[IMAGE]What does server consolidation mean to you today? Are you waiting for a magic solution to your server sprawl problems? How do you define your approach to consolidation?
[IMAGE]This is the first in a series of articles that will focus on the current IT situation related to server consolidation. Each article will focus on an issue that IT administrators are living today. Overall the series will offer a five-step approach that can help you plan for a server consolidation project, or, if you have already started, help you review your plan.
According to research firm Gartner, more than 70% of IT budgets are spent on infrastructure. In our experience, this number can be even higher, especially before the organization aims for consolidation and/or optimization.
Gartner describes several categories of IT maturity. We've reduced it to four to keep it simple: basic, standardized, rationalized and dynamic.
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In the Basic category:
In the Standardized category:
In the Rationalized category:
In the Dynamic category:
Even if you are either rationalized or dynamic, you still need to control server proliferation. For example, with Windows NT, all servers were single-purpose servers because of the nature of that version of Windows. NT was a monolithic operating system with applications running in kernel mode. If the application failed, the entire system would fail.
Today, even with applications running in user mode in Windows Server 2003 (WS03), the single-purpose server habit still persists
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. Even worse, projects are used to bring and pay for their own servers, and sometimes several copies of their own servers—servers for testing, for development and of course, for production. We all need to change this habit.
In the 1980s, organizations moved to information systems on a piecemeal basis. Business units developed their own systems and put in place the infrastructures required to support them. In the 1990s, organizations started to rationalize their infrastructure by moving to distributed networks of PCs. Today, organizations are beginning to realize they require complete integration if they want to control their costs.
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Consolidation is the key to control server proliferation and optimization is the key to control IT budgets. To get there, you need a defined approach. The approach we propose includes five steps to a successful server consolidation:
Each step will be discussed in the upcoming articles. Our goals are to help your server consolidation move forward, review administration best practices and provide you with consolidation and optimization tips and tricks. Your consolidation won't happen overnight, but if you stick with it, you'll find yourself in a truly exciting project. Turning your data center into a dynamic resource in support of business needs is a stimulating experience, one that will provide a foundation for the best IT strategies for years to come.
Continue to The first step in server consolidation: Cost control
More on server consolidation:
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