Datacentre inefficiencyis still a
major problem in many enterprises, despite the availability of
standard technologies to ease problems.
Although server consolidation through
virtualisation technology is increasing in the enterprise,
inefficient management of datacentres and virtual environments
continues to be a burden, according to research commissioned by
Novell.
The study, which surveyed 411 enterprise datacentre
decision-makers, found that although 45% of respondents have
implemented virtualisation technology, few are using automated
management tools to improve efficiency and resource use in the
datacentre.
"Effectively managing a datacentre has been a challenge for some
time. However, the challenge increases with the use of physical and
virtual machines in heterogeneous environments," said Drue Reeves,
an analyst at Burton Group.
"Server virtualisation introduces a whole new world of resource
mobility and growth. Datacentre management software must scale to
reduce the complexity associated with virtualisation-induced server
sprawl and enable the automated, dynamic datacentre," said
Reeves.
The study shows that as organisations move to adopt server
virtualisation, the main challenges they face include lack of
expertise, difficulty managing virtual servers and having a single
point of failure.
This is compounded by the fact that 61% of participants reported
they either manually track or do not track server resource
consumption, and 79% reported they either manually manage or do not
manage the reallocation of server workloads based on available
resources.