Server Consolidation With VERITAS OpForce

Transcription

1 WHITE PAPER Server Consolidation With VERITAS OpForce OPTIMIZING YOUR INFRASTRUCTURE AVAILABILITY AND UTILIZATION 1

2 TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS...2 BACKGROUND...3 INTRODUCTION...3 PROBLEM...3 SOLUTION...4 CONCLUSION...5 2

3 BACKGROUND Consolidation is seen as the new business imperative for companies looking to reduce operational costs, increase efficiencies and improve resource utilization. Used in tandem with today s most progressive IT automation solutions, consolidation of locations, serves, environments, and applications- streamlines the business process of technology management. Server consolidation benefits: Lower Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) Improved asset management Reduced cost structure Increased service levels Intelligent resource deployment decisions Reduced risk and accelerated results by process automation INTRODUCTION In business, everything is cyclical. During periods of business growth and expansion, decentralization of people, processes and infrastructure is necessary. As business contracts and total spending is reduced, centralization becomes a high priority. It shouldn t surprise anyone, therefore, that the current state of the economy has forced companies with complex technology environments to consolidate IT resources. Focusing heavily on improving IT optimization practices, companies are reducing costs through server consolidation. Server consolidation is more than a simple reduction in spending; it is about careful reallocation of costs to ensure that new development can be prioritized, even in the face of a streamlined budget. PROBLEM In the aftermath of dramatic strategic and competitive realignment, many companies have reached an impasse. They do not have enough people to manage a far-flung decentralized infrastructure. Nor do they have the budget to justify the fixed expense of redundant data centers, operations personnel, facilities, and overhead. However, most enterprises have the required infrastructure in place which enables centralization of operations, ubiquitous network access, and adequate supply of bandwidth. In addition, with fewer and more powerful servers, backed by new technologies to improve data center manageability, the enterprises are capable of doing more work to support expanded business operations than ever before. Unfortunately, utilization of those powerful servers is extremely low. Gartner estimates that servers in today s data centers operate at only 20% of their processing capacity. That represents an enormous investment in capital and infrastructure technology that may never produce the intended and required return on investment. It is within this environment that companies are embarking on server consolidation initiatives to address these business issues. The general server consolidation encompasses several types of consolidations along a continuum of consolidation activities, efficiencies, and cost savings. Gartner uses the following standard consolidation categories. 1. Logical Consolidation: Bringing all the servers in an enterprise under a centralized organization to leverage administrative practices, buying power, and policy. 2. Physical Consolidation: Combining and relocating regional data centers to few data center sites. Larger rack mount servers (expensive in terms of space, power and manageability) also can be physically consolidated into higher density blade servers. 3

4 3. Rational Consolidation: Reducing the actual number of smaller servers to fewer, more powerful servers or server clusters. This can be done by consolidating physical servers onto larger machines running several virtual machines, or by dividing a larger system into smaller system partitions. SOLUTION VERITAS OpForce leverages the data center automation capabilities to deliver a leading server consolidation solution ready to solve today s consolidation issues. Problems with Consolidation VERITAS OpForce Solution 1. It s tedious It s streamlined 2. It s manual It s automated 3. It s time consuming It s accelerated 4. It s uncertain It s reliable and repeatable For each server consolidation strategy being implemented as part of a staged-approach, there are key success factors that need to be addressed to achieve the desired results. For each strategy, OpForce delivers significant value by consistently controlling and automating the process. Windows Linux Solaris AIX VERITAS OpForce Consolidation Strategies Logical Critical Success Factors 1. Comprehensive tracking of servers across the enterprise 2. Establish enterprise consistency of IT management 4

5 OpForce Delivers: 1. Automatic discovery of servers and hardware attributes across networked infrastructure 2. Centralized inventory repository for server attribute and status tracking 3. Simplified IT management of operations across heterogeneous environments 4. Automation that improves the IT administrator s reach and effectiveness Physical Critical Success Factors 1. Comprehensive tracking of servers across enterprise 2. Manage and control networked infrastructure including servers, network devices and accessible storage. 3. Controlling and restoring a server s network context 4. Capturing Portable System Snapshots 5. Re-instantiating environment on compatible but not identical hardware OpForce Delivers 1. Automatic discovery and tracking of resources across a networked infrastructure 2. Provisions, controls, and updates a complete network infrastructure including servers, network devices, and accessible storage. 3. Captures and reconfigures all network interfaces and sets up their route to the switch. 4. Captures customized server snapshots including operating system, applications, personalization, and configuration information. 5. Built-in compatibility and constraint parameters and vendor specific abstraction let you provision your server on compatible but not identical hardware or blade servers. Rational Critical Success Factors 1. Creation of virtual machine environments 2. Provisioning of system snapshots from physical servers to virtual machines or partitions 3. Configuring networking and personalization on the virtual machine or partition so it can operate in a networked context. OpForce Delivers 1. Automatically provision physical servers ready for partitioning 2. Automatic creation and mapping of virtual machines or partitions 3. Server snapshot portability enables the creation of virtual machines or partitions from the snapshot of a physical server. 4. Complete network configuration of virtual machines or partitions to enable server environments to be activated immediately. CONCLUSION The VERITAS OpForce product enables businesses to reduce the risk and accelerate consolidation projects by automating the manual and time-consuming activities involved with capturing and re-instantiating an IT infrastructure. Whatever phase of server consolidation your company is in, VERITAS provides an enterprise-class solution that s right for you business. 5

6 VERITAS Software Corporation Corporate Headquarters 350 Ellis Street Mountain View, CA or For additional information about VERITAS Software, its products, or the location of an office near you, please call our corporate headquarters or visit our Web site at 6