CA has been on a role with its CA Infrastructure Management (CA IM) 2.0 tool. Recently the software giant announced that Empowered, a systems integrator, is using the CA software to improve its IT services.
Now CA is announcing that Simac ICT Belgium is now standardized on the same infrastructure management tool.
“We upgraded to CA IM 2.0 because it provides a more efficient, scalable and cost-effective solution that combines previously standalone tools for managing infrastructure performance, availability, traffic flow, capacity and application response,” says Herman Van den Broeck, senior consultant, Simac ICT Belgium. “Many leading financial institutions, telecommunications providers and commercial enterprises in Benelux rely on Simac to manage their business services and applications across complex physical, virtual, cloud and mobile environments. The converged view of all aspects of infrastructure management offers new levels of insight into business service delivery, helping our customers better predict, visualize and resolve issues; optimize performance and availability; and understand capacity needs and shortages.”
CA IM includes network flow analysis, performance management and automated infrastructure discovery.
The goal of CA IM is to help providers make sure their data services are reliable and high performing.
CA IM 2.0 is the main item in CA’s converged infrastructure management toolbox. The IM suite includes CA Spectrum which does network and device discovery, CA Performance Management, and CA Network Flow Analysis.
The three can “provide unified visibility and control over performance, availability, and traffic composition via a single interface,” CA said.
The suite’s architecture is well suited to MSPs and other providers. “Because CA IM 2.0 has a small footprint and a low total cost of ownership, the solution helps Empowered manage its clients’ IT infrastructures more efficiently,” CA argued.
CA and its partners should so well, at least if the overall market is any indication. According to a MarketsandMarkets Report, the data center infrastructure management market will grow at a 47.33 percent CAGR and hit $3.14 billion by 2017.
CA Scores with IDC
When it comes to analyst kudos, two of the most important are the Gartner Magic Quadrant and IDC MarketScape, which likewise chooses vendor leaders.
CA Technologies recently scored this latter honor having been picked as a ‘leader’ in the “IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Datacenter Infrastructure Management (DCIM) 2013 Vendor Analysis.”
This makes two years in a row for CA.
DCIM is a specialized area of infrastructure management that focuses largely on the physical aspects of a data center, the same aspects that determine whether a data center is efficient and green.
Power and cooling are key items to be managed. But DCIM does much more. It handles building management, and should offer a single dashboard-style view of all physical infrastructure.
Once you have a better handle on all your physical infrastructure and energy use, you can use DCIM to better plan expansion. In fact, DCIM can help automate how new devices are commissioned and at the same time automate overall capacity planning.
While CA is pretty much a monster in the technology space, IDC found it nimble in the DCIM area, saying “one of CA Technologies key strengths is its ability to innovate like a small company, yet it has the marketing, service, and sales organization of a large company.”
While IDC sees CA acting like a smaller company, its size and history are a huge advantage in this space. “CA Technologies has the existing IT presence and surrounding solutions to reach the right people with the right message for DCIM. The company's well-developed sales and marketing channels, legacy of hardware-agnostic solutions, and ability to converse with C-level decision makers will drive continued growth in DCIM adoption by its existing customer base and new datacenter customers,” IDC found.
One approach that makes CA interesting is its pricing, where it can base what it charges on the overall power footprint of the customer. Simply put, if you have a large data center which uses a lot of juice, you get more of a charge.
CA walked out two customers to back its DCIM chops. Entel is a Chilean MSP and telco that now uses CA DCIM for its own data center.
“Maintaining the efficiency and performance of our data center infrastructure is of major importance to our business,” said Gino Bernucci, who leads strategic initiatives at Entel. “We decided to deploy CA DCIM because it helps us monitor and manage our data center environment, and can provide our external data center customers with an integrated view across our facilities and IT systems.”
CA also trotted out Eaton, an industrial management will use DCIM “to deliver a robust data center monitoring, management and control solution in North America that will empower data center managers to increase operational efficiency, mitigate risk and enhance performance,” the partners said.
Overall IDC View
Of course the IDC report didn’t just talk about CA. Besides CA, IDC found a lot to like in Emerson Network Power and Schneider Electric who were also hailed as ‘leaders’. So-called ‘major players’ included Cormant, FieldView Solutions, iTRACS, Nlyte Software, Panduit and Raritan.
IDC also discussed the dynamics behind the overall market, and here believes DCIM vendors fill a critical need.
“Datacenter facilities and IT executives are dealing with delays in application rollouts, disrupted service to customers, unplanned spending for patches, an inability to roll out new products or services, and unplanned downtime,” said Richard Villars, IDC vice president for Datacenter and Cloud. “DCIM solutions can help manage these issues by providing consistent and complete information about datacenter infrastructure.”
Choosing a vendor is complicated, but worth the effort. “Decisions on which provider to choose should transcend tactical capabilities such as asset management and environmental and power monitoring, and include strategic capabilities such as advanced analytics to ensure the long-term success of the implementation,” said Jennifer Koppy, IDC, research manager for Data Center Infrastructure.
Edited by
Alisen Downey
