Before David Schirmacher joined Digital Realty trust we would regularly have chats that could easily last hours. I don't get a chance to chat with David as much now that he is Sr VP of Data Center Operations, but we still connect in many ideas. Digital Realty has a paper it released on DCIM. And a couple of things reminded me how we think the same.

And David has a hierarchy which i would have drawn from the bottom up, but David has drawn from top down.

Here is more information from the press release.

Digital Realty Addresses Challenges of Establishing Successful DCIM Platform

White paper explores the challenges of DCIM platforms and provides a comparative outlook on Digital Realty’s newly launched DCIM solution

San Francisco, CA – July 23, 2013 – Digital Realty Trust, Inc. (NYSE: DLR), a leading global provider of data center solutions, today announced the release of a white paper titled, “Real-Time Monitoring for Data Centers: Comprehensive DCIM Solution Creates Connectivity-Rich Environment.” The paper, authored by David Schirmacher, Senior Vice President of Portfolio Operations for Digital Realty, explores the challenges inherent in establishing a successful data center infrastructure management (DCIM) platform and introduces EnVision, Digital Realty’s recently launched DCIM solution.

Historically, vendors have approached DCIM as a hardware problem by implementing specialized equipment in an attempt to achieve a real-time monitoring and management platform for the interdependent systems across IT and infrastructure. However, the challenge with today’s DCIM platforms isn’t with the hardware, but rather it’s with the data that’s being managed, monitored and analyzed. In short, today’s DCIM solutions need to provide a significantly more comprehensive view of all of the resources within a data center – from the mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems that form the backbone of a facility’s infrastructure to the servers and racks that compose the heart of the IT setup.

The paper explains how a data-driven, connected view of a data center enables data center operators to realize the capacity they need in order to help their firms effectively grow their businesses and to ensure their data centers are yielding optimal results. In particular, with EnVision, Digital Realty’s DCIM solution, the company’s customers gain increased visibility into data center operations, the ability to analyze data in a manner that is digestible and actionable, a user interface and data displays/reports that are tailored to data center operators, and access to historical as well as predictive data.

Interested in sharing some insights from the white paper with your Twitter followers? Check out our list of interesting facts pulled from the paper:

#DCIM is an emerging form of #datacenter mngt that bridges gap between traditional facilities systems& #IT systems http://ow.ly/neWSD

#DCIM solutions must allow users to view info about the #datacenter in a truly connected sense http://ow.ly/neWSD

The issue at the core of the #DCIM puzzle is stranded data, per @drdatacenters http://ow.ly/neWSD

The focus shifts from displaying data to managing data when looking at #DCIM from an operator’s perspectivehttp://ow.ly/neWSD

“#DCIM is not a hardware problem, it is a data problem” per @drdatacenters http://ow.ly/neWSD

A typical #datacenter, might have 10,000 data points which can turn into billions of #datapoints a year http://ow.ly/neWSD#DCIM

A typical #datacenter, if it is fully instrumented, might have 5,000 or 10,000 #datapoints http://ow.ly/neWSD #DCIM

@drdatacenters builds a comprehensive #DCIM solution with real-time monitoring for #datacenters http://ow.ly/neWSD

Key to a comprehensive #DCIM solution is recognizing the breadth & diversity of the available informationhttp://ow.ly/neWSD

“Real-Time Monitoring for #DataCenters: Comp #DCIM Solution Creates Connectivity-Rich Enviro http://ow.ly/neWSD via@drdatacenters

To view the full paper, click here: http://ow.ly/neWSD