Survey: How Much Do Data Center Managers Trust Their Data? And Where Can They Improve?

Data center decisions are only as reliable as the information behind them. An asset inventory can accurately describe the equipment it records while still omitting assets that have not been documented. Power readings can be current for monitored equipment while other gaps go unnoticed. And when infrastructure data is spread across disconnected systems, getting a complete picture becomes harder.

Uptime Institute’s Global Data Center Survey 2026 offers a revealing look at how confident operators are in their operational data. This was the first year Uptime asked respondents about their confidence in data quality, providing a baseline for understanding where operators feel confident and where completeness remains a concern.

What Did Uptime Institute Find About Confidence in Operational Data?

Uptime asked operators how confident they are in the quality of operational data from sensors, software, and equipment across four characteristics. Here is how they responded:

Source: Uptime Institute Global Data Center Survey 2026.

Three takeaways stand out:

• Accuracy and timeliness score highest. Combined very and mostly confident responses reach 93% for both.
• Confidence in data used for operational decisions is slightly lower. Combined confidence falls to 89%, with 11% not very or not at all confident.
• Completeness is lowest. Only 35% are very confident, and 14% are not very or not at all confident.

Why Is Completeness the Weakest Link?

Uptime does not identify a specific cause for the completeness gap. It does note that operators have long expressed concerns about unreliable legacy systems, data silos, and growing system incompatibility. These issues can make it harder to maintain a consistent, complete view of infrastructure across systems.

In our experience with data center professionals, completeness gaps usually look like this:

• Assets missing from inventory. Equipment is installed, moved, or decommissioned without the record being updated.
• Undocumented connections. Power and network paths are not captured at the port level.
• Sensor and meter gaps. Some racks, circuits, or sites report power and environmental data, and others do not.
• Fragmented sources. Asset data lives in spreadsheets, power data lives in a monitoring tool, and change history lives in tickets and email, for example.

The gap highlights an important distinction: data can be accurate and current for the assets being tracked without covering every asset, connection, or measurement an operator needs. A completeness check can help reveal what is missing.

One caveat: this survey measures perceived confidence, not independently verified data quality. High confidence alone does not establish that all required assets, connections, and readings are captured.

Why Does Data Confidence Matter Now?

Uptime points to several pressures that depend on complete, current data:

• AI in operations. Uptime notes that operational AI applications depend on high-quality, often real-time data. In the same survey, 71% of respondents said they would trust an adequately trained AI system to analyze sensor data or prioritize alarms. That willingness to trust AI makes data quality an important consideration as automation expands.
• Capacity forecasting. 76% of respondents say management is at least somewhat concerned about forecasting future capacity requirements, up from 68% in 2024. A forecast built on an incomplete inventory is hard to defend.
• Outage prevention. 89% of respondents who experienced an impactful outage say better management, processes, or configuration could have avoided it. Those are areas where accurate records and change tracking matter.
• Staffing. 53% of operators report difficulty finding qualified candidates. Teams with fewer experienced people rely more heavily on documented data and less on tribal knowledge.

Uptime also cautions that high confidence is valuable only when it is supported by effective data governance, validation, and maintenance processes.

How Does DCIM Software Help Close Data Gaps?

Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) software can serve as the system of record for physical data center infrastructure, bringing asset, connectivity, capacity, and monitoring information into a centralized view.

Each capability below addresses a different part of the completeness problem.

• Complete asset and connectivity records. DCIM software tracks servers, network and storage equipment, racks, PDUs, patch panels, cabling, and supporting infrastructure with relationships mapped down to the port level. A built-in model templates library pre-populates specifications, images, and ports when assets are added, reducing manual entry and helping to standardize records. Unlimited custom fields can capture other details specific to your organization.
• Automated data population. Out-of-the-box connectors and RESTful APIs sync data with CMDBs such as ServiceNow, ticketing tools, and more. Assets created elsewhere appear in your DCIM without manual entry, which reduces the gaps that come from double entry.
• Change workflows that keep records current. Built-in requests, approvals, work orders, and audit trails update the system when the physical environment changes. Business rules can also update asset fields automatically based on conditions you define.
• Faster, more accurate audits. Barcode or QR code scanning audits with voice response lets one person verify a rack and flags mismatches against the database. This finds missing or misplaced assets before they introduce planning errors.
• Power and environmental monitoring. DCIM monitoring software collects live readings from intelligent rack PDUs, busways, RPPs, floor PDUs, and temperature and humidity sensors at user-configurable intervals with user-configurable threshold alerts. Health polling helps identify monitored devices that become unreachable, alerting teams to potential gaps in monitoring.
• Shared dashboards and reports. More than 450 purpose-built widgets and reports, plus scheduled distribution, put the same data in front of operations, IT, and facilities teams.

How Are Organizations Using DCIM To Improve Data Quality?

Five9 identified outdated asset records.

Five9 used Sunbird DCIM to centralize information about its global data centers. With more complete asset information, Five9 discovered more than $160,000 in maintenance contracts for decommissioned equipment, representing a 36% savings on maintenance contracts for one brand. The finding illustrates the financial consequences of asset records that no longer reflect the physical environment.

World Bank connected fragmented asset data.

World Bank integrated Sunbird dcTrack, ServiceNow, SAP to automate asset tracking from purchase through deployment across its global data centers and nearly 400 telecom closets. The workflow synchronizes asset information across systems and lets technicians confirm equipment placement, helping reduce manual handoffs and improve visibility into infrastructure spread across multiple locations.

eBay keeps asset records synchronized.

eBay manages more than 6,600 devices across 28 unmanned cages in 22 cities. By integrating dcTrack with ServiceNow through APIs, eBay automated updates for roughly 600 daily activities, including asset additions, moves, changes, and retirements. This eliminated duplicate manual entry and database reconciliation, helping keep asset information consistent across both systems.

How Confident Are You in Your Operational Data?

Use these questions as a quick completeness check:

• Can you list every asset in every rack and confirm when it was last verified?
• Are power and network connections documented down to the port?
• Do all racks, circuits, and sites report live power and environmental data?
• Do changes in your CMDB and ticketing system update your physical records automatically?
• Would you know if a sensor or PDU stopped reporting?

A “no” to any of these questions points to a potential gap in your data, monitoring, or change management processes.

Want to see how Sunbird DCIM helps you build a complete, current picture of your data center? Get your free test drive now.