DCIM Platforms Are on the Verge of Tremendous Growth, Heavy Reading Finds

BOSTON, June 19, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- The Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) market has massive growth opportunity, but it has a lot to live up to and the market is turbulent, according to the latest report from Heavy Reading Service Provider IT Insider (www.heavyreading.com/servsoftware), a subscription research service from Heavy Reading (www.heavyreading.com).

DCIM Evolves to Meet Cloud Service Delivery Requirements looks at what telcos and cloud service providers most want from DCIM platforms, comparing their requirements against the tools vendors deliver and examining the barriers to adoption that may deter many from making what will likely be a considerable financial and logistical investment in deploying them. Customer implementations indicate that the majority of installations remain in the enterprise sector, reinforcing the sense that DCIM software must adjust its proposition before it can drive further into the telco data center. All the major DCIM vendors are profiled, offering a short summary of their product and sales approach and differentiation strategies, followed by a prediction of how market demand and competition will pan out over the next 12 months.

For a list of companies covered in this report, http://twimgs.com/audiencedevelopment/LRHR/PDFS/spiti0613_companies.pdf

"DCIM tools are as diverse as they are voluminous, but only a small subset of commercially available applications can provide visibility into assets that span both physical and virtual IT systems, as well as facilities or in-building infrastructures," says Martin Courtney, research analyst with Heavy Reading Service Provider IT Insider and author of the report. "The recent proliferation of cloud services, and the rush among telcos to provide them, leaves the DCIM market potentially on the verge of tremendous growth."

Despite, or perhaps because, it is so widely anticipated as a substantial growth market, the DCIM landscape is extremely turbulent, Courtney says. "Some vendors are on the verge of bankruptcy, others are seemingly in hibernation until economic conditions improve and the rest jostling within a series of alliances, acquisitions and new market entries, and all fighting for market share in an increasingly volatile commercial arena," he continues. "A significant portion of the hundreds of billions of dollars cloud services are forecast to generate in revenue annually by 2016 will fall into the pockets of telcos and dedicated cloud service providers, driving ongoing center consolidation and optimization initiatives designed to reduce opex and boost cloud service profit margins in the data centers hosting those services, in support of which converged DCIM platforms will play an important role."

Key findings of DCIM Evolves to Meet Cloud Service Delivery Requirements include the following:

• The DCIM market is beset by mergers, alliances and companies succumbing to competitive and economic pressure.
• Single-digit DCIM penetration rates stem mainly from the enterprise sector.
• Telcos and cloud service providers must control physical and virtual IT assets alongside space, power and cooling resources to optimize cloud service delivery.
• Most DCIM solutions fall short of cloud service provider needs but are evolving to include greater visibility into the virtualization layer and dynamic configuration processes.
• Barriers to adoption include high implementation costs and integration challenges.
• IBM's partnership with Emerson Network Power will cause major disruption in the DCIM market.

DCIM Evolves to Meet Cloud Service Delivery Requirements is available as part of an annual single-user subscription (six issues) to Heavy Reading Service Provider IT Insider, priced at $1,595. Individual reports are available for $900 (single-user license).

To subscribe, or for more information, please visit: www.heavyreading.com/servsoftware. For more information about other Heavy Reading Insider research services, please visit: www.heavyreading.com/research.

To request a free executive summary of the report, or for details on multi-user licensing options, please contact:

David Williams
Global Director of Sales, Research
Heavy Reading
858-829-8612
david.williams@ubm.com

Press/analyst contact:
Jennifer Baker
Marketing Director, Light Reading Communications Network
617-747-4110
jennifer.baker@ubm.com

About Heavy Reading (www.heavyreading.com)
Heavy Reading is an independent research organization offering deep analysis of emerging telecom trends to network operators, technology suppliers, and investors. Its product portfolio includes in-depth reports that address critical next-generation technology and service issues, market trackers that focus on the telecom industry's most critical technology sectors, exclusive worldwide surveys of network operator decision-makers that identify future purchasing and deployment plans, and a rich array of custom and consulting services that give clients the market intelligence needed to compete successfully in the global telecom industry. As a division of UBM Tech (tech.ubm.com), Heavy Reading contributes to the only integrated business information platform serving the global communications industry.

SOURCE Heavy Reading