Data Center Kpis: Dcim That'S Easy, Fast, and Complete
Data Center Kpis: Dcim That'S Easy, Fast, and Complete
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DCIM that’s easy, fast, and complete. Top 40 Data Center KPIs 2
Introduction
Modern data center managers are under constant pressure to do
more with less while simultaneously being tasked with maximizing
uptime and optimizing for efficiency and capacity utilization. In today’s
ever-changing data center environment, insights from data provide
a critical competitive advantage to help tackle these challenges.
To gauge success and ensure business objectives are met, data center managers are
increasingly turning to big data analytics to provide the necessary information, but with the
massive volume and variety of data generated by data center devices, they don’t always have
the time or training to be able to collect that data, analyze it, and ultimately derive value from
it. Plus, when using legacy tools like Excel and Visio, it’s simply not possible to holistically see
and analyze this data.
So how do you know where to begin, what to track, and what your goals should be? Based on
our conversations with hundreds of customers in our global user groups for our Data Center
Infrastructure Management (DCIM) solution, we’ve consolidated feedback on what data
matters the most and compiled a list of the top 40 Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) that all data
center managers should monitor to improve the overall health and efficiency of their data centers.
If the list seems overwhelming, know that measuring these KPIs is easy with DCIM software. In
fact, with a modern DCIM solution, many of the KPIs come right out of the box in dashboard
widgets and reports requiring zero configuration. Start monitoring the Top 40 Data Center KPIs
in your environment and enjoy smarter, more data-driven decision-making across all facets of
data center management from asset management to capacity planning to energy efficiency.
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DCIM that’s easy, fast, and complete. Top 40 Data Center KPIs 3
Capacity KPIs
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DCIM that’s easy, fast, and complete. Top 40 Data Center KPIs 4
1. Capacity by Key Data Center Resource (Space, Power,
Cooling, and Data/Power Port Connections)
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DCIM that’s easy, fast, and complete. Top 40 Data Center KPIs 5
2. Capacity by Logical Groups (Space, Power, Cooling, and
Data/Power Connections by Function, Department, etc.)
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DCIM that’s easy, fast, and complete. Top 40 Data Center KPIs 6
3. Stranded Power Capacity Per Rack
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4. What-If Analysis
What-if analysis charts for space and power capacity can help
you understand the potential net impact of changes in your
data center—particularly additions and decommissions—without
impacting equipment in use. Conducting what-if analysis on a
per-project basis gives you the flexibility to add the same equip-
ment in different combinations and locations to multiple projects
so you can better determine when you will run out of capacity
and how long you can delay capital expenditures.
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DCIM that’s easy, fast, and complete. Top 40 Data Center KPIs 8
5. DCOI Compliance
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DCIM that’s easy, fast, and complete. Top 40 Data Center KPIs 9
6. Weight Capacity of Raised Floor
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DCIM that’s easy, fast, and complete. Top 40 Data Center KPIs 10
Cost KPIs
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DCIM that’s easy, fast, and complete. Top 40 Data Center KPIs 11
7. Data Center Energy Cost
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DCIM that’s easy, fast, and complete. Top 40 Data Center KPIs 12
8. Cost Per Customer
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Asset KPIs
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DCIM that’s easy, fast, and complete. Top 40 Data Center KPIs 14
9. Asset Age in Months
Monitoring the age of all assets in your data helps you easily
understand how old your hardware is and when you should
look to begin your next refresh cycle. Filtering the data by
equipment type such as cabinet, PDU, data panel, and
device and by date-specific parameters such as purchase data,
installation date, and contract start and end dates grants you full
visibility into the lifecycle of all data center assets.
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10. Asset Deployment Trends
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11. Available Inventory of Devices and Field
Replaceable Units
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Change KPIs
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DCIM that’s easy, fast, and complete. Top 40 Data Center KPIs 18
12. Change Requests by User, Stage, and Type
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DCIM that’s easy, fast, and complete. Top 40 Data Center KPIs 19
13. Change Request by Length of Time per Stage
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DCIM that’s easy, fast, and complete. Top 40 Data Center KPIs 20
14. Completed Requests Over Time
It’s important for data center managers to know how much work
is being done in the data center. One method of doing this is by
monitoring the number of moves, adds, and changes over time.
By tracking data center activity and productivity in this manner,
you can determine whether the number of employees in the data
center is justified or not, troubleshoot outages more easily, and
be able to bill your customers more accurately. Your goal number
of completed requests should be relative to your specific data
center and the amount of people in your facility.
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DCIM that’s easy, fast, and complete. Top 40 Data Center KPIs 21
15. Changes Per Person
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DCIM that’s easy, fast, and complete. Top 40 Data Center KPIs 22
Space KPIs
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DCIM that’s easy, fast, and complete. Top 40 Data Center KPIs 23
16. Available Floor and Cabinet Space Remaining
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DCIM that’s easy, fast, and complete. Top 40 Data Center KPIs 24
17. Available Space by Rack Unit Size
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DCIM that’s easy, fast, and complete. Top 40 Data Center KPIs 25
18. Rack Unit Capacity and Usage Trends
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19. Server/Network Blade Chassis Slot Usage
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DCIM that’s easy, fast, and complete. Top 40 Data Center KPIs 27
20. Rack Units Used by Rail
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Power KPIs
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DCIM that’s easy, fast, and complete. Top 40 Data Center KPIs 29
21. Peak Power Load Per Cabinet Over Last 30 Days
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DCIM that’s easy, fast, and complete. Top 40 Data Center KPIs 30
22. Days of Power Capacity Remaining
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DCIM that’s easy, fast, and complete. Top 40 Data Center KPIs 31
23. Cabinet Power Failover Redundancy Compliance
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DCIM that’s easy, fast, and complete. Top 40 Data Center KPIs 32
24. Power Trends by Cabinet with Peak Load
Thresholds and Alerts
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25. Power Chain Breaker Utilization
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26. 3 Phase Load Balancing Percent Deviation
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27. UPS Load Factor
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Efficiency KPIs
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28. Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE)
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DCIM that’s easy, fast, and complete. Top 40 Data Center KPIs 38
29. Percentage of Cabinets Compliant with
ASHRAE Standards
Maximize energy efficiency and ensure optimal
environmental conditions for your IT equipment by maintaining
your temperature and humidity within the ranges
provided by the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating
and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE). Use environmental
sensors to identify hot spots, overcooling, and extreme
humidity levels by visualizing all sensor points in thermal
envelopes within ASHRAE’s psychrometric charts. Then,
track the percentage of cabinets in your data center that are
compliant with ASHRAE standards with the goal of maintaining
100% compliance.
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DCIM that’s easy, fast, and complete. Top 40 Data Center KPIs 39
Cooling KPIs
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30. Latest Temperature Per Cabinet
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31. Hot Spot Occurrence and Duration
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32. Delta-T Per Cabinet
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33. Maximum Temperature Per Cabinet Over Last
30 Days
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DCIM that’s easy, fast, and complete. Top 40 Data Center KPIs 44
34. Airflow Efficiency
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35. Cooling System Efficiency
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Connectivity KPIs
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36. Cabinets with Most Free Data and Power Ports
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37. Data Ports Usage Per Connector Type
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38. Assets Per Connected Power Supplies
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DCIM that’s easy, fast, and complete. Top 40 Data Center KPIs 50
39. Data and Power Ports Usage Per Port Properties
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40. Data and Power Ports Capacity and Usage Trends
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DCIM that’s easy, fast, and complete. Top 40 Data Center KPIs 52
Conclusion
It’s more critical than ever to integrate, analyze, and act on the KPIs that have the most impact
on your data center, but how do you begin to monitor so many metrics? With a comprehensive
DCIM solution, it’s easy.
A modern, second-generation DCIM tool provides all your most important KPIs right out of the box with
zero-configuration dashboard widgets, reports, and visual analytics. An enterprise-class data and health
poller gathers data directly from facility equipment to ensure accurate, high-quality information that leads
to deeper, more reliable insights. Second-generation DCIM makes it simple for data center professionals
to make smarter, more informed decisions to improve data center health and efficiency while dramatically
simplifying capacity management.
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DCIM that’s easy, fast, and complete. Top 40 Data Center KPIs 53
Take the Next Steps with Sunbird
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DCIM that’s easy, fast, and complete. Top 40 Data Center KPIs 54
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