Bringing Automation to the Data Center

Bringing Automation
to the Data Center
Authors: Judith HurwitzRobin Bloor
A HURWITZ WHITE PAPER 1
1© Copyright 2008, Hurwitz & Associates
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2Bringing Automation to the Data Center
Introduction In the mainframe era, the typical data center was designed to support a single centralized platform with a single operating system and a relatively small population of applications. Although data center management was complicated, computer workloads were well defined and well understood. As we know, those days are long gone. Today, the typical data center has a myriad of servers running different operating systems and a large variety of applications. The complexity of the data center has exploded and the ability to manage the data center's overall workload has, in many organizations, decayed to a dangerous level. In addition, both internal and external compliance initiatives now demand much stricter and The structure more visible governance of an organization's whole IT operation. of these organizations, The data center does not appear to be managed as a single unified environment combined with either to customers or to internal IT users, and it is not. Typically, each function the that supports the data center is a separate function within the IT department. These management areas typically do not orchestrate their tasks together. For example, the software in organization responsible for network management does not coordinate its activities use, reflects with the group responsible for data management. this lack of The lack of integration is generally just the result of explosive growth. IT integration.management never expected that data centers would grow so large. The structure of these organizations, combined with the management software in use, reflects this lack of integration. This reality is compounded by the fact that many data centers have simply run out of space.
A number of factors have emerged that clearly demonstrate the requirement for a more holistic approach to data center management. They are: .Compliance and security requirements from multiple sources .Improve ef?ciency of power consumption and resource utilization .The need to implement and manage virtualization technologies in order to improve resource productivity. .The automation of business processes across highly distributed environments encouraged by the introduction of a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA). .The need to improve the way processes are managed to support corporate goals. To add to this, the business world has become increasingly dynamic. An organization often has a network of relationships across partners, suppliers, and customers that needs to be managed in a holistic manner. As companies become more and more dependent on these networks, it is imperative that they can be managed in a predictable and dynamic manner.
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Hurwitz White Paper 3 3Bringing Automation to the Data Center
At the core of what organizations now want from their data centers is predictability; predictable costs, predictable staffing levels and predictable performance service levels for IT users and customers. This is complicated by the fact that the overall workload of the data center is increasing because new Just as applications are added and new connections are demanded for partners, suppliers, applications and customers. Many of these new business requirements render the old were built and technology in place obsolete and unable to keep up with demand. In such a implemented in situation it is no wonder that management is demanding predictability. silos, so was The Data Center as a Highly Functioning Factory most of the data center's It is not a stretch to state that the typical data center could benefit greatly from management automation. It may not have been so decades ago in the tightly controlled era of software.the mainframe, but it is so now. Some of the problems stem from the fact that much of the management software didn't cater for new platforms that were introduced, or simply co... [download for more]