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Data center consolidation can go a long way in helping an organization align its data center infrastructure to support business requirements. However, planning a data center consolidation requires a realistic understanding of an organization’s current data footprint and its implications on the availability/ disruption on the level of IT services.
Technologies like virtualization provide organizations the opportunity to realize benefits like a small server footprint, increased asset utilization, improved processing capacities, significant energy savings and reduced costs. Enlisted below are a few pointers that need to be kept in mind before approaching the process.
1. Define purpose and scope
It is imperative to have a definite scope and focus for setting up the data centre in order to help CIOs to retire existing obsolete operations and consolidate the data center in line with their business objectives.
2. Plan for the capacity
Data centre managers and CIOs should always start the consolidation process by evaluating the expected capacity, time required to synchronize the software and data center infrastructure systems and the overall time to complete the consolidation process. CIOs must assess their data centre to figure out any inconsistencies and redress it.
There are apps like Trellis Mobile Suite that enable CIOs to gain real-time visibility in data center on the go. One can monitor data center capacity in real time even while away from the computer. This accounts for reduced time on performing data center audits and reduces the risks and costs while consolidation.
3. Monitor efficiency
One key reason, besides capacity requirements, for data center consolidation is efficiency of data centers. Conducting simple efficiency assessments helps identify where energy is being wasted. Once identified, there are a variety of approaches that can be implemented to improve efficiency and reduce operational expenditures.
4. Testing
It’s always best to do rigorous testing under production conditions. An outage or functional glitch can result in customer penalties for failure to meet service level agreements, loss of reputation and loss of business. Hence, it’s always recommended to undergo multiple tests.
5. Get some help or outsource
As data center consolidation is not an everyday occurrence or activity, it is advisable to get in someone with data center consolidation experience to join your team and assist you with the process. There’s a very less chance that you’ll have the expertise in your team, but if not you can always outsource it to companies or individuals.
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