Emerson Survey Shows Need For Better, More Consistent Data Center Monitoring

In today’s digital economy, data centers cannot afford to “go down” because when they do, companies suffer. But according to a survey of more than 100 data center professionals, only 35 percent are using a single, dedicated monitoring system that provides the level of detail necessary for outage prevention and efficient incident management.

Real-time infrastructure monitoring helps data centers predict faults, enabling them to prevent problems before they occur, or react quickly to incidents, as well as effectively measure infrastructure utilization.

The survey was conducted by the Aperture Research Institute within Emerson Network Power, a business of Emerson EMR and the global leader in enabling Business-Critical Continuity.

“The fact that many data centers are not using a single monitoring system is quite alarming,” said Tom Waun, president of Aperture Technologies, a business of Emerson Network Power. “Those data centers that are using multiple systems risk increasing costs and complexity to unmanageable levels. There’s also an over-reliance on building management systems, which typically do not monitor the data center at the rack and device level, and these data centers will be unable to see a holistic view, making it difficult for them to accurately plan capacity and optimize resources.”

Other key findings of the survey include:

  • Although 88 percent of the data center professionals surveyed monitor their infrastructure, less than a third (30 percent) monitor more than 90 percent of their equipment, restricting their ability to respond to outages and carry out preventative maintenance.
  • 12 percent of those surveyed revealed that they do not monitor the infrastructure of their data centers at all, and these data centers are unlikely to be able to offer a high level of uptime as a result.
  • Just more than half (51 percent) of those that are using monitoring systems were using building management systems (BMS), which typically lack the level of detail needed to be effective.
  • 41 percent of participants who monitor data centers revealed they use more than one system to do so. In some cases, up to six or seven systems are used.