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The Pros and Cons of Server Consolidation (continued)

Follow a Plan
Implementing an effective server consolidation is a four-step process, according to Chris Taylor, director of professional services at Evolving Solutions, a Minneapolis, Minn.-based consulting integrator specializing in server and storage virtualization:

• Assess "The first step is taking an inventory of each existing server, and the applications or data that reside on them," says Taylor. "You have to understand the dependencies and utilization of all the resources that applications take today so you can anticipate your future needs."
• Design Data center managers must design the way the data center will look after the consolidation by specifying which servers will be consolidated together.
• Migrate IT organizations should begin the transfer of data slowly, with lower-priority applications, and take a phased approach to consolidation.
• Optimize Finally, data center managers must continue optimizing the server consolidation effort through continuous monitoring of performance and capacity. It's critical to establish a baseline to measure the existing state of server utilization, related hardware infrastructure, and support costs for comparison with post-consolidation metrics. One caveat: "In some cases, data centers end up with more virtual than physical resources, and they are back to where they started in terms of complexity and support costs," says Taylor.

Despite today's challenges, businesses looking to cut costs, increase utilization, and promote organizational effectiveness will inevitably choose consolidation. "As we move from decentralized, department-centric ways to manage computing resources back to a centralized model, reducing the number of servers is the required first step," Sloan says.

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