Capacity Planning Still a Major Issue for Data Center Managers

Uptime Institute’s 2025 Global Data Center Survey shows that capacity planning remains a top challenge for operators. Nearly one-third of vendors identify forecasting future capacity requirements as their customers’ single biggest issue, more than any other concern.

Modern data centers face new complexities as digital services expand and hybrid IT architectures shift workloads across on-premises, colocation, and cloud environments. Without accurate planning, organizations risk wasted resources, unnecessary costs, and operational disruptions.

To stay ahead, data center managers are increasingly turning to modern Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) software, which simplifies and automates capacity planning while providing a real-time view of infrastructure resources.

Why Capacity Planning Can Be So Challenging

The latest survey confirms that forecasting capacity is one of the hardest parts of data center management. And it’s only getting tougher.

• Growing complexity. 30% of vendors now say forecasting future capacity requirements is their customers’ top concern, up from 23% in 2024. The steady rise reflects how digital services, hybrid IT, and new workloads keep adding variables to the equation.
• Balancing interdependent resources. Space, power, cooling, and data/power ports all need to line up in the right amounts, at the right time, and in the right place. Overestimating leads to stranded capacity and wasted spending, while underestimating risks outages, delays, and performance issues.
• Hybrid strategies. Workloads now move between on-premises infrastructure, colos, private cloud, and public cloud. This fluidity makes modeling future demand harder than ever.
• Emerging pressures. AI-driven workloads and evolving compliance requirements introduce new, unpredictable requirements that must be factored into plans.

The takeaway: capacity planning requires accurate, real-time data and the ability to adjust quickly as conditions change.

The Risks of Traditional Capacity Planning Methods

Planning capacity without accurate data and the right tools can create problems that ripple across the organization. Common risks include:

• Stranded capacity. Resources may exist but can’t be used effectively due to mismatched resources (e.g., available rack space without sufficient power or cooling) or lack of visibility into available resources. This wastes investment in infrastructure that provides no return.
• Underestimating demand. When available resources fall short of demand, teams may face delayed deployments, performance issues, or downtime.
• Excessive costs. Overprovisioning capacity ties up capital in underused infrastructure. Underbuilding forces reactive spending at premium costs.

Why Traditional Data Center Capacity Planning Methods Fall Short

Many teams still rely on spreadsheets and siloed tools to guide capacity planning. However, these methods rarely provide the accuracy or timeliness needed in modern environments.

The problems with this approach include:

• Spreadsheets lack reliability. Assets are constantly added, moved, or decommissioned, static files quickly become outdated and are vulnerable to human error, and spreadsheets are time-consuming to use.
• Fragmented tools. CMDBs, ticketing systems, network management, server management, and other platforms often operate independently. It’s hard to see how changes in one system affect another.
• Incomplete visibility. Without centralized, real-time data, data center managers risk making plans based on inaccurate or incomplete information.

Broader Trends Impacting Capacity Planning

Uptime Institute’s survey points to several industry-wide forces that make accurate capacity planning even more critical:

• Rising customer spending. More than half of vendors report that customers are increasing budgets for data center products and services. But higher spending doesn’t guarantee success. Without accurate forecasting abilities, new investments can easily be misallocated or underutilized.
• Lingering supply chain delays. Fewer organizations are affected than in past years, but those that are can face months-long setbacks. These delays raise the stakes for maximizing existing capacity and planning expansions well ahead of demand.
• AI-driven workloads. Nearly all vendors expect artificial intelligence to be widely adopted within five years to improve efficiency and availability. However, most do not anticipate a reduction in staffing needs. Data center managers will have to plan for both new, resource-intensive workloads and the human expertise required to support them.

How Sunbird DCIM Helps Data Center Managers Get Capacity Planning Right

Capacity planning becomes difficult when information is scattered across tools and teams. Sunbird DCIM brings everything together in one system, enabling data center managers to:

• Maximize existing resources. Sunbird’s Auto Power Budget feature automatically sets accurate power budgets for each server instance based on its actual measured load, so data center managers can know if they can safely deploy more equipment in their existing rack space. Additionally, the what-if analysis capability simulates the impact that adding new equipment will have on rack space and power capacity to provide insight if existing resources can be used for planned projects.
• Provision new equipment faster. Equipment templates with predefined deployment requirements allow teams to quickly find the optimal cabinet for new equipment by searching across space, power, and connectivity parameters. Then, those resources can all be reserved at once.
• Visualize capacity at a glance. Interactive 2D and 3D views show rack capacity across space, power, cooling, and weight. This makes it easy to spot underutilized or unevenly distributed resources and optimize usage before investing in new infrastructure.
• Manage power capacity from building to chip. Sunbird DCIM models and tracks capacity and utilization at every hop in the power circuit—from the utility feed down to individual servers. By monitoring three-phase loads, breaker states, and redundancy requirements, data center managers can maximize power capacity utilization while maintaining uptime.

Real-World Examples of Capacity Planning with Sunbird DCIM

Leading organizations are already using Sunbird DCIM to transform the way they plan and manage capacity. For example:

• Colruyt Group. Replaced spreadsheets and a legacy DCIM tool with Sunbird DCIM to gain centralized visibility into capacity with a single pane of glass. This enabled more reliable capacity planning that ultimately reduced the number of physical visits to the data center by 50%.
• University of Minnesota. Consolidated two data centers into a single facility and reduced rack count by 42% using Sunbird DCIM for more informed capacity planning.
• Cisco. Leveraged Sunbird DCIM to consolidate 66% of colocation cages at one site, saving $40,000 per month by eliminating unnecessary power contracts and maximizing space and power utilization.
• Comcast. Leveraged Sunbird’s Auto Power Budget feature to automatically set highly accurate power budgets for each device instance, recovering 40% more utilization out of existing resources.

Bringing It All Together

Uptime Institute’s latest survey confirms that capacity planning remains one of the toughest challenges in data center operations. Forecasting future needs for space, power, cooling, and data/power ports is only getting harder as hybrid architectures, supply chain pressures, and emerging workloads reshape demand.

Yet the issue is not insurmountable. With accurate, real-time data and the right tools, data center managers can make smarter, more informed capacity planning decisions.

Sunbird DCIM provides a digital twin and single pane of glass to know the capacity of all infrastructure resources at a click.

Ready to see how Sunbird DCIM can help you simplify and automate data center capacity planning? Get your free test drive now.