Data Center Consolidation is fundamental to being prepared for the dramatic evolution in ICT technology, as well as fluctuating and unpredictable business demands. Avoiding the potential pitfalls is of course important, but there are also a wide range of corresponding benefits. Here you can find both the risks and the benefits, and the guiding principles on how to do it right. ConsumerLab Emerging App Culture 1
Meeting challenges, reaping benefits The rapid evolution of technologies and a disruptive ICT environment makes it necessary to be always forward thinking. As a consequence, data center consolidation is not a matter of if, it is a matter of how soon and how much. As industries become better geared to what customers want, there will inevitably be increasing pressure. CIOs will have a crucial role in dealing with the complexities, but also as a business enabler fostering growth. It s a new role, with new challenges, such as fragmented IT systems spread over different locations. But efficiency simply requires simplicity. This needs to be acted upon. In many CIO offices, discussions and preparations for data center consolidation are already in motion. But a piecemeal, unplanned or uncommitted approach to consolidation is not the way forward. It has to be done. It has to be done right. And while data center consolidation may seem like a complex process with obvious risks and many potential pitfalls, it also carries a wide range of benefits from immediate quick-wins, cost cuts and reduction of hassle, to longterm enhanced performance, business support and readiness for digital businesses of all kinds. LESS IS MORE Reducing is reinforcing. When looking at the benefits of data center consolidation, there are costs and complexity to be lessened, and long-term potentials and business benefits that you want more of. Opex Simplifying and harmonizing can reduce 30-40% of the operational expenses by improving efficiency and cutting out unnecessary technology. Capex Reducing costs drivers such as IT load, power density, site work and shell costs are also key factors throughout the consolidation process. COMPLEXITY Harmonization and streamlining of hardware platforms and operating systems will significantly reduce complexity and operational challenges. TIME TO MARKET New services, users and applications can be activated and thus reach the market with less lead time, a matter of minutes in some instances. Carbon Footprint Power and cooling constitute the bigger part of the bill, and consequently the environmental benefits are substantial when reducing factors such as power density and floor space. VIRTUALIZATION A virtualized environment will enable cloud infrastructure and more dynamic operations in order to allocate capacity to where it is needed, and to avoid wasting it where it is not. quality of services By reducing complexity and improving understanding of KPIs (response time, billing accuracy etc) quality of service is improved and trouble tickets are resolved more rapidly. INNOVATION Virtualization increases the capacity for innovation and employing advanced solutions to new services, challenges and business opportunities. COMPETITIVENESS Improved efficiency and harmonization increases capacity and maneuverability for new products and services in a highly competitive marketplace. END-TO-END MEASUREMENTS Control and tracking of performance is greatly enhanced, thus providing a better understanding of the business performance and how to support growth and future KPIs.
The full benefits of data center consolidation can only be achieved through a phased approach. The benefits of each phase depend on the strategy of choice, but the bigger the scale the greater the benefits. Within all phases there will be differences according to the infrastructure and systems part of the consolidation. ConsumerLab Emerging App Culture The starting point should always be seen from a perspective of the lowest risk and highest potential benefit. Some service providers are more conservative, focusing on migrating physical locations with the same architecture. Others will opt for a more aggressive approach that may include application transformation and data migration. An aggressive approach, focused on rationalization, simplification and innovation, can result in almost 50% more power reduction than the more conservative approach, with significantly better savings on floor space and number of servers as well. 3
Phase 3 Phase 2 Phase 1 Today Efficient IT Consolidate & Standardize Optimize & Decouple Cloud Management & IT Automation Global Federate Consolidate as is Virtualized Infrastructure Cloud Infrastructure Corporate Cloud Infrastructure Phase 1 Phase 2 Phase 3 The first phase is mostly focused on assessing the as-is situation in the organization and proper planning, enabling consolidation, standardization and optimization of the existing data centers. Some will be satisfied with consolidating their physical environment, while others will choose to move to a virtualized infrastructure. The latter has several inherent benefits in terms of operational efficiency and cost and space reduction. A virtualized environment will lead to the second phase. IT automation and Cloud Management will transform the virtualized data center into a true private Cloud. This will lead to efficient operating and monitoring of resources, applications, data and services. New applications can thus be deployed automatically based on business rules. Obsolete virtual machines can be decommissioned with end-of-life-policies, enabling server contention. Advanced SLA and cloud monitoring makes possible charging internal and external customers on a pay-per-use basis and enables self-service. This phase creates a globally optimized service center, meaning that a federated cloud connects the local private infrastructure to a global marketplace so that the service provider can buy and release capacity on demand. Building on the automation process in phase 2, the boundaries between local and remote cloud services will be further dissolved and the transition between public and private clouds will be automated.
Consolidate and move to a virtualized environment Although it requires a phased approach to reap the full benefits of a cloud infrastructure, the data center consolidation should obviously rest on a successful first phase. This is also the challenge that most service providers are at present facing. Below are more in-depth guiding principles regarding phase 1 in order to ensure a proper set up throughout the consolidation project, and to prepare organizations for future transformation. Discovery and analysis Services and applications are pinpointed and analyzed from the top down, infrastructure and hardware from the bottom up. Through detailed analysis of hardware, together with user interviews encompassing both IT support teams and business unit users, the efficiency of services can be improved. Hardware platform options together with data migration approaches are all encompassed. Each IT service and associated supporting platforms will be assigned a migration approach. Design and planning The information harvested from the discovery and analysis stage is then used to define a concise and staged migration strategy and plan. Aligned with specific operational and strategic needs, storage, computing and network will be targeted in order to demonstrate the flexibility, availability, performance and cost benefits of adopting Cloud Computing. Typically it will be suggested that multiple virtual farms are created, adhering to different Service Level Agreements, so as to evaluate differences in performance, availability and manageability. The goal is to allocate capacity to where it is needed, and correspondingly, to avoid wasting it where it is not. Migration The proposed solution will involve the implementation of virtualization wherever possible, and a virtualization first approach to all new server projects. A phased approach will be suggested for the staged migration plan, to make the transition as smooth as possible, and also to build maturity for cloud computing. This will help to build confidence in the virtualization approach and ultimately to reap all its benefits. In this process technical and service test plans will be created and managed, with migration checklists on an individual service, application and server level. Thus profiles can be used to define groupings of servers in logical migration groups based on their dependencies. ConsumerLab Emerging App Culture 5
The pitfalls to be anticipated and avoided The broader the scope of the consolidation, the greater the benefits, but also the bigger the corresponding risks. These are some of the most crucial ones to bear in mind throughout the project, and more importantly - how to avoid them. 1. Start from business There is no need for the whole business to be transformed; identification of the priorities of the organization combined with analysis of the impact and cost will support the decision on the areas to consolidate. Being able to relate the project with the business objectives will also make it easier to get the organizational commitment along the project execution. 2. Put all the data on the table In the analysis step it is essential that all the data on existing systems and IT infrastructure is accessible, assessed and understood from the outset of the process. This is an integral part of a consolidation because often, service providers do not have this information available and in itself, that information is of considerable value. Knowing what is used where and to what extent (for instance exactly what resources and services are used in the billing process) optimizes the efficiency and costs of the process, and forestalls the risk of the process becoming needlessly confused and over-complex. 3. Choose the right systems A proper inventory check and awareness of the roadmap for all applications is necessary together with a business case looking at the effort of migration in order to decide which systems to keep and which to transform. 4. Avoid customizations A common risk is that customization starts to occur whenever introducing new systems, and the benefit of simplification will then be lost. This can only be avoided with very strict rules applying to every innovation to the data center. Full stakeholder buy-in to those principles are important. 5. Make backtrack preparations It is important that a migration proceeds in a controlled, consistent and uniform manner, with standard, repeatable processes for every service being migrated. It should be integral to the migration strategy to backtrack to the previous configuration in case of problems, so that business continuity and service criticality are never adversely affected by unforeseen drawbacks. 6. Prioritize day-to-day business It is imperative that the day-to-day business of service providers is not adversely affected during the migration process. For CIOs managing a data center consolidation project, this is one of the key concerns. End users should not notice. For this, a phased approach must be adhered to, keeping the legacy systems running smoothly and only going live with the new systems when they have been through the necessary rigorous steps of quality assurance. 7. Focus on your staff as well Another common mistake is that the primary focus is on technology and not on the staff operating it. This could, for example, carry the risk that the employees managing the new virtualized environment lack the necessary competence to operate it when the go-live date arrives. The work of developing the people along with technology should not be underestimated. This should be considered an integral part of the process before and during the handover phase. The broader the scope, the greater the benefits but also the risks 8. Ensure internal commitment Strong management and governance throughout the process is vital. Neglecting to inform and bring every stakeholder in the organization fully on board during transformation is a common mistake, leading to organizational problems and missed goals. To avoid that, focus on internal communication is imperative throughout all phases of the migration project, demonstrating its long-term benefits. Using an experienced and practical perspective of the virtualization process, hypotheticals can be met with answers based on real-world experience, demonstrating the benefits of virtualization to anyone who may have queries or doubts.
the combination of telecom & it know-how Ericsson has the combination of IT and Telecom knowhow, and we leverage our Telecom DNA as this knowledge is becoming increasingly important in an operator environment with IT and Telecom moving closer together. Telco environments pride themselves on setting the bar high for their standards of quality and availability. We bring that mindset into consolidation and integration projects, not accepting any down time. We are the world leader in Operations and Business Support Systems (OSS/BSS) typically the most business critical applications in IT transformation and data center consolidation engagements. Extreme increase of users and network pressure makes it increasingly important to build intelligent architecture, which will in future allow operators to control and decide which applications should have additional capacity. This requires a strong link between the IT applications and the network. WHY ERICSSON? As a global player we bring the benefit of global delivery and scale. We have 15,000 consulting and systems integrations professionals and every year we execute more than 1,500 consulting and system integration projects. With a full service portfolio and a vendor-independent approach we are able to support our customers across the full lifecycle of a data center consolidation implementation all the way from analyzing business drivers and pain points, to design, implementation and roll-out as well as operating the solution at the other end. We aim to bring enhanced performance, preparedness for emerging technologies and ultimately readiness for digital businesses of all kinds. Inadequate planning or execution will miss out on vital opportunities, while a properly executed data center consolidation will help a business to reach its full potential marrying the performance, reliability and reach of the Telecom world with the flexibility and innovation of IT. 15,000 Consulting and Systems Integrations professionals 1,500 Consulting and Systems Integrations projects yearly This is what we do. ConsumerLab Emerging App Culture 7