New Omdia research reveals data center infrastructure management (DCIM) will be a pivotal player with market value expected to reach $6.3bn by 2030. From overseeing infrastructure equipment in remote cabinets to sprawling hyperscale data centers, DCIM solutions offer a comprehensive approach to monitoring and measuring.
Managing power and cooling is typically the responsibility of operational teams (OT) rather than IT departments with the key objective of maintaining the resiliency/availability of the infrastructure. However, as this scope gains prominence, a transformative convergence between IT and OT is taking place across organizations; an area tracked in Omdia’s DCIM Market Landscape: The role of DCIM in IT and OT convergence. Omdia’s IT Enterprise Insights: IT Spending & Sourcing 2024 survey sheds light on how organizations are budgeting for IT needs this year. Highlighting a familiar pattern, the data showed that the majority (65%) of IT budgets will be directed towards maintaining existing systems and services while, 18% will go towards expanding current services, and 17% towards transformative initiatives in 2024. This figure mirrors trends from the last few years reflecting the persistent challenges of increasing labor and energy costs. Omdia expects that organizations will increasingly turn to automation, AI-enabled optimization, and as-a-service models to manage costs and drive more investment towards transformative projects over the next five years.
The ongoing volatility of energy prices is a critical factor impacting IT budgets globally as energy tariffs vary from country to country and within. Despite expectations for continued fluctuations driven by market dynamics, fuel types, regulations, weather patterns, and geopolitical uncertainty, there is little indication that energy prices will stabilize in the near future.
Figure 1 shows Omdia’s DCIM model, which we consider as consisting of six key areas of capability: instrumentation, monitoring, control, management, optimization, and forecasting. Omdia groups these capabilities into three distinct categories of DCIM offerings; foundational, operational and strategic.
2023 witnessed a dip in the server output following two exceptional years in 2021 and 2022. The downturn can be attributed to various factors including the COVID-19 pandemic, supply chain issues, and ongoing global geopolitical uncertainties. However, Omdia forecasts, indicate a positive outlook for 2024 and beyond. IT equipment, particularly servers (partially to meet the demands of GenAI) and network equipment (to meet the needs of faster network connectivity) is expected to see year-on-year increases. This increased infrastructure necessitates robust monitoring and will drive DCIM revenue.
According to Omdia’s Chief Analyst Roy Illsley, “DCIM is set to be a $6.3bn market by 2030, driven by the twin forces of sustainability and the need to optimize efficiency in data centers as the GenAI wave impacts enterprise customers.”
