Cloud and colocation providers are finally turning to Data Centre Management as a Service (DMaaS) to run their facilities optimally, leveraging its inherent advantages to ensure greater agility, availability and operational efficiency.

But why the interest in DMaaS and what exactly does DMaaS offer to DC providers?

Improving data centres

It must first be noted that years of iterative improvements mean that the low-hanging fruit has long been driven out of data centre design.

It is hence increasingly difficult to improve efficiency or further enhance existing designs without radical changes. Yet the latter is not always tenable, which leaves operators looking for alternative strategies for improvements.

And as observed by Greg Jones of Schneider Electric, colocation providers are under tremendous pressure to deliver more capacity than ever in a shorter amount of time.

Where six months to a year was the norm for a data centre migration, this is now expected to be completed in five months or less. So, what choice does data centre operators have but to leverage innovative technologies?

And this is where DMaaS with its automated and data-centric approach comes into the picture. It also makes sense when one considers how most errors and outages in data centres originate from human errors.

The value of DMaaS

While DMaaS is based on DCIM software, it is much more than a SaaS version of DCIM.

Under the hood, DMaaS collects anonymised equipment and device data from multiple data centres, where it is pooled and analysed at scale to predict and prevent data centre level incidents and failure, as well as to detect potential inefficiencies.

So why use it now? To be sure, DMaaS platforms are far simpler to use than before.

With growing familiarity in the industry around traditional DCIM and Internet of Things (IoT) deployments with the data centre, this means that setting up DMaaS is easier than ever without the need for complex engineering.

Currently, thousands of new devices are connected to the Schneider Electric Cloud each day and integrated into a data lake. Analytics can be applied to the anonymised data and used for anomaly detection or to deliver customised recommendations for improving data centre performance.

With the potential to incorporate artificial intelligence (AI) technology in the form of machine learning, cloud-based remote monitoring offers advantages that point monitoring solutions simply cannot match.

Green trends

Of course, improving energy efficiency pales in comparison to the use of green energy. On this front, there is no question that operators are now more interested in the integration of renewables in data centres than ever.

The industry has embraced green and is exploring various means including the purchase of renewable energy credits. From renewable energy options such as energy attribute certificates (EACs) to power purchase agreements (PPAs), the available options today are many and varied.

Within the data centre, lithium-ion battery adoption is also increasing, with advantages that include a far longer life expectancy, greater power capacity and less weight.

Together, it offers savings that can go as high as 53 per cent compared to valve regulated lead acid (VRLA) batteries, according to Pankaj Sharma of Schneider Electric.

Learn more about Schneider Electric's innovative lithium-ion battery solutions for energy protection for your critical infrastructure here.