Recommended Free Tools
On June 15, 2011, Data Center Knowledge grouped three separate developments under the headline “DCIM and Big Data”: FieldView Solutions raised growth capital, Fenwick & West selected Nlyte for a data-center initiative, and Splunk received a U.S. patent. These were separate announcements—not a joint product launch or a demonstrated Nlyte–Splunk integration.
What the June 15, 2011 article reported
FieldView Solutions raised $2 million
FieldView Solutions announced a $2 million growth-capital round from SJF Ventures, Milestone Venture Partners and Osage Venture Partners. The company positioned its software as a way to view mission-critical data-center performance across IT equipment, racks, power systems and cooling infrastructure.
Fenwick & West chose Nlyte
Law firm Fenwick & West selected Nlyte’s data-center infrastructure management (DCIM) software for a green-IT initiative and data-center business-process improvements. Kevin Moore, then the firm’s director of information technology, said: “nlyte Software’s solution gives us the visibility and process control we need to confidently and reliably manage our data center while helping us achieve LEED certification.”
The 2011 report described two targets for the project:
#1 Best Overall
- A power usage effectiveness (PUE) target of 1.2.
- A 40% reduction in the time required to deploy new assets.
Those figures were goals reported at the time, not independently verified results. The article does not establish that either target was achieved.
Splunk received a U.S. patent
The article’s summary also mentioned Splunk being granted a U.S. patent. The available account does not provide enough information about the patent’s claims or scope to support a technical explanation, so it should be treated simply as a patent-award item in that 2011 news roundup.
Rank #2
What happened to FieldView Solutions?
Nlyte announced its acquisition of FieldView Solutions on February 4, 2016. Nlyte said the deal added real-time event management and analytics, including monitoring, alarming, trending and analysis capabilities. In that announcement, Nlyte CEO Doug Sabella said enterprises needed to react quickly to changes in data-center conditions; FieldView CEO Fred Dirla described the company’s focus as real-time monitoring, alarming, trending and analysis.
Therefore, FieldView is best understood today as technology that became part of Nlyte’s portfolio, rather than as an independent vendor represented by the 2011 funding announcement.
The Tool Desk
Outbyte PC Repair FREERepair Windows errors before they cause bigger problemsFix Now →Outbyte Driver Updater FREEFix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitchesFind Drivers →DCIM versus “big data” in this context
DCIM applies operational data to the physical and procedural management of a data center. Nlyte currently describes a suite covering the following areas:
- Asset lifecycle management and inventory
- Capacity planning
- Power and environmental monitoring
- Energy optimization
- Workflow automation
- System integration, visualization and reporting
Calling this “big data” does not mean that the 2011 article documented a particular data lake, machine-learning model or benchmark. It means that information from many infrastructure domains—equipment, space, power, temperature and operational processes—can be collected and analyzed together. Nlyte’s capability descriptions are vendor claims, not independent performance measurements.
Rank #4
How Splunk fits—and where the evidence stops
Splunk’s current Infrastructure Monitoring description centers on software and service metrics. It highlights integrations for standard metrics, streaming analytics on metrics in flight, real-time dashboards, analytics functions and alerting.
That scope differs from a physical DCIM system’s emphasis on assets, rooms, racks, power chains, environmental conditions and capacity workflows:
Do these 3 things before closing this tab:
1Scan for outdated or missing drivers - takes under a minute2Clear out junk files and repair common Windows errors3Fix the driver behind crashes, sound loss and screen glitches| Dimension | Nlyte’s described DCIM scope | Splunk Infrastructure Monitoring description |
|---|---|---|
| Primary focus | Physical data-center assets and operational processes | Infrastructure metrics and observability |
| Data examples | Asset records, capacity, power and environmental conditions | Standard metrics and streaming metric data |
| Operations | Lifecycle management, workflows, planning and reporting | Dashboards, analytics functions and alerting |
| Relationship established by the cited material | DCIM platform, including capabilities Nlyte says it gained or expanded through FieldView | Monitoring product description; no direct Nlyte integration is established |
Organizations can conceptually use both categories of tooling: DCIM can describe and control the physical environment, while an observability platform can analyze metrics from software and infrastructure services. However, the cited sources do not prove a direct Nlyte–Splunk connector, equivalent feature coverage, pricing parity or comparative performance.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Why the Fenwick & West figures need careful reading
A PUE of 1.2 would represent an ambitious efficiency objective, but the number in the 2011 article is explicitly a target. The same is true of the proposed 40% reduction in deployment time. Neither statistic should be presented as a measured case-study result, a guarantee for other facilities or a current Nlyte benchmark.
Historical takeaway
The 2011 roundup captured three trends that were important at the time: investment in cross-domain data-center visibility, customer interest in DCIM for efficiency and process control, and Splunk’s expansion of its intellectual-property portfolio. The subsequent FieldView acquisition explains part of Nlyte’s later real-time monitoring story, while Splunk’s current product description reflects a broader infrastructure-observability role. The events remain historically related by topic, not by a documented joint technology or partnership.
Quick Recap
Product prices and availability are accurate as of the date/time indicated and are subject to change. Any price and availability information displayed on Amazon at the time of purchase will apply.
