIM tool is crucial. HOW DCIM BRIDGES THE GAP BETWEEN DESIGN, OPERATIONS AND TECHNOLOGY Modern IT structures are becoming increasingly complex and difficult to control without deploy- ing a comprehensive information- management system. A DCIM tool such as FNT Command is designed to optimize the interplay between all areas of your IT infrastructure in three steps: 1. Full visibility of the entire stack to tear down silos enables operation www.datacenterjournal.com