Data center management and control software: an overview

Better system management, efficiency and availability, have long been key objectives for those using data center management and control software. This software has been adopted by facility operations teams overseeing facility, cooling and power equipment availability for over two decades. It is still, however, far from mature.

Data center infrastructure management (DCIM) software is relatively widely used, but insufficient, because it does not include the IT or facility control elements that are becoming increasingly important. For this reason, Uptime Institute is using the broader terminology: data center management and control (DCM-C). By using this terminology, Uptime is not introducing or defining a new category of software, but is describing the broad range of tools that may be used, some of which do not easily fit into the many subcategories of IT and facilities software products.