sking six data center managers to define infrastructure management is a sure way to get six different answers. It is similar to the ancient story of the six blind men and the elephant. When each of the men approached the elephant, he came to the conclusion that the elephant was like a wall, a spear, a snake, a tree, a fan, and a rope. In the end, they were all wrong. Just as an elephant is more than the sum of its parts, a true data center management solution is more than the sum of the various infrastructure management tool sets.
Information is the word that best summarizes the task of infrastructure management. Information about the data center must be complete and accurate, have audit capability, and provide an integration layer.
Data center managers must be able to answer some key questions:
A data center operator who can’t answer these questions probably doesn’t have the tools needed to manage the facility.
Like the six parts of an elephant, infrastructure management tools fall into six general categories: