Effective Server Management in

Heterogeneous Networks

Christine Ewing

Senior Server Segment Manager

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Agenda

• Blade Management Overview

• Infrastructure Complexity

• Inhibitors to Improved Manageability

• Management Objectives for IT Agility

• Recommendations

Blade Management Overview

Blade servers will be an important building block in

redesigning future data centers to be both modular and

flexible in their to respond to changing business

conditions and be more cost efficient.

- Forrester

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Blade Management Overview

Strengths

• Time to Deploy

• Simple Failover

• Faster Time to Repair

• Rapid Provisioning and

Re-Provisioning

• Cable Reduction

Challenges

• Lack of Standards

• Need for Competitive

Pricing

• I/O Constraints

• Power and Cooling

Concerns

• Management Software

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Blade Management Overview

• Blades have distinct advantages and they also present some unique challenges

• Blades primarily address physical layer management issues

• Management concerns beyond the physical layer are constant across blades, racks and towers

Infrastructure Complexity

It's easy to cry "bug" when the truth is that you've got a

complex system and sometimes it takes a while to get

all the components to co-exist peacefully.

- D. Vargas

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Blades Fit in a Larger Server Ecosystem

• Blade shipments are continually increasing, however

companies still utilize traditional pedestal or rack mount

servers beyond the edge

0200400600800

1,0001,2001,400

2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009

ShipmentsIn Thousands

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009

Shipments

All servers Blade servers

In Millions

Source: Gartner Research

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One Vendor is Never Enough

• Multi-Vendor Hardware Buying Strategies

– As blade adoption increases, price competition and

investment protection may change your buying strategies

– Do you have a single vendor across all server form factors

today?

• Choosing the Right Operating Systems

– Windows and Linux

– Edge vs. Commercial Applications/Database

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Virtualization Further Increases Density

Using software to partition the file system to allow applications to be deployed and run without altering the file system configuration of the host operating system

Using hardware or firmware to partition a single system, capable of running a single instance of an operating system, into multiple smaller systems, each capable of running its own copy of an operating system.

Using software to partition a single system, capable of running a single instance of an operating system, into multiple smaller systems, each capable of running its own copy of an operating system.

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Business Concerns

• Geographic distribution

– Accommodating management across multiple datacenters

• Mergers & Acquisitions

– Blending disparate vendors, management tools and

processes

Inhibitors to Improved Manageability

With respect to blade servers and management, the

challenge of employing even more granular and

distributed infrastructure leads directly to an increased

demand for efficient management.

- IDC Research

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Hardware Considerations

• Lack of Uniform Standards

– Chassis

• IBM/Intel alliance for standardized chassis

• Power statistics for the chassis

– Network

• Increasing options: chassis switch, new alliances (Cisco,

Infiniband)

– Storage

• Increasing options: SAN, Diskless blades, Storage blades

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Administrative Resources

• Resource Constraints

– Administrative headcount vs. Infrastructure growth

• Increasing density challenges existing headcount

– Training for proprietary management tools

• Retaining institutional memory

– Additional Costs

• Scripting elements

• Database integration

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Duplicate Management Tools

• Silo of tools for each hardware vendor

• Duplicate management functions across traditional

management ISVs

Function Dell HP IBM Fujitsu

Monitoring and Management Standard Standard Standard Standard

Remote Management Optional Standard Standard Standard

Discovery and Inventory Standard Standard Standard Standard

Patch Management Optional Optional Optional Optional

Hardware Provisioning Standard Standard Optional Optional

OS Provisioning Optional Optional Optional Optional

Application Provisioning Optional Optional Optional Optional

Management Objectives for IT Agility

IDC research indicates that approximately 60-70% of

server life-cycle costs are associated with

administration of server management tasks (e.g. server

deployment, maintenance, tuning, platform migration,

upgrades and reconfiguration).

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Standardization

Developing and enforcing consistent configurations Ensure that tasks occur consistently across managed

systems Balancing server hardware types, configurations and

software in the environment Fast recovery from an unexpected configuration errors Improving hardware procurement standards

Key Issues

Objectives Standard processes are defined and implemented Server configurations are reliable and consistent Standardize equipment purchases across multiple departments/teams

80% Operator Errors or Application Problems

20% Hardware or OS Errors

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Compliance

Ensuring servers maintain acceptable compliance

levels Verifying change management occurs within

industry regulations Auditing servers to track configuration drift Tracking in real-time what hardware and software

assets are in the environment

Key Issues

Objectives Detect and resolve configuration change problems Proactively manage software updates to minimize security risks Ability to aggregate data across the environment in real-time Easily accessible, configurable, and customizable reporting

IT organization’s ability to achieve high availability is often compromised with the speed with which IT can make necessary changes to stabilize system configurations.

– Gartner Research

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Controlled Automation

Enabling optimal server to administrator ratios Ability to grow the infrastructure with existing

headcount Eliminating administrator time spent on routine tasks

Key Issues

Objectives Administrator time is reduced from hours to minutes, freeing up resources Automation provides 100% build consistency Quickly deploy, repurpose, recover servers

To continue to cut costs in IT organizations, the business must invest in automation for highly manual tasks.

– Meta Group

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Optimization

Eliminating underutilized servers in your environment Identifying usage thresholds/patterns Improving mean time to repair Recovering from an unexpected configuration errors Automating corrective actions based on events Tracking non-compliant events

Key Issues

Objectives Optimize resources to ensure availability Detect and resolve bottlenecks before they affect business functions Resolve problems without visiting the server Rapid regression from system disruptions

Organizations with more than 200 servers will waste between $500,000 and $720,000 annually supporting underutilized application/server combinations (0.8 probability).

– Gartner Research

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Integration

Eliminating parallel management teams for

Windows/Linux/UNIX Consolidate management across different

physical/virtual types (rack-mount, blades, virtual

machines, etc.) Reducing the time and money required to

set-up, configure, and train Effective integration of remaining tools

Key Issues

Objectives Consolidate on a common platform with native integration between tools Purchase and maintain fewer management infrastructures Improve manageability and simplify training across heterogeneous groups

Organizations must treat management tools like other applications and apply portfolio management expertise. They must consider strategies to cut the cost of management tools through selective consolidation and cautious planning.

– Meta Group

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Recommendations

• Implement a well defined management strategy

– Evaluate organization alignment, processes and tools

• Select a tool set that

– Provides heterogeneous hardware and software management

– Integrates management teams or geographies

– Adopts an open architecture supporting industry standards

– Allows organizations to “ease into” automation and configuration

control

• Create a well defined strategy for your free time

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About Altiris

Altiris, Inc. is a pioneer of IT lifecycle management software that allows

IT organizations to easily manage desktops, notebooks, thin clients,

handhelds, industry-standard servers, and heterogeneous software

including Windows, Linux and UNIX.

Altiris automates and simplifies IT projects throughout the life of an

asset to reduce the cost and complexity of management.

Altiris client and mobile, server, and asset management solutions

natively integrate via a common Web-based console and repository.

For more information, visit www.altiris.com.