Data Center Management: Is An Assessment Needed?

admin — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 19:12:47 +0000

One of the questions that seems to come up more often than not is “What is a data center assessment”. Although each assessment is unique, there is a general flow with several common deliverables. The action oriented activities of a data center assessment are designed to identify the As Is state, envision the To Be state, develop a cost comparison model and outline the transformation activities required to achieve the To Be state. The As Is analysis builds an understanding of the current situation, identifies quick wins and surfaces hidden assumptions. To Be activities allow assumptions to be changed as the team identifies best practices, validates the technology, verifies business requirements, checks for consistency and ensures the desired milestones are realistic. Inputs to the analysis include:

Physical inventory, floor layout and data center space measurements
Invoices or internal charge backs for space, power, maintenance and Internet connectivity
Current and planned WAN architecture
Network bandwidth analysis reports
Disaster recovery and business continuity requirements and plans
Security, remote hands, and up-time requirements
Equipment life cycle management policies and practices
Planned capacity growth as well as up coming projects and equipment procurement budgets
System architecture, data base counts and sizes, along with SAN and data storage requirements

The As Is analysis builds an understanding of the current state, identifies quick wins and surfaces hidden assumptions. To Be activities allow assumptions to be changed as the team identifies best practices, validates the technology, verifies business requirements, checks for consistency and ensures the desired milestones are realistic. Working closely with client staff, the team will work to establish the To Be vision or desired state of the following:

Center counts and location(s)
Center infrastructure improvements and scaling options
Optimized power, cabinet and floor layout
Technical tools and architecture
Production and operations support policies and procedure
Networks and communication
Server platforms and virtualization
Data storage platforms and technology

Technology professionals need to maintain a balance between space, power and cooling against the increasing demands of doing more with less. An assessment is designed to help operations managers and senior leadership establish a current base line as well as a To Be vision. Wheather that vision involves expansion, consolidation, relocation or simply optimizing the current situaion, a data center assessment will establish the road map for achiving that vision.

Need help with your data center infrastructure? Contact theData Center Solutions experts at Metagyre, Inc. Data center management to data center consolidation putting business value in the data center.

Data Center Management: Is An Assessment Needed?

Keeping The Lights On, In A Lights Out Data Center

admin — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 04:59:45 +0000

There are two goals in an effective data center operations organization, “keep the lights on” and continually improve operational efficiency of the data center or colocation facility. Focus on these two goals means attaining maturity rather than perfection. It also means the operational team is effectively:

Taking advantage of Moore’s Law and increasing capacity through appropriate hardware life cycle management
Receiving increased value on purchases through solid vendor management practices
Evaluating future business demand and scheduling appropriate capacity
Internally developing a service catalog along with a service centered organization
Outsourcing non-value-add or business differentiating components
Are considered an internal business partner rather than a cost center

As operational organizations improve and build an enabling enterprise infrastructure, they begin to account for both mandatory and discretionary components. Most companies recognize that components evolve from discretionary into mandatory infrastructure components. Mature operational organizations use this evolutionary time period to their advantage.

An example of this evolution is Internet Messenger (IM). IM is at a stage where many companies treat it with a try and see attitude. There may be an HR usage policy, a firewall rule or two or even a corporate IM server. However, there are few enterprises that have established an OLA (operations level agreement) equivalent to IM’s older bother, email. During this period while the service is under the service umbrella of best efforts, mature organizations develop component specific practices for Tier 1, 2 and 3. They capture metrics and build a technical capability in preparation for a components evolution.

Just as email worked its way into the business fabric, IM is becoming a standard tool in the business arsenal and as such is moving from the discretionary spending bucket to the mandatory operational service delivery catalog.

Effective operational organizations keep the lights on for mandatory components, improve overall operational efficiency and effectively evolve discretionary components.

Data Center Solutions » data center operations

Data Center Management: Is An Assessment Needed?

Keeping The Lights On, In A Lights Out Data Center