Butler Group says planned consolidation will deliver benefits to
the enterprise.
In the early years of enterprise computing the centralised
mainframe held sway. With the advent of more powerful desktop PCs
in the late 1980s client/server architecture became
popular.
More recently, distributed computing has become prevalent, with
the focus on localised processing power and storage and a
one-server/one-application strategy.
However, this increasingly complex and often heterogeneous
environment is difficult and expensive to manage. Escalating
operational costs, inflexible infrastructure, difficulties in
meeting service levels and erratic data security and integrity add
to the disadvantages. Butler Group believes the resultant number of
servers and storage devices found in most enterprises is out of
control and unsustainable in the long term.
The consolidation of servers and storage and the adoption of a more
centralised approach can bring significant benefits, reduce system
administration overheads, ease data management and simplify
infrastructure.
Benefits will differ from one enterprise to another and are
dependent on the demands of the business and the rationale for
consolidation in the first instance.
Any change to the IT infrastructure constitutes a risk, and
consolidation is no exception. Consolidation initiatives should be
tackled with a degree of forethought as they can affect staff,
cause capacity problems and add to security concerns. A flexible
pool of resources supporting a service-centric approach must be
part of an IT department's armoury in evolving to an optimised
infrastructure.
The emerging technologies that must begin to be integrated into the
environment include utility and on-demand computing, virtualisation
and automation. A consolidated environment helps IT management make
judicious use of services from external providers to reduce fixed
costs, help with workloads or fill gaps in knowledge.
Business issues
IT operational costs have a direct impact on the bottom line.
Simplifying the systems infrastructure through consolidation can
bring significant financial benefits such as lower overheads, staff
costs, licensing charges and maintenance costs, with fewer, smaller
data centres.
In an attempt to increase revenue, the IT industry has latched on
to the fact that most consolidation projects can be self-financing
and justifiable on monetary returns alone. The expected reduction
in the total cost of ownership can free up funds for investment in
new developments.
However, Butler Group advises IT managers to resist these advances
and take time to understand the existing environment and making the
most of current system assets before embarking on any new
investments. Any savings can fund upgrades as and when equipment
has been depreciated, or finished its useful life.
While it is imperative that costs are controlled, it is important
not to lose sight of other benefits. A consolidation initiative
should be used as an opportunity to align IT infrastructure with
enterprise strategy, ensuring business value by meeting any demands
today and in the future.
Enterprise-wide projects, such as customer relationship management,
enterprise resource planning and supply chain systems, are often
thwarted by the inflexibility of the existing distributed
architecture.
The efficiencies of scale generated from consolidation can give
savings on the total cost of ownership and also improve server and
storage utilisation and scalability. This can cater for peaks in
workload without recourse to additional resources.
More importantly, a centralised infrastructure puts an IT
department in a better position to become a provider of services,
both internally and externally.
Enterprises are becoming increasingly reliant on information and
systems are under growing threat from malicious attack. While
consolidating systems might seem like putting all your eggs in one
basket, centralisation allows the implementation of uniform
procedures for access, use and maintenance, and to lock-down
physical equipment in secure data centres. Centralisation does,
however, focus attention on business continuity and high
availability, all of which need to be taken care of, usually at
additional cost.
Disaster recovery is also becoming a growing problem for IT
management. Information distributed throughout the organisation on
direct-attached devices makes it increasingly difficult and costly
to maintain effective back-up and recovery processes. A
consolidated data solution with automated back-up and Raid
subsystems can improve dependability and eliminate the need for
human intervention.
Technology issues
It could be argued that consolidation is 90% process and only 10%
technology, with the required changes usually encompassing all
aspects of the IT operation, including hardware, software,
networks, personnel, procedures and processes.
This is often a complex issue because of the heterogeneous IT
environment many enterprises have inherited. Organisations tend to
concentrate on the obvious server sprawl with most service
providers promoting conso-lidation as one the first steps along to
a phased deployment. Butler Group believes this is too simplistic
and advocates a more holistic approach with other consolidation
methods such as centralisation, data integration and mixed
workloads.
But before organisations can contemplate any IT infrastructure
optimisation initiative it is imperative that asset and inventory
management processes and common management tools are put in place.
It is no good starting consolidation without a clear picture of the
current environment to measure against.
Butler Group does not sign up to the ethos touted by IT suppliers
with sizeable service arms to support that large one-off projects
are the way forward. We strongly argue that system assessment and
planning should not simply be the first phase of a consolidation
project, as advocated by all the major suppliers, but must be
integrated into ongoing management with continual improvement on a
day-to-day basis.
Where an enterprise does not have the required skills in-house
these should be bought in on an ad hoc basis to meet any specific
assessment or planning needs. Once the requirement for system
consolidation has been identified and included in the overall IT
plan, the deployment phase can be treated as a project and
outsourced if necessary.
The emergence of network-attached storage and storage area network
technologies presents an opportunity too good for IT management to
miss: to get corporate information, the lifeblood of the
organisation, under control.
It is not the fixed costs that present the problem but the
insidious rise in variable overheads such as costs for access,
management, back-up and the protection of data.
Butler Group believes that both storage technologies have their
merits and should be chosen to meet the specific needs and
circumstances of each enterprise.
System consolidation can have unforeseen consequences. Network
bandwidth can quickly become an issue and may have a influence on
whether the deployment is ultimately deemed a success. Although
additional administration savings can be achieved when upgrading
the network for increased traffic, it is also enhanced to cater for
voice, data, video and fax.
The most significant impact of consolidation is that it creates a
central IT system. As a consequence, performance issues and
equipment problems have a direct impact on all the enterprise's
critical applications.
Mark Blowers and Sue Clarke
are analysts at Butler Group
Taken from Server and Storage Consolidation, a Butler Group
report
www.butlergroup.com
Other Butler Group papers are at
www.computerweekly.com
Why consolidate?
- Company-wide IT system can be simpler to manage and deliver
consistent levels of service at best value
- Costs can be contained and economies of scale extracted,
including better control of overheads
- Data management and legal compliance is easier and the
introduction of new systems can be made simpler
- Company data can be held in a secure environment.