Data Center Optimization An Easy Boost to the Bottom Line

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1 WHITE PAPER Data Center Optimization An Easy Boost to the Bottom Line Executive Summary Data Centers are essential and expensive. Most data Centers have a significant opportunity for cost reduction through optimization which in turn can bolster a company s bottom line or fund much needed new initiatives. Today, new management-oriented tools are available that allow both C-level executives and senior technical staff to view the performance of their data centers in comparison to industry best practices and strategic plans for more efficient operations, technology changes and minimizing energy consumption. Using these specialized management tools allow data center managers to significantly reduce both operating costs and energy usage thus insuring that future moves be it Cloud or continued virtualization are built on the most efficient base. Figure 1. DCO Optimization and Strategic Planning Copyright 2015 Infrastructure Solutions, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 1

2 Data Centers The Heart of the Business Most companies could cut data center operational costs by 50% while doubling capacity and reducing power consumption by 80%. Data centers are critical to the successful operation to most businesses large and small alike. They take care of the business, its customers and its employees. They sustain the operation of manufacturing plants, support ecommerce and allow financial transactions in real time all tasks essential for running a business. Data centers have grown and now account for 5-10% of total revenue for most companies. Recent attempts to control these costs range from moving to distributed processing, virtualization of servers, going back to mainframes, and now Cloud. Change is constant. Data Center management is challenged to meet the needs of the business while managing costs and preparing for the future. Not unlike, as a famous novel pointed out, data centers are all different. Recall Leo Tolstoy, All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way. And so, the perfect data center does not exist; all data centers need constant attention and each business like a family is burdened with balancing attention with expense. Again, like family, every data center is different and every business has different business requirements. Most businesses lack the funds needed to upgrade the data center to an ideal state. All data centers share the reality that automated process is the centerpiece of competitive advantage. So, the data center needs to function in a manner that supports the vision of end-to-end automation of its process. Once automation is implemented, it needs to change; the modern world is characterized by change, by changing market conditions, changing technology, changing environment and competitive challenges that require fast and flexible response. First, Figure Out Where You Are Change is constant and fast. Too often companies and managers focus on the most critical need of the moment or installing the latest technology their competitor has with cost and efficiency a secondary consideration at best. The result is data center operating expenses have consumed an ever increasing percentage of the budget, upwards of 90% in many cases, leaving little for new projects or initiatives. Creating a trap for both the manager and the corporation Change is needed but the budget is committed elsewhere. Fortunately, recent studies show that today a typical data center operation can double capacity while reducing costs by up to 50% and cutting energy expenditures by up to 80 percent. Data center consolidation and the use of cloud computing can make for even greater savings. What Do I Do Now? The questions that still hold company IT staff back from making major strides in strategic optimization planning are the questions of where are the problems, where to begin and what are the metrics, paybacks, and desired targets. Copyright 2015 Infrastructure Solutions, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 2

3 Senior IT staff want and need a baseline of best practices and best-of-breed targets against which to compare their current operations and on which to make key optimization decisions. Management Needs Their Own Tools DCO tools are different from the hoard of technical tools and monitors in most data centers. For the most part the existing tools focus on day-to-day operations and problem fixes. They measure how fast something is running, and if an error occurs where it happened, and what to do to fix it. Many data center operations have whole teams dedicated to these technical tools and some even extend to capacity planning. Virtually none of these technical tools are suitable for helping management or senior technical staff assess the current situation and determine a course of action to increase efficiency and reduce costs. The most common result is a recommendation to buy more: replace, upgrade. Achievement of data center optimization depends on unbiased assessment of the current situation, an assessment that is granular enough to show the inefficiencies and optimization opportunities and help plan a way forward. A simple example of this is the use of storage. We have seen many installations taking the attitude that storage is cheap so rather than manage the need they over buy to the tune of 2-3 times their need. Similarly, the technicians often help this by using large standard allocation blocks which makes their job easier but drives up costs. A recent, but not uncommon example, is the case of an application needing 300 megabytes and having allocated 1.5 Terabytes. This over supply wastes space, time and energy. However, this situation is often invisible to management. A similar oversupply or inefficient allocation situation often exists in the other key technologies of CPU, RAM and Network. For example, server memory issues within the server farms or the cloud are often the problem that causes data center downtime. Also, while a National Resources Defense Council (NRDC) study showed only 20% of data center are responsible for actually paying their energy bill, it behooves all of us to do our best to use energy efficiently. Copyright 2015 Infrastructure Solutions, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 3

4 Figure 3. Executive Energy use Dashboard Report New Data Center Optimization Tools To assist management and staff in obtaining a more accurate view of their data center situations and how it compares to industry best practices, e.g. their competitors, new tools are reaching the market place. These tools not only address the problems articulated above but give managers ways to look forward. In addition to helping determine the optimal server configuration and software for applications, they provide life cycle analysis based on data from the existing environment. Copyright 2015 Infrastructure Solutions, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 4

5 Technology recommendations are enabled by having detailed knowledge of nextgeneration equipment and software. A clear path to modernization is offered by mapping existing infrastructure and existing data processing demand into the possibilities for hybrid cloud deployments and optimization of existing infrastructure. Opportunities for cloud-services delivery and for software modernization and integration are evaluated. These findings are summarized in an easy to understand ROI. Figure 4. Sample Optimization ROI Data centers can be outsourced, co-located, in-house or virtual. These tools have been used successfully used to optimize data centers across many industries. Recent installations included: Large global information company reduced their server count by 4,000 and power usage by 1.2 MW, eliminating 6.44 tons of Carbon. International airline reduced its server count by 72% across 10 data centers, saving $19 million. Major US Bank saved $9 million and extended the life of its existing data center by 3 years. In today s environment every data center would benefit from using tools such as these. Data Center Optimizer collects information and provides a comparison to industry best practices, enabling executives to quickly see the areas that need improvement. The benefit to IT professionals is that they will move from just making recommendations to actually having the tools and data to create step-by-step tactical plans to achieve the goals they recommend. Copyright 2015 Infrastructure Solutions, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 5

6 About ISI ISI is a leading provider of Data Center Optimization software and services offering senior managers and technical staff the tools and information they need to best optimize their data center infrastructures. Resources support in-house, cloud, virtualization, and storage technologies bringing them to industry best practice level performance. Contact Us North America Infrastructure Solutions, Inc. Sales@isiisi.com Copyright 2015 Infrastructure Solutions, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 6