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.