What’s on Santa’s DCIM list? Find out here!
Santa needs DCIM? Why on earth would that be?
Well obviously, a global enterprise like the Claus family operation has a substantial IT need. Certainly, the scale of the back office functions that Mrs. Claus runs needs some pretty substantial IT. The elves have to keep track of hundreds of millions of children’s orders all coming in December (and not lose a single one), not to mention the logistics for all the raw materials that are delivered throughout the year and the amazing route planning software for Santa’s deliveries on Christmas eve! It is a well-kept secret but the Claus enterprise DC is at the North Pole with a DR site in Greenland, but those are not the only data center locations.
Over the years, the Claus operation has needed to become closer to their customers, who, like anyone under the age of 35, want to interact with Santa on mobile devices with almost instant response times. The Claus operation now has racks of equipment in 15 co-location facilities from Australia to Africa to the Americas and beyond. This dual operation model has kept Claus Inc. nimble when they need to react quickly (elves were some of the first adopters of DevOps in the world), but ensures the crown jewels, the naughty and nice list, stays secure in the Claus data center. While they have considered it, for now Mrs. Claus has decided the only thing going in to the cloud is Santa.
So what features were on the Claus DCIM list? They needed a solution that could work across all their sites, be very configurable, include mobility for changes, and be easy-to-use so the co-location staff could update the changes made to racks themselves. (Did you know Santa insists all his racks have chimneys? It’s a ‘green’ option and well, it is Santa!) They also needed to keep up with lifecycle changes and monitor spare and new inventory. Mrs. Claus hates to see a penny wasted, so she is a big user of the planning and auditing functions to ensure there is not a single wasted port or server. Additionally, power at the North Pole is not cheap, so she watches that like a hawk. Mrs. Claus is also one with an eye to the ROI and I know she needed an affordable solution with rapid implementation options.
As Santa said to us recently, “Your Cormant team will definitely make my ‘nice’ list this year.”
Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from the Cormant team!
– By: Paul Goodison