Data centre consolidation is emerging as a compelling way to reduce costs without compromising performance, especially as networks, applications and services become more complex. However, according to Fluke Networks, legacy performance-management tools are insufficient for the task, and organisations intending to consolidate must plan and execute the process carefully to minimise risk.

Chris Taylor, regional sales director – Asia Pacific – HATA Region at Fluke Networks says, “To realise the benefits offered by consolidation, organisations need to manage the consolidated architecture closely against performance metrics. Legacy performance-management tools require multiple platforms and lack the necessary scope, perspective and timing to manage a consolidated environment.

“Additional complexities arise when applications are virtualised, making it difficult to measure performance from the end user perspective.”

Key drivers of data centre consolidation include:

Increasingly-mobile and demanding users who expect network performance to enhance their productivity in any task at any location;
the challenging economic climate, which is driving organisations to reduce capital expenditure and operating costs without sacrificing quality;
the need for engineers to get the most from every switch, router, server and hypervisor;
the opportunity to implement application virtualisation by separating applications from physical servers;
improved security through reducing the number of sites and assets that have to be managed and laying the foundation for more sophisticated risk; mitigation strategies;
improved compliance through promoting automation and encouraging the implementation of a comprehensive auditing capability;
reduced hardware and software requirements and reduced power consumption, facility and transport requirements, reducing capital and operating costs and the organisation’s carbon footprint.

Chris says, “Organisations need appropriate planning and evaluation if they are to achieve the potential ROI. Changes must be made seamlessly, with minimal downtime to production business applications. The resulting consolidated data centre must deliver increased performance to justify the time and capital required to implement the project.”

Five ways to achieve the full benefits of consolidation and avoid expensive downtime.

Obtain an in-depth understanding of the existing network, applications and services and benchmarking performance;
Set metrics for the desired performance of the consolidated data centre;
Plan the transition;
Implement the transition to the new operating environment with minimum downtime;
Monitor and manage the updated architecture to ensure it achieves the required metrics.

Chris adds, “Effective, persistent management of the consolidated data centre is the key to unlocking return on investment (ROI) from the project. Organisations need a solution that can manage performance from the perspectives of all stakeholders to ensure the consolidation project delivers the required ROI.”