Brightlayer DCIM vs ColdAisle

Brightlayer DCIM monitors, manages, and controls data center power, space, cooling, and operational resources, including servers, UPSs, PDUs, and computer room air conditioners. Eaton describes it for enterprise, colocation, hyperscale, and edge environments. It tracks power use, space allocation, and cooling performance, with real-time data and automated alerts. Dashboards show near-real-time KPIs such as power usage effectiveness and capacity utilization. Users can create 2D and 3D visualizations, floor plans, rack elevations, charts, and reports. The software also tracks IT and OT assets through their lifecycle, including service history, warranty, and compliance. Eaton lists integrations with VMware, building management, asset management or CMDB, and service desk or ITSM systems. Its device library has more than 30,000 models from hundreds of manufacturers; custom models for unlisted devices are available using SNMP, Modbus, or BACnet with annual support. Deployment commonly uses a virtual-environment server, with traditional server and cloud options also listed. Pricing is on request through an Eaton reseller.

ColdAisle is free, MIT-licensed, on-premise software for managing data center infrastructure. It runs on Windows using IIS, PHP, and SQL Server, and the marketing site does not host customer inventory. Its floor planner supports 2D layouts and interactive 3D views with cabinets, row PDUs, and raceways. Power tools cover A/B zones, panels, single-, dual-, and three-phase PDUs, outlet inventory, history charts, and overload alerts. Cooling features include CRAC and CRAH equipment, environmental sensors, and 3D airflow visualization. Device monitoring supports SNMPv2c and SNMPv3, MIB uploads, discovery, OID templates, and scheduled polling; SNMP secrets are encrypted at rest with the application key. Authentication options include local accounts, LDAPS with Active Directory group mapping, and Microsoft Entra ID OIDC single sign-on. ColdAisle can import openDCIM data through a live API or offline JSON dumps, with a preview before migration. Its IPAM feature does not provide IPv6, DNS, or a DHCP server.