AST-0006167 IW - Data Center Efficiency- Step 2 - Simplify

8/8/2019 AST-0006167 IW - Data Center Efficiency- Step 2 - Simplify

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Dt Center Efciency in theVirtl Er: Three Key Steps

S 2: Smlfy

A UBM white pAper

auguST 2010

Broht to yo by



Defnin Dt Center Efciency:

Simpliyin Throh Virtliztion

S 2: SmlfyCompanies standardize, simpliy, and auto-

mate to better serve business needs. By making

inrastructure and data centers more ecient,

IT departments make better use o corporate

capital and resources — reeing money or

innovation that would otherwise have gone to

maintenance. Eciency eorts also result in a

better return on technology investment.

Standardization is an important rst step,

but that step alone isn’t enough. Understanding

the need or simplication requires a quick look at

how data centers developed in the past 15 years.

Te Grot o Compeity

In the 1990s and early 2000s, corporations

invested in new business systems that came

to market promising levels o eciency never

beore seen. Installations o these separate pro-

prietary packages quickly turned into unctional

silos. Complicating the number o systems were

the acquisitions and mergers that allowed cor-

porations to swell in size, but brought streams

o additional IT systems that had to be digested.

As a result, companies developed patch-

works o proprietary technologies. Getting con-

trol over inrastructure and data centers became

nearly impossible because the collection o hard-

ware, sotware, and tools was so varied and

diversied. The mix made it impossible to e-

ciently use technical expertise or combine pur-

chasing suciently to maximize leverage.

Furthermore, internal politics began to

aect IT decision making. When technology is

standard, there’s less need to pay experts whospecialize in specic hardware or sotware pack-

ages. No specialist wants to be turned into some-

one exercising commodity skills.

Stadardiatio: A First Step

Standardization can help solve some o these

problems. But even i a company manages to

standardize everything in its IT arsenal by swap-

ping out the oddball hardware, operating sys-

Rapid cages i te bsiess eviromet

ave pt tremedos pressre o corpo-

ratios ad teir IT irastrctres. Tog

goba competitio reqired e eves o

operatioa perormace ie keepig costs

o. Eectives, cstomers, regators, ad

ivestors became ever more demadig. Ad

te te ecoomic roer coaster took every-

oe o qite a ride.

At rst, eterprises tred to aster admore poer ardare. Bt byig a com-

pay’s ay ito better operatios is epe-

sive ad igy ieciet. Compaies tat

tried qicky ra ot o room or e eqip-

met ad te poer ad cooig to r it.

Some corporatios eperimeted it

simpiyig teir irastrctre: some server

cosoidatio ere, a itte virtaiatio

tere. Bt tat became jst aoter ay to

sped more moey o IT. To acieve teir

bsiess goas ad ock te vae o teir

irastrctres, compaies eeded a more

discipied ad strctred ay to eimiate

ieciecies. A groig mber ave tred

to a tree-step process: stadardie, simpiy,

ad atomate.

Tis istamet, te secod i a tree-

part series, epores o simpicatio

eteds te vae o data ceter stad-ardiatio eorts ad orms a stabe, eciet

base tat ca be sed to spport atomatio.

By tackig eac o te tree steps, i

order, eterprises ca esre tat teir ira-

strctres provide te feibiity to meet cr-

ret ad tre demads, te cost-eective-

ess to etract ROI rom eistig tecoogy

ivestmets, ad a odatio or e tec

ivestmets to carry eciecy orard.



uBM TECHWEB WHITE PaPER | Data Ceter Eciecy i te Virta Era: Tree Key Steps

tems, tools, and applications or their sanctioned

equivalents, it may still end up with a compli-

cated, convoluted, and expensive mess that ails

to deliver sucient value.

For example, in its 2009 Q4 global ERP con-

solidation survey, Forrester Research ound that12 percent o the companies interviewed had

rom ve to nine global instances o their ERP

packages. An additional 14 percent had 10 or

more instances, and a th o respondents didn’t

know the number.1

Clearly, even standard sotware doesn’t

ensure ecient deployment. And standardiza-

tion only helps i there is a standard to move to.

More than 25 percent o the companies Forrester

interviewed ran 100 or more custom applications

globally; 37 percent ran rom ve to 99.

Problems acing a modern enterprise that

are beyond the power o standardization include:

• Ecess capita ivestmet. Having too many

servers, storage systems, and network seg-

ments means low utilization o existing capac-

ity. A company runs more systems, oten to

accommodate rare peak workloads, than is

necessary to do its everyday work. That means

signicant capital is tied up or no reason; it’s

the equivalent o building a our-lane highway

or a one-stoplight town.

• Spra. A company that runs ineciently

needs more inrastructure as a result. All those

servers, storage units, and networking equip-

ment must live somewhere, and the physical

real estate needed costs money to lease and

maintain. Not only does the corporation tie upcapital, but it increases acilities expenses.

• Poer ad cooig. The more powerul the

equipment, the more energy it consumes.

Power and cooling requirements have increased

over time, and existing data centers were never

designed with such needs in mind. As busi-

ness grows, demands on IT systems increase.

Without greater capacity utilization, corpora-

tions must expand the amount o equipment

they run. Eventually, they may run out o space,

power, and cooling, requiring the company to

build new data centers.

• Reddat admiistratio. Even with stan-

dardized equipment, there is only so much

work each administrator can do. As the

amount o equipment grows, enterprise IT

departments must hire additional people to

adequately cover administration needs, unnec-

essarily infating head count.

• Ifeibe resorce depoymet. In theory,

standardized equipment and sotware can

move easily rom one part o a company to

FlExIBlE VIRTuAlIzATIOn MAnAGEMEnT wITh DEll AIM

Virtaiatio gives compaies eormos feibiity i matcig irastrctread data ceter resorces to bsiess eeds. hoever, IT eeds to combiemaagemet processes ad toos to take advatage o tese e capabiities. Ipart, tat meas preservig feibiity ad coice i admiistratio. Corporatioseed te reedom to coose amog VMare, Microsot, Citri or oter providersere it makes sese – or e mergers ad acqisitios itrodce dieretvirtaiatio patorms. De’s Advaced Irastrctre Maager (AIM) preserveste vita eemet o coice — it orks it VMare, Microsot’s hyper-V, adCitri, itegratig smooty it teir ypervisor admiistra¬tio eviromets.

AIM sotare eabes te IT irastrctre to respod iteigety ad feibyto sitig demads. It moves orkoads ad appicatios seamessy ad ato-maticay betee devices i respose to ser demad.

I additio, AIM makes it possibe to:• Manage physical and virtual resources with a single solution

• Move workloads seamlessly across hardware platforms for increasedavaiabiity ad scaabiity

• Transform physical servers with virtualization-like functionality, includingatomated aiover, dyamic oad baacig ad bsiess cotiity

• Decrease the time and personnel required to deploy hardware and to getappicatios p ad rig it a repeatabe, scaabe rameork orardare impemetatio

• Integrate existing servers, storage and network devices into an AIMsotio to eted te se ie o eistig ivestmets.

For more iormatio abot AIM, go to ttp://cotet.de.com/s/e/eterprise/irastrctre-maagemet.asp.

1 hamerma, Pa D. Te State O ERP 2009: Market Forces Drive Speciaiatio, Cosoidatio, Ad Iovatio, november, 2009.




another. In reality, the cost o redeployment,

usually involving an upgrade o capability,

is high enough that IT departments typi-

cally choose to buy more equipment instead,

increasing the amount o excess capacity.

• Maagemet compeity. A byproduct o

equipment bloat is more complicated inra-

structure management, because more copies

o management tools are needed. Greater

complexity requires more eort to locate sys-

tems, provision services or new business appli-

cations, and perorm basic administrative tasks.

The additional eort required ends up delaying

the underlying business processes and needs.

The corporation becomes slower to react and

innovate, damaging its competitiveness.

•

netork strai. The more servers andstorage pumping data over a network, the

more complex the architecture, routing, and

control o trac. The more complex the data

fow, the more dicult it is to run the network

eciently, which can aect applications and,

by extension, corporate operations.

• Taed strategic resorces. As existing appli-

cation portolios and associated inrastructure

consume resources to “keep the lights on,”

less money, time, people, and attention are let

or strategic investment and growth.

• Migratio compicatios. As old hardware

comes to the end o its lie, unit-or-unit

replacement requires additional investment in

underutilized systems and results in disrup-

tive transer o data and applications. To keep

things as they are, even with standardization,

means inevitable periodic intererence with the

very business processes and activities that the IT

inrastructure is supposed to enable.

Good economic times can mask the ineciency

o an IT inrastructure and data center. But

economic challenges bring the problems to

light. IT consultancy The Hackett Group recently

tested the operational eciency o large corpo-rations by examining whether companies could

proportionately scale their sales, general and

administrative (SG&A) costs as revenue varied

by 15 percent—a condition many businesses

aced during the recent economic turndown.

“Three-quarters o the global 2000 companies

[we tested] ailed,” says the group’s IT advisory

practice leader Honorio Padron, in part because

5 TIPS FOR SIMPlIFICATIOn SuCCESSFor greatest sccess, simpicatio mst ivove ve dieret areas, eac it

its o madate:

1. Bdget. Sped oy at is ecessary to create a irastrctre tat i

provide te bsiess it te capabiities it eeds today to gro to meet

tre demads.

2. Arcitectre. Desig a irastrctre it as sma a ootprit as possibe

to deiver te ecessary comptig ad commicatig capacities ie

maitaiig te abiity to move irastrctre ito te tre itot ve-

dor ock-i.

3. Istaatio. Cage e eeded, bt strctre te simpicatio process

to eave i pace tat ic ca remai.

4. Operatios. Eectivey se peope ad toos to cotro operatios cetray

i te most eciet ay.

5. Processes. Create a oistic approac to te process o maagig te etire

irastrctre ad do’t ocs soey o te idivida parts.

By addressig a ve aspects, simpicatio creates a dyamic ad agie ira-

strctre tat aos a compay to more directy matc tecica resorces to

bsiess eeds at ay give time ad ca ree p to a o a compay’s IT

bdget.




IT expenses made up hal the total SG&A cost.

Padron notes that one measure o com-

plexity is the number o dierent applications

a company supports per thousand users. The

greater the number o applications, the more

complex the inrastructure must be. “World classcompanies that have done…transormative strat-

egies, including the redesign o the service deliv-

ery model, show 17 applications per thousand

users,” Padron says. “A company that has not

done that will have 28 applications per thousand

users. It’s almost two-to-one.”

A Compreesive, Pased Approac

Simplication is the hallmark o intelligent cor-

porate inrastructure because it enables agility

and reduces unnecessary expenses. Technically,

simplication is a three-phase process: rational-

ization, consolidation and virtualization.

Rationalization involves determining what the

company needs or its operations and designing

an architecture accordingly. According to a June

2009 Gartner press release on data center costs,

rationalization and consolidation aid asset and

inventory management, lower annual energy costs

(typically by $400 per server per year), and yield a

5 to 10 percent saving in overall hardware costs.2

Consolidation involves reconguring servers,

networks, storage, and applications to accom-

modate the rationalized design and eliminate

redundant hardware, sotware, and data centers.

Gartner estimates that data center consolidation

will typically save rom 5 percent to 15 percent o

the overall data center budget.

Virtualization involves separating physicalresources rom virtual processes and treating

servers, storage, and networks as pools o capac-

ity deployed as necessary. Virtualization can also

ree additional hardware or urther consolida-

tion. According to Gartner, users see net savings

within two years, with server energy use down by

82 percent and foor space savings o 86 percent.

When a company undertakes rationaliza-

tion, consolidation, and virtualization, it makes its

IT systems more eective in a number o ways,

answering the problems that standardization

alone still leaves. The benets enterprises derive

rom simplication eorts include:

• Eciet capacity. A company has the right

number o servers, storage systems, and net-

work segments and needs signicantly less

hardware than beore, which rees capital. By

reducing the amount o equipment, IT also

constrains data trac and demands on man-

agement processes.

• Redced aciity reqiremets. Reducing the

amount o equipment also decreases space,

7 CRITICAl QuESTIOnS whEn ChOOSInG VEnDORSVedors ted to se simiar caims e tey tak abot simpicatio,

particary te virtaiatio pase. Coose te rigt vedor, ad te com-

pay ca move ito virtaiatio at a measred pace, icreasig its com-

petitiveess, recaimig resorces, ad oerig epeses. here are some

qestios to ask to ep evaate te reaity beid te ype:

• Does the vendor base its hardware on a standard Intel x86 chip architecture?

• Do the servers run third-party operating systems, or does the vendor pro-

vide a proprietary operating system?

• Do the vendor’s management tools work with a variety of hypervisors?

• Do the vendor’s tools manage a variety of hardware, or can they only man-

age equipment from one vendor?• Does the vendor rely on a vertically integrated product stack, or is it com -

patible with products from a variety of vendors?

• Will you be locked into the vendor’s architecture, or do you create your

own infrastructure architecture and work the vendor’s approach into yours?

• How much of the equipment that you already own and run will be you able

to use?

2 Kmar, Rakes. Garter Oties Seve Practica ways to Save Costs i te Data Ceter , Je, 2009.



power, and cooling requirements.

• Rigt-sied admiistratio. When a com-

pany radically reduces the amount o equip-

ment it runs, it pares the degree o administra-

tion required. IT can reduce headcount or even

redeploy people to activities that create more

value or the company.

• Feibiity. A company turns its servers, stor-

age, and network into resource pools that it

can assign quickly and as needed to best sup-

port business requirements at any given time.

Provisioning resources or new business needs,

migrating end-o-lie equipment, perorming

system recovery, or integrating new technolo-

gies become easy tasks.

Battig Poitics

Simplication must transcend technology Because

the business as a whole drives IT, true simplica-

tion must start with the business processes that

drive the need or applications and inormation.

That requires the process o rationalization; that

is, determining what sotware and hardware

the company actually needs to run its business.

“The planning and design is the most crucial

piece,” says Irwin Teodoro, director o engineer-

ing and systems integration at IT consultancy

Laurus Technologies. Teodoro works with many

healthcare organizations, and sotware or that

industry oten has poor virtualization support.

“There could be supportability issues that pro-

hibit that application rom going to a virtualized

environment. Not every platorm or application

is a candidate or virtualization.” The question

comes down to what problem a company wants

to solve.

Simplication starts with analyzing the busi-

ness problem, including what the companywants to attain and how its organization works.

It means, in part, looking beyond unctional silos.

Without a holistic view, each silo tries to optimize

its own perormance. But the result can hurt the

perormance o the company as a whole.

Planning IT rationalization and consolidation

involves crossing organizational boundaries in

technical and business silos. Corporate IT depart-

ments tend to conceive o their inrastructures

in several main categories: servers, storage, net-

works, and applications. Each technical area has

its own managers, employees, budget, authority,

and processes – in short, its own organizational

silo independent rom that o the others.

“Dierent IT teams who are using discon-nected processes, maybe a mix o manual or

automated tools, are each doing their own thing

in terms o deploying apps, the database, the OS,

security, the network connections, and storage

resources,” according to Mary Johnston Turner,

IDC research director or enterprise systems man-

agement, in an April 21, 2010 InformationWeek

webcast. The result is that getting anything done

that requires cooperation is a chore.

Then there is the organization o the busi-

ness itsel. Just as IT has its silos, the business

side also has silos based on corporate unction,

business unit, department, and even project.

When the technical and business departments

interact, the already ragmented direction and

control over inrastructure and data centers only

gets worse, making it even more dicult or a

corporation to extract value rom its inrastruc-

ture investments.

Companies must address these organiza-

tional issues, including managing the politics.

According to The Hackett Group’s Padron, the

recently dicult economic climate has made

it easier to move beyond individual objections

and restructure inrastructure. “People are say-

ing, ‘Forget the cultural issues that kept us rom

consolidating in the past,’” he says, because

businesses can no longer aord to operate that

way. Padron says The Hackett Group has seen

rationalization and consolidation strategies accel-

erate signicantly over the last two years.

“For instance, in 2004, only about 24 per-

cent o the companies [we surveyed] had shared

services with two or more unctional areas in

it, like IT and nance or procurement or HR,”

Padron says. “Now that number is about 65

percent. That means those companies moved

in the direction o standardization o process,which allows standardization o application,

which allows you to move into standardization

o inrastructure.”

The challenges these silos pose underscore

the need or rationalizing choices o sotware

and hardware, consolidating inrastructure,

and, most importantly, virtualizing. By doing so,

a company can eectively wrest control o serv-

ers, networks, and storage rom individual silos


Simplifcation is the hallmark o intelligent corpo-

rate inrastructure because it enables agility and reduces unnecessary

expenses.



uBM WHITE PaPER | Data Ceter Eciecy i te Virta Era: Tree Key Steps

7

and turn them into pools o corporate assets that

can be assigned to specic needs as necessary.

However, companies must take care when

speciying their rationalized platorm. Vendors

that may claim to have open products might

eectively be proprietary. For example, two ven-dors can base their servers on Intel x86 architec-

ture. One o the hardware lines could work with

third-party products while the other requires that

the corporation source everything rom the one

vendor. I a company chooses the second option,

it eectively locks itsel in with a specic vendor

and limits itsel to the third-party applications

that are compatible with that vendor’s approach

to virtualization.

Three problems result rom vendor lock-in.One is the realization o the worst risk analysis

ear: I the company aces a problem in moving a

silo to the new technology, it may nd it impos-

sible to return to the previous state.

InTEl SIMPlIFIES VIRTuAlIzATIOnAs compaies tr to virtaiatio or orkoad cosoidatio ad to

improve tiiatio, tey eed to cosider te icreased etork badidt

ad storage demads tat come it iger server tiiatio, as e as tepotetia or virta macie spra ad maagemet compeity.

hardare-assisted Ite® Virtaiatio Tecoogy (Ite VT) eps pro-

mote eciet data ceter grot. wit spport rom te processor, cipset,

BIOS, ad eabig sotare, Ite VT ofoads orkoads to system ard-

are, ic eabes virtaiatio sotare to provide more streamied

sotare stacks ad “ear ative” perormace caracteristics. Ite VT simpi-

es data ceters i tree key areas:

• Virta macie migratio. Ite VT FeMigratio eabes feibe orkoad

migration and performance optimization across 32-bit and 64-bit operat-

ig eviromets. Data ceter maagers ad system admiistrators ca set

simpe res or virta macie migratio based o time o day, orkoad,

or memory reqiremets. I cojctio it VM toos sc as VMare’s

Eaced VMotio, FeMigratio aso protects irastrctre ivestmets i

xeo processors by providig arcitectra compatibiity rom oe geeratio

to aoter.

• uied etorks based o 10 Gigabit Eteret (GbE). Faster processors,

virtaiatio o appicatios ad icreases i virta macie desity a

raise te potetia or I/O botteecks. A ied etork abric based o

Ite Eteret 10GbE ca simpiy irastrctres ad oer TCO ie posi-

tioig data ceters to meet tre badidt eeds. Ite 10GbE icreases

Eteret speed to 10Gbps, oers poer reqiremets ad redces te m-

ber o ports, sitces ad cabes eeded. 10GbE it Data Ceter Bridgig

improves qaity o service e data ad storage sare te same etork.

Ad becase Ite Eteret 10GbE bids o eistig toos ad processes,

costs are oer ta it oter tecoogies. Iteroperabiity it eistig

etork irastrctre ad spport rom may eqipmet vedors ao a

ig degree o feibiity i etork desig.• Covergece o servers ad storage. As storage eeds ad perormace

epectatios gro, storage arcitectres pt ever greater demads o ma-

agemet systems. Storage ad comptig systems are covergig to address

tese eeds. May storage vedors, icdig EMC, are coosig Ite xeo

processors as teir arcitectre o coice.

For more detais abot Ite virtaiatio tecoogies, go to .ite.

com/tecoogy/virtaiatio/server/ide.tm.




8

STuDIES In SIMPlIFICATIOnhere’s a ook at tree compaies tat ave pt simpicatio to ork i teir

eviromets:

De, a $53 biio compay tat’s oe o te eadig PC maactrers i

te ord, od itse it te same IT probems may giat corporatios

ace. ne eqipmet depoymet took as mc as 45 days rom order to

istaatio. Te compay as rig ot o space, poer, ad cooig or

servers. Ot o tes o tosads o servers, tree-qarters stayed der 20

percet tiiatio. De’s IT departmet orked it te compay’s cost-

ig arm to deveop a strategy to combat tese ieciecies. Te compay

rst stadardied o Ite xeo-poered De PoerEdge R900 servers ad

Eqalogic PS5000xV storage area etorks, te simpied by virtaiig

tosads o servers, a cotroed by VMare. Te compay’s eorts paid

o i cosoidatio ratios o p to 20 to 1 ad a 30 percet jmp i tiia-

tio. De saved a estimated $29 miio i ardare prcases, redced

space, cooig, ad poer costs, ad srak te time or e depoymets

rom 45 days to 4.

Emerso, a 120-year-od $22 biio tecoogy compay, eeded fei-

be ad agie commicatios ad comptig to spport a og-term grot

strategy. hoever, te egacy IT system cosisted o impemetatio sios

tat eteded to 135 data ceters. Te compay impemeted a cosoida-

tion strategy with Dell PowerEdge M610 and PowerEdge M710 blade servers

sig Ite® Xenon processor 5500 and 5600 series architecture and Dell/EMC

CX4-960 storage area networks. The PowerEdge servers reduced footprint

by a. Emerso redced a te data ceters do to or ad eimiated

about 3,600 servers in the process. Because of the new servers, the com-

pay’s e goba prodctio ceter i St. lois oered its eergy se by31 percet. I additio, te IT departmet epects to decrease te operatig

costs o its widos server eviromet by 15 percet a year.

PACCAR, a $7.6 billion transportation company that manufactures

premier trck brads, ad eary 1,000 servers spit amog severa goba

ocatios it 15 percet to 25 percet aa grot. Te compay ad

to pt cosiderabe resorces ito maiteace, ic diverted attetio

ad resorces rom iovatio. PACCAR ired De Goba Irastrctre

Costig Services to ep deveop a simpicatio pa sig Ite xeo-

powered Dell PowerEdge 2950 and 6850 servers, with VMware running 15

to 20 virta macies o eac server, ad De/EMC Cx700 storage area

etorks. Cosoidatio redced te mber o servers by a, ad te cost

o eac virta server is abot a tat o a pysica oe, bt te rea adva-tage to PACCAR came rom improved IT eciecy. For eampe, te SAn

systems dropped appicatio recovery time rom ve ors to 20 mites.

Te IT departmet ca o create a virta test ad deveopmet eviro-

met i a e mites. Ad virtaiatio o makes it possibe to provisio

resorces or a e appicatio i abot 20 mites.




The second is the potential o uture incom-

patibility with emerging standards. Unless the

proprietary vendor embraces the new tech-

nologies, companies may nd themselves unable

to use them. New capabilities that could urther

simpliy IT operations or systems administrationwould be incompatible with the proprietary

inrastructure.

The third problem is cost. Open systems

drive down cost because o competition. Closed

systems leave a company at the mercy o the

vendor as well as o employees with highly spe-

cialized experience, consultants, and third party

sotware rms that provide scarce goods and can

charge accordingly. That increases budget rather

than reducing it and reeing money or other

uses. To truly simpliy, corporations must pick

technology that preserves fexibility and options.

Icremeta Virtaiatio

Beore virtualization, companies typically

achieved only 36 percent utilization, accord-

ing to inormation IDC’s Turner presented in

the InformationWeek webinar. Within the next

two years, IDC expects utilization to rise to 67

percent.

By the end o 2010, IDC expects more than

hal o all workloads to run on virtual servers.

Yet, IDC projects that number will only rise to 69

percent by 2013.3

Initial virtualization and consolidation eorts

go or the low-hanging ruit—servers that can be

virtualized and consolidated with at low risk. And

consolidation can bring welcome early gains,

especially now that vendors such as Intel have

overcome limitations that had previously created

system latencies, limited server utilization rates,

or let gaps in virtual machine availability and

connectivity (see “Intel Simplies Virtualization”

on page 7).

Once that initial stage is complete, compa-

nies tend to hit a virtualization wall; urther prog-

ress means driving virtualization into proprietary

silos, which is a riskier undertaking. Furthermore,not everything can be virtualized. For example,

many organizations in the healthcare sector,

according to Laurus Technology’s Teodoro, are

just beginning to adopt virtualization. “It’s a

non-competitive industry to begin with,” he says.

With relatively ew vendors and hospitals oten

serving independent sets o customers, there

was ar less pressure than in other industries to

become more ecient, and so vendors didn’t

write their sotware packages to be compatible

with virtualization. Hospitals were eectively

locked into whatever packages they already

used and couldn’t easily transition to another

vendor’s oerings. However, even in healthcare,

with national pressure to reorm practices and

costs, the days o dedicated servers are coming

to an end. “We’re having conversations with

healthcare companies now that you had with

non-healthcare companies three or our years

ago,” Teodoro says. As the customers demand

virtualization, vendors will begin to comply.

In healthcare, as in nearly every other

industry, the rip-and-replace approach o

changing everything at once is unrealistic.

Enterprises must approach virtualization in a

pragmatic and phased approach, targeting

high-reward and low-risk areas or initial

implementations and then continuing into other

areas as sotware and project schedules allow.Instead o rip-and-replace, intelligent enter-

prises opt or a strategy o expand-and-embrace,

incorporating the inrastructure in pieces until

everything comes under the virtualization

umbrella.

For most companies, that means an incre-

mental and circular process o standardizing

some portion o the inrastructure, virtualiz-

ing that part, and then using reed resources

3 Josto Trer, Mary. Automation and Integration Vital or Efcient Data Center Operations, IDC wite Paper, Apri 2010.

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

UtilizationBefore

Virtualization

UtilizationToday

Plannedin TwoYears

N=258 Source: IDC Virtualization Multiclient Study

67%

36%

56%

Server utiiatio Beore adAter Virtaiatio

X86 Servers




10to repeat the process in another part o the

inrastructure. Not only does this incremental

approach allow a company to work within its

budget and resource limits, but it also lets the

company start with the most receptive operating

silos and, over time, bring pressure to bear on

less receptive ones.

Simpy Eciet

Enterprises that approach simplication with the

rationalization, consolidation, and virtualization

approach in mind can ree resources and reduce

expenses. Even more importantly, building on

open, standard technologies allows them to

preserve and even expand choices in how to run

their business.

The built-in scalability and fexibility oered

by a standardized, simplied data center inra-

structure enables IT to respond quickly to business

needs and enables the enterprise to take advan-

tage o changing opportunities. Furthermore,

simplication prepares the business to make

the most o automation. Read how in the nal

installment o this series.

Dell Inc. (NaSDaQ: DELL) listens to cstomers nd delivers innovtive technoloy nd services they vle. a ledin loblsystems nd services compny niqely enbled by its direct bsiness model, Dell is No. 33 on the Fortne 500 list oameric’s lrest compnies. For more inormtion, visit www.dell.com or to commnicte directly with Dell vi vrietyo online chnnels, o to http://www.dell.com/converstions. To et Dell news direct, visit http://www.dell.com/RSS.

Intel (NaSDaQ: INTC), the world leder in silicon innovtion, develops technoloies, prodcts nd inititives to con-tinlly dvnce how people work nd live. additionl inormtion bot Intel is vilble t www.intel.com/pressroom

nd blos.intel.com.

DEll AnD InTEl

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

201320122011201020092008200720062005

8.7

13.9

22.4

33.0

42.1

51.3

59.4

65.168.6

( % )

Source: IDC Virtualization Multiclient Study, 2009

wordide Istaed workoads Virtaied by Year

Documents

AST-0006167 IW - Data Center Efficiency- Step 2 - Simplify