What DCIM could have done if it was designed as a platform, Network Optimization

DCIM has not taken off the way the analyst and VCs would like.  What is wrong?  The niche of data centers and money saved is not big enough.  If DCIM was designed well it should be able to optimize other mission critical operations.  Like what?  How about mobile network optimization.

Here is a GigaOm post on Mobile network optimization.

The mobile network optimization business is not a bad one to be if you’re a tech startup looking for a big exit. Telecom billing systems maker Amdocs justannounced its intention to buy Actix for $120 million in cash. But it’s certainly not the first nine-figure selling price for a software company analyzing and tweaking traffic in mobile networks.

Actix tracks the how individual cells perform as devices connect to them throughout the day, letting carriers know where they need to add coverage and capacity as well as which apps and devices are performing well and which are not. That may not sound sexy to you, but that technology is really turning on the big telecom infrastructure vendors, who have been scooping up optimization companies left and right in the last year.

It is a dream of the DCIM world to be in the situation like the networking optimization companies.

So are there any network optimization startups left still ripe for the picking? There are plenty of companies who optimize some aspect of the mobile network — from the core to the base station — but it’s at the cell where most of the mobile industry’s interest seems to lie. One of the reasons why Intucell went for a high price is because its technology could react to changing networking conditions – when service in a particular part of the network starts sucking, its self-optimizing networking software can expand and contract cells to rectify the problem.

It is hard to get in one company to get the networking guys to work with the data center team, and it's probably even harder to get this done in a start-up which is probably why there is little overlap between the networking optimization software companies and DCIM.  Yet, at a low level they are doing many of the same things monitoring operations, optimizing, and reporting status in a dashboard.

Disclosure:  I work part-time for GigaOm Research.

Amazon looking for someone to automate its data center control system

Found this job posting Amazon.com.  Looks Amazon is looking to optimize and automate their data center operations.

Controls Engineer (Process Management)

US, WA, Seattle • Job ID 225173 • Amazon Corporate LLC

Job Description

At Amazon, we're working to be the most customer-centric company on earth. To get there, we need exceptionally talented, bright, and driven people. If you'd like to help us build the place to find and buy anything online, this is your chance to make history.

The Data Center Global Services team is looking for exceptional individuals to join our Controls & Technology organization as Controls Service Manager (BMS/EPMS), responsible for the building automation systems within Amazon data centers. If you are passionate about the Customer Experience, think and act globally and have the ability to contribute to major new innovations in the area of building controls and automation this is the challenge you are looking for!

The ideal candidate will possess a management, mechanical, electrical or technology background that enables him/her to undertake the challenges of sophisticated controls platforms and a demonstrated ability to think broadly and strategically in aligning building controls and automation with the larger objectives of the business.

Role Responsibilities and Requirements:
· Understanding of: building operations, control diagrams, industrial HVAC, electrical diagrams.
· Ability to ascertain customer needs to help develop project scope and specifications.
· Ability to manage scope of work relative to the site specifics and customer needs.
· Perform department administrative and personnel management duties including vacation and expense report approval, performance evaluation, recruitment, and promotion, in a timely and accurate manner.
· Organizing and supporting personnel training both in classroom and on the job, with the aim of continually improving the technical, commercial, and organizational knowledge and skills of team members
· Communicating important business information and requirements associated with administrative, field assignments, priorities, etc., to all personnel.
· Assisting in budget and forecast development.
· Development and implementation of IPS-Controls Construction team growth strategy.
· Maintaining strong and regular communication with all internal and external stakeholders including management and counterparts in Data Center Global Services.
· Foster teamwork and employee involvement, with processes to encourage innovation and growth.
· Position requires occasional domestic and international travel
· Work as part of a team to develop processes and procedures to ensure availability to our end customers, and on time delivery, every time.

And there are bunch more controls engineering jobs.

Controls Service Manager (ID 220436)	US, VA, Ashburn
At Amazon, we're working to be the most customer-centric company on earth. To get there, we need exceptionally talented, bright, and driven people. If you'd like to help us build the place to find and buy anything online, this is your chance to make history. The Data Center Global Services team is looking for exceptional individuals to join our Controls & Technology… Read more and Apply
Controls Engineer (EMS) (ID 219956)	US, CA, Hayward
At Amazon, we're working to be the most customer-centric company on earth. To get there, we need exceptionally talented, bright, and driven people. If you'd like to help us build the place to find and buy anything online, this is your chance to make history. The Data Center Global Services team is looking for exceptional individuals to join our Controls & Technology… Read more and Apply
Controls Engineer - Building Mgmt Systems (ID 220441)	US, OR, Boardman
At Amazon, we're working to be the most customer-centric company on earth. To get there, we need exceptionally talented, bright, and driven people. If you'd like to help us build the place to find and buy anything online, this is your chance to make history. The Data Center Global Services team is looking for exceptional individuals to join our Controls & Technology… Read more and Apply
Controls Engineer (Colo) (ID 229202)	US, WA, Seattle
At Amazon, we're working to be the most customer-centric company on earth. To get there, we need exceptionally talented, bright, and driven people. If you'd like to help us build the place to find and buy anything online, this is your chance to make history. The Data Center Global Services team is looking for exceptional individuals to join our Controls & Technology… Read more and Apply
Controls Engineer (Process Management) (ID 225173)	US, WA, Seattle
At Amazon, we're working to be the most customer-centric company on earth. To get there, we need exceptionally talented, bright, and driven people. If you'd like to help us build the place to find and buy anything online, this is your chance to make history. The Data Center Global Services team is looking for exceptional individuals to join our Controls & Technology… Read more and Apply

Are VCs part of what is wrong with DCIM? Features that miss the concept of START

I don't know about you, but whenever I see a DCIM dashboard.  I am confused on where to start.  One of my data center friends has gone through the exercise of looking at about 15 different DCIM solutions.  We agree that one stands out as it is easier to use than the rest.  Why?  You know where to start and the first steps to use the product.  Windows 95 focused on usability and highlighted "START".

Windows 95 introduced a redesigned shell based around a desktop metaphor; unlike Windows 3.1 (where it was used to display running applications), the desktop was re-purposed to hold shortcuts to applications, files, and folders. Running applications were now displayed as buttons on a taskbar across the bottom of the screen, which also contains a notification area used to display icons for background applications, a volume control, and the current time. The Start menu, invoked by clicking the "Start" button also contained on the taskbar, was introduced as an additional means of launching applications or opening documents—while maintaining the program groups used by its predecessor, Program Manager, it now displayed applications within cascading sub-menus. The previous File Managerprogram was also replaced by Windows Explorer.

So, what is wrong with DCIM and why is the "START" not the focus of the user experience.  One of the tips shared to my data center friend from one of the vendors is the VC community is pushing for more features to compete against the other DCIM products.  But, no users are asking for these features.  Yeh, who is screaming for more features.

Focusing on "START" was key to Microsoft's success.  If Microsoft had tried to demonstrate and market all Windows 95 features, then users would probably be confused and not know where to start.

When you buy your DCIM solution do you know where to start?

Here is someone who could design a kick ass DCIM system - Pat Helland Software Architect

One of my software buddies sent me a video link pumped that the presentation discussed the power of immutable distributed systems.  When I saw the presentation I saw it was by ex-Microsoft Software Architect Pat Helland.  In 2010, Pat moved to the Bing team to work on back end infrastructure to support the search environment.  

Last Fall, I switch to work on Bing Infrastructure and have been very, very busy (and having a wonderful time).  The projects I’m working on include COSMOS and Autopilot.  COSMOS is a petabyte store (working towards being an exabyte store) which runs over tens of thousands of inexpensive computers.  In addition to reliable storage, COSMOS supports Dryad based computation with application development in SCOPE which is a SQL-like language.  Some public papers include: SCOPE and COSMOS, and Partitioning and Parallel Plans in SCOPE and COSMOS.  The Autopilot team in OSD (Online Services Division which includes Bing) makes hardware selections for our ever-increasing bunch of servers, networking, systems support, automatic deployment and load balancing.  See  Autopilot.  I have been having a blast working with the team in Bellevue and a team in Beijing with lots of talented people.

FYI, Pat now works as a software architect at Salesforce and this video got me to reconnect to Pat through LinkedIn.

Pat is a guy who could definitely design a DCIM system.  Below is the presentation my developer friend got pumped about. I watched it too and agree Pat describes the ideas it takes to build a system for a complex data environments.

Warning this video can be hard to watch if you don't already think about software designs and believe immutability changes everything.  Other great points are "normalization is for sissies" and "accountants don't have erasers."

Immutability Changes Everything - Pat Helland, RICON2012 from Basho Technologies on Vimeo.

I hadn't chatted with Pat for probably 5 years to discuss data centers.  He was just getting started studying data centers, and he gave a presentation on green data centers in 2008.

Green Computing through Sharing
Reducing both Cost AND Carbon

Data centers consumed 1.5% of the total electricity in the US in 2006 and are on track to double as a percentage every five years. It is about 2% of the US total in 2008. Western Europe’s use is increasing at a slightly faster rate (from a slightly lower base percentage). The consumption of electicity within data centers is of significant financial and environmental importance.

Where the heck is all this power going? Why is the electrical load increasing so much? What can be done about it?

This talk will examine both traditional and emerging data center designs. We will start by examining how a data center is laid out, constructed, and managed. We will show two emerging trends: the change to designing data centers for the optimization of power and the emergence of new economies of scale in data centers which is contributing to the drive towards cloud computing. Microsoft is actively moving to compete in the space of cloud computing as we are seeing at the PDC (Professional Developers Conference) a few weeks before TechEd EMEA Developer.

Next, we will examine the sources of waste in the system today and examine why so many of our resources are underutilized. Because we are reluctant to share computing resources, they are left idle much of the time. Why is this currently the dominant choice? What can be done in the design of applications, systems, and data centers to make them more green (both carbon and cash)? What can developers do to make a difference?

It was a pleasure chatting with Pat 5 years ago, and I look forward to connecting with him again, and discuss how immutability changes everything.  :-)

Do you want DCIM (Infrastructure Management) or DCOM (Operations Management)?

DCIM is a topic almost all data center executives have heard and many have evaluated.

Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) is an emerging (2012) form of data center management which extends the more traditional systems and network management approaches to now include the physical and asset-level components. DCIM leverages the integration of information technology (IT) and facility management disciplines to centralize monitoring, management and intelligent capacity planning of a data center's critical systems. Essentially it provides a significantly more comprehensive view of ALL of the resources within the data center.

DCIM has not taken over the industry. Companies like Google, Facebook, and Microsoft build their own solutions.  Here is a question.  Does the data center need Infrastructure Management or Operations Management? Operations Management is a mature concept.

According to the U.S. Department of Education, operations management is the field concerned with managing and directing the physical and/or technical functions of afirm or organization, particularly those relating to development, production, and manufacturing. Operations management programs typically include instruction in principles of general management, manufacturing and production systems, plant management, equipment maintenance management, production control, industrial labor relations and skilled trades supervision, strategic manufacturing policy, systems analysis, productivity analysis and cost control, and materials planning.^[1][2]Management, including operations management, is like engineering in that it blends art with applied science. People skills, creativity, rational analysis, and knowledge of technology are all required for success.

MIT and other universities target Operations Management.  The below could easily be applied to data centers.

What is Operations Management?

Operations Management deals with the design and management of products, processes, services and supply chains. It considers the acquisition, development, and utilization of resources that firms need to deliver the goods and services their clients want.

The purvey of OM ranges from strategic to tactical and operational levels. Representative strategic issues include determining the size and location of manufacturing plants, deciding the structure of service or telecommunications networks, and designing technology supply chains.

Tactical issues include plant layout and structure, project management methods, and equipment selection and replacement. Operational issues include production scheduling and control, inventory management, quality control and inspection, traffic and materials handling, and equipment maintenance policies.

I would bet if more people were building Operations Management systems for the data center, then there would be a higher chance of DCOM being used than DCIM.

There may be some who say their DCIM solution does DCOM.  But, my question is where is the Operations Management expert in your company?

Here is a Google data point to prove Operations Management is a valued skill - their Director of Operations and Strategy for the data center group.

Experience

Director, Operations Strategy & Decision Support

Google

March 2011 – Present (2 years 5 months)

Lead a team of quantitative analysts to provide model-based decision support for Google's cloud infrastructure planning. Scope includes datacenter capacity planning, fleet planning, compute and storage resource optimization, network planning, and supply chain planning.

And what degree does he have?  PhD Management Science & Engineering.

Education

Stanford University

PhD, Management Science & Engineering

1996 – 2001

• Expertise: applications of advanced analytics to business and public policy problems. 
• Dissertation: dynamic pricing of capacity in relationship-based supply chains.
• Advanced analytics coursework: decision analysis, probability and statistics, systems modeling and optimization, simulation, economic analysis, mathematical finance, advanced supply chain models.