Every IT team is tasked with developing a data center strategy that provides monitoring and insights across several aspects of its data center including temperature, airflow, humidity, power consumption, and security. To assist with this, most organizations have deployed a data center infrastructure management (DCIM) solution to receive a holistic view of its operations, but that data falls short when predictive and big picture analytics are necessary for forecasting. As a result, data center management as a service — or DMaaS, in short — has emerged as the cloud-based, analytical powerhouse of data center monitoring.

Before diving into the differentiators, it’s important to develop a sense of both solutions. A traditional, on-premise DCIM solution offers consistent and secure data collection, reporting and alerting for an individual environment. Building on these benefits, DMaaS integrates these features into a cloud-based alternative that allows IT managers to monitor their data center infrastructure incrementally, receive real-time insights, and prevent potential failures. While both solutions are similar in objective, there are key differences in the approach. Here are three facts every IT manager should know when evaluating the right data center solution for their business needs.

Fact #1: DMaaS provides a low-cost alternative to DCIM

Unlike a DCIM solution which is typically priced based on a data center’s vast requirements, DMaaS is lower-cost — with some limited versions that are free. Most DMaaS providers only require users to register for an account, with the additional offer for paid services if more robust insights are needed. This creates a low-barrier to adopting DMaaS technology and gives IT teams the ability to push this technology to its boundaries without the worry of negatively effecting a high-cost solution.

Fact #2: DMaaS offers IT teams enhanced visibility

While traditional DCIM tools can successfully measure one environment, DMaaS expands the industry’s understanding of how data centers operate by gathering insights from data centers of all sizes across various locations. Along with providing insights based on the successes and failures of the industry, DMaaS continuously learns and improves based on data collected across all users. Due to this capability, DMaaS supports data standardization across the IT environment giving organizations easier access and analysis capabilities.

Fact #3: DMaaS fuels the growth of next gen technologies

DMaaS’ machine learning capabilities creates the foundation for next generation technologies to take a more prominent role in data center strategies. While DMaaS is a step towards the future of data center operations, it’s far from the finish line. When IT teams adopt technology — like DMaaS — that takes a step towards new innovative solutions, not only do individual teams become more comfortable with the capabilities of next gen technologies such as AI, edge computing, and DevOps but the industry is pushed into the future.

As IT teams increasingly feel the pressure to improve power, performance and efficiency in its data center, data center managers will tap into the benefits of DMaaS making it the go-to platform in 2019.