ComputerLinks to push DCIM with Raritan deal

Distributor ComputerLinks has announced a partnership with Raritan to offer the latest in Data Centre Infrastructure Management to its reseller base.

As part of its next generation datacentre strategy, IT security and Internet services firm Computer Links is looking to push the benefits of DCIM in the channel.

DCIM is part of the offerings that services that Raritan will bring to ComputerLinks customers, and it is expected to be a large are of growth in the future.  ComputerLinks expects plenty of growth in DCIM, citing a Gartner report which predicts that DCIM tools will soon become mainstream in data centres, with growth from one per cent penetration back in 2010, up to sixty per cent in 2014.

“It is becoming more and more important, there has been a change in datacentres,” Director of New Technology and Services, David Ellis, told ChannelBiz.

“A few years ago companies started to put the odd application in the virtualised environment.  Over time they have started to feel comfortable in putting more and application in virtualisation.”

“This means that the datacentre becomes more and more and important.”

In the past people have used a spreadsheet to manage equipment, Ellis says, though this becomes much more difficult when you start to grow the datacentre.

“Management of datacentre becomes much more difficult, whilst reducing costs you are trying to reduce power consumption.”

“It has become a much more complex environment, these tools can really help streamline that.”

For companies which target power consumption the benefits are certainly there.   Ellis mentions one French power company which saved “millions and millions” by running datacentres more efficiently, by looking at ways of powering down, or cooling the datacentre.

By partnering with Raritan ComputerLinks has access to a number of services, including power management tracking using DCIM tools.

In the past much of this came under the remit of facilities staff, but knowledge of power management is becoming increasingly important for IT staff.

“A few years ago IT staff didn’t have to think about this,” Ellis says. “Roles are becoming much more converged, and these tools can help with that.”

Ellis says that end customers are seeing challenges in these areas, and resellers and systems integrators can help address these problems.  This also presents openings for channel players utilising the technology.

“It is a good opportunity for the channel, and these services can help bring in more business, for example if customers are looking to reduce their carbon footprint.”

It gives the ability to “bolt on additional business”, opening doors to other services such as datacentre health checks.

Part of the driver of growth in terms of reducing power consumption is set to be to the increased emphasis on carbon emissions.

A number of countries in Europe organisations have been given carbon reduction targets, and if they can meet these they can save loads on tax levies.  This can present additional savings to operational costs Ellis says.

Ellis says that the trend towards environmental soundness is set to help grow this in future. Customers and enterprises want to be “seen to be green”, and governments are also driving this.

While some of Raritan’s offerings such as its DCIM tools are largely aimed at bigger organisations, power management is impacting on all manner sizes of firms.  Through its KVM services Raritan can allow even smaller scale businesses to make savings by monitoring and managing efficiency more carefully.