Data centre management refers to the set of tasks and activities handled by an organization for the day-to-day requirements of operating a data centre.

Data centres are increasingly complex facilities to operate, involving the management of hardware, software, services and physical infrastructure. On the hardware side, data centres include many types of equipment, including compute and storage hardware that needs to be managed for ongoing operations. Software and virtual workloads that run on racks of server hardware in a data centre are often also within the purview of data centre management operations.

Managing the physical infrastructure of a data centre is another primary task within the domain of data centre management. The physical infrastructure includes the power and cooling required for regular operations, as well as backup systems for disaster recovery, power interruptions, and security and access control to the data centre premises.

All data centre operators — whether they’re enterprises, hyperscalers or cloud service providers — need to have human IT staff in place to handle some of the physical hardware and software management operations. Capacity planning, sometimes referred to as business service management, helps operators plan for current and future needs.