The 7 Habits of Highly Successful Data Center Consolidation
Posted on Tue, Nov 16, 2010 @ 01:44 PM
What can private sector data centers learn from the government's massive data center consolidation project? We can learn a lot because many of the government data centers are experiencing great success early on.
In fact, a recent report from MeriTalk, the government IT network, entitled “Federal Data Center Addiction: The Road To Recovery” outlines the habits of the government agency data centers that have been most successful in their consolidation. I have narrowed down their findings to “The 7 Habits of Highly Successful Data Center Consolidation.”
Habit #1 – Up-Front Analysis
Agencies that completed an up-front analysis in preparation for consolidation are more than twice as likely to be successful.
Habit #2 – Get Leadership Support
Agencies experiencing the most success in data center consolidation have leadership support from the beginning.
Habit #3 - Share Best Practices
Agencies experiencing the most success learn from what has worked for other data center consolidations so that they can avoid making the same mistakes.
Habit #4 – Ensure Budget is Available
Agencies who secure the appropriate budget up front avoid having to cut corners or take short cuts when funds are running out.
Habit #5 – Build a Virtualization Strategy
About 54% percent of the agencies are virtualizing servers and 50% are virtualizing storage as part of their consolidation approach.
Habit #6 – Retire Unused, Underutilized, or “ghost” servers
Roughly 43% of agencies are identifying and retiring servers that contribute little or nothing of value to their data centers.
Habit #7 – Measure Savings from Consolidation
Almost all, well 94% of Federal IT managers are measuring or planning to measure data center consolidation. Here is the break down of what agencies are measuring:
Capital Costs
- Reduced physical server count: 44%
- Reduced square footage used: 32%
- Reduced software packages: 24%
Operating Costs
- Reduced energy spending: 43%
- Reduced dedicated personnel: 34%
- Reduced network bandwidth: 24%
How Viridity Softare Can Help
Viridity's EnergyCenter software can help you dramatically expedite your data center consolidation projects. Within an hour of launching EnergyCenter you have actionable information on the equipment in your data center around power consumption and utilization. This information becomes critical in your up-front analysis, server virtualization and consolidation strategy, and measuring the return on your investment. The information provided in the Viridity reports on power consumption, underutilized servers, and ROI makes it easier to to get buy in from managers and other stake holders within the company up front.
Register for our free EnergyCheck software and get started on your highly successful data center consolidation today!