The invention provides for tracking and day-to-day management of technical requirements, costs and environmental details of existing computer data centers, and the creation of scenarios for determining the optimum acquisition, expansion and reconfiguration strategies of the data centers as well as the forecasting of technical requirements, costs and environmental requirements of existing and proposed configurations of the data centers. A knowledge base comprises technical and financial specifications of various storage devices and other computer hardware as provided. A modeling tool allows for the creation of various "What-If" scenarios of possible data center configurations for long term projections of the technical and financial requirements of existing, modified or proposed data center configurations. The cost of individual devices, systems or data center locations, as well as the cost of proposed new equipment including software are tracked. Also provided is the ability to present technical, financial and other information of a data center of various levels, such as at the configuration, location, system and individual device levels, as well as the ability to prepare custom reports, tables and charts of the information.