Server and Storage Consolidation

BUSINESS CHALLENGE
Improving productivity, reducing costs, and driving higher levels of I.T. performance for long-term gain are just a few of the challenges that I.T. managers face. A critical first step is to gain control over the I.T. server and storage infrastructure. In a large enterprise environment with its many complexities and mixes of new and antiquated hardware, gaining control is often easier said than done. After years of one-application-per-server thinking, the abundant availability of inexpensive servers and localized storage systems, along with the tendency of most I.T. personnel to reuse or redistribute equipment when its original purpose has changed, CIOs rarely know the exact number of servers or storage devices that are in their environment. To compound the confusion, it is often difficult to maintain an accurate configuration inventory containing host names, OS version, patches, storage devices, collection methods, and how they all fit in with the enterprise architecture.

In addition, lack of understanding of what the hundreds or even thousands of servers across the enterprise accomplish or what they support can make decisions on how to control costs extremely challenging. In summary:

• The one-application-per-server model has created an environment where servers are under-utilized:
  • CPU utilization averages 25-35% on typical servers.
  • Storage utilization is less than 40-50%.
• Multiple storage systems often reside in different, non-controlled places with no interface standards.
• Process standardization is typically non-existent.
• Patching and upgrade processes are hampered due to non-standardized operating systems or proprietary software.
• Storage systems are department-based, rather than organized within the enterprise.
• Storage times, methods, rates, and restoration processes can vary widely and may have no documentation on process or procedure.
• Antiquated equipment or software that demands a proprietary upgrade path solution that can be very expensive or non-existent.

COVESTIC'S SOLUTION
A server and storage consolidation solution is not a one-size-fits-all process, but can actually be broken down into several steps.

Server Standardization and Consolidation
Reducing operational complexity is the primary goal of server standardization. Standardization also allows more effective load balancing, which helps to increase server availability, reliability, and scalability and enables more efficient communications with other servers and storage devices. These factors are critical as companies move toward utility-style computing. Server consolidation efforts can often centralize more than 80% of your infrastructure, and consolidate up to 50% of your existing servers. This can generally cut your total cost of ownership by 30 to 50% while increasing server availability and reducing both capital and operational expenditures related to managing service issues.

Server Virtualization
Server virtualization and partitioning that allows multiple virtual operating systems on a single server can dramatically reduce your physical server footprint while capitalizing on available shared server resources. Server utilization and capacity can often be increased by 70% and downtime can be nearly eliminated.

Storage Consolidation
Covestic provides a full range of consulting services for your storage and content networks in the planning, designing, and deploying stages, and can help ensure quick, efficient, and reliable access to your business data. We can help you implement scalable storage networks based on SAN, NAS, and CAS technology, and then consolidate and migrate your data to increase your operational efficiency and boost performance. Finally, we can help you initiate and integrate a business continuity and disaster recovery program.

COVESTIC APPROACH
Server and storage consolidation is a challenge and, more specifically, it's a unique challenge. Every customer, every situation, must be handled differently to accomplish the consolidation goal of both servers and storage devices. Covestic will conduct a full, holistic assessment of your business requirements and in-depth analyses of server performance. We will work with your I.T. staff and help identify and eliminate bottlenecks, minimize service outages, and improve the overall security of your systems. Leveraging up-to-date standards for operating systems and hardware/software configurations, Covestic's server and storage optimization solutions will result in more efficient utilization across targeted computing platforms as well as consistent management, security, capacity, and performance management processes that reduce the overall cost of ownership. Covestic will work with you and for you to make sure that server and storage consolidation project is a brilliant success.