Digital Realty Trust (NYSE: DLR) recently announced the launch of EnVision, its comprehensive data center infrastructure management (DCIM) platform. According to the company, EnVision provides increased visibility into data center operations, including the ability to analyze data in a manner that is digestible and actionable; a user interface with displays and reports that are tailored to data center operators; and access to historical data as well as predictive capabilities.
"Up until now, data has been collected, but it has not necessarily been easily accessed or arranged in an intuitive manner that is helpful to a data center operator," said David Schirmacher, senior vice president of portfolio operations at Digital Realty. "The goal in rolling out EnVision across our global portfolio is to give our customers a common database that is structured around the specific needs of data center operators and can therefore manage the millions of data points that are found in today's large-scale facilities."
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According to a June 2012 report from Gartner ("Data Center Infrastructure Management Tools: Market and Buyer Expectations are Evolving" by David Cappuccio), "DCIM tools provide insights and improve performance throughout the data center, including data center assets and physical infrastructure. They enable the monitoring and collection of low-level infrastructure data to enable intelligent analysis."
"EnVision links data center IT and infrastructure metrics in order to give our customers real-time, historical and predictive views into their operations," said Michael Foust, chief executive officer at Digital Realty. "This will benefit our customers in a variety of ways. For example, it will provide improved efficiency analysis and help operations teams to support future planning. We are excited to bring EnVision to market and feel that it represents the next critical stage in the ongoing evolution of DCIM solutions."
The EnVision rollout will begin this month and take approximately 18 months to complete across Digital Realty's global data center portfolio, which consists of 122 properties in 32 markets as of April 26, 2013.
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