Data Center Consolidation: Strategies and Best Practices

The speed of modern data generation is staggering. The average organization is generating data continuously, perhaps continuously, and will soon be investing in servers to provide sufficient storage for that information. Over time, perhaps sooner than expected, organizations accumulate more data and outgrow those servers, so they invest in multiple servers. Alternatively, the company may connect to a data center built to accommodate larger information warehouses.

However, new data generation never slows down for long. And when an organization takes a new metric and performs extensive data analysis on it, the result is that that analysis generates even more data. At some point, an organization’s data center assets may outgrow its storage, requiring the company to use multiple data centers. Or, different departments within a company may choose to use different data centers for their specific information workloads, even if that means ignoring best practices.

There are issues such as server sprawl that result from having information in different physical locations, regardless of origin. This is primarily a problem of inefficiency and requires a solution that simplifies the data storage process and securely organizes an organization’s data resources within a logical framework. That’s why companies need an effective data center consolidation strategy.

What is a data center?

Since this term applies to installations of various sizes, it is important to be clear about what constitutes a data center. First and foremost, a data center is a physical place, whether an entire building or a single space. A physical space with definable characteristics dedicated to housing and hosting IT infrastructure.

From the beginning, data centers have tended to be single creations developed for the sole use of a single company. Over time, the term has come to encompass large, hyperscale data centers operated by cloud service providers that host numerous organizations and individuals from a variety of companies. For example, IBM operates more than 60 IBM Cloud data centers in various locations around the world.

There are three types of data center facilities that vary depending on your business purpose and the workloads you handle.

1. in Enterprise (or on-premises) data centerOrganizations typically host all data on-premises because they want maximum security.
2. meantime, public cloud data center It is hosted in a large enterprise cloud environment and offers the convenience of being accessible via a basic Internet connection.
3. finally Managed data centers and colocation facilities For organizations that are not ready to operate their own data center but do not want to use shared resources found in public cloud data centers. In a managed data center, an organization leases the necessary hardware from a data center provider and then manages the management of that data center. In a co-located facility, the organization owns the infrastructure and leases all hardware from a data center provider.

What is a data center consolidation strategy?

What data assets do you have and where do you plan to store them all? Is there a better way to provide greater efficiency? These are the questions that underpin data center consolidation.

A data center consolidation strategy is a plan that an organization creates and implements to reduce data storage processes and streamline data management systems.

Typically, when we discuss data management services, we’re talking about how to implement the service to collect and collect data, and how to scale the service to accommodate increasing amounts of data. But when it comes to data center consolidation, we’re really advocating for downsizing certain systems and consolidating that data into a more centralized location. In other words, data center consolidation is primarily a downsizing process that typically reduces the number of different storage systems, although the amount of data in the company remains unchanged.

How does a data center consolidation strategy work?

A strategy built around data center consolidation doesn’t have to be very complex, but that consolidation plan will vary greatly depending on other variables, such as how many different types of data the organization needs to maintain.

Fundamentally, a data integration effort is a very simple activity that begins with collecting organizational data from a variety of sources. We then clean the data, find possible errors, and improve the data as needed. Finally, optimized data is stored in one location where it is most easily accessible.

At least that’s the simple version. In reality, for most companies, creating a data center consolidation strategy tends to be a much larger and more complex task. There may be significant amounts of data to collect from multiple data centers, cleaning that data may actually require multiple steps, and organizations must make important decisions about their current data needs and making smart predictions about their future data storage needs. do.

Another key step in implementation relies on an internal public information effort to familiarize employees and other company personnel with the written data center consolidation strategy. It has been observed that data center integration strategic management must be an “all-in” proposition that provides all stakeholders with information about the strategy and what needs to be done to support it. Effective change management helps prevent strategy deviations that can occur when employees set up their own data centers independently of new company policies.

What are the key benefits of a data center consolidation strategy?

While there are many benefits to organizations that carefully implement a data center consolidation strategy, there is one benefit that most companies can hardly ignore: This is cost saving.

By reducing the number of data centers and other forms of outdated storage systems, organizations can significantly lower their operating costs. For example, as companies achieve consolidation, they need fewer IT assets, so they can start by retiring old equipment. Likewise, companies will need fewer data centers to house their data and will not need to purchase new data centers. Each of these situations can positively contribute to an organization’s bottom line by creating cost savings, such as reduced maintenance costs.

Additional benefits of having an effective data center consolidation strategy include increased performance, simplified data storage management systems, and enhanced data security by reducing security risks and downtime caused by centralized data assets.

Another benefit is a true “win-win” for both the organization and the environment. When an organization adopts a data center consolidation strategy, this rationalization also improves the organization’s energy efficiency, reducing the company’s energy consumption and carbon emissions.

6 Steps to Creating a Data Center Consolidation Strategy

The data center consolidation process typically includes the following steps:

Step 1: Have inventory data

Although there are a variety of recommended approaches for handling data center consolidation projects, there is little debate about the first step for organizations: assessing the data assets they have and identifying a data center facility to house them. Because most organizations have an abundance of data, this must be done fairly accurately and thoroughly.

Step 2: Define your data center

Before beginning the data center migration process, organizations must first define the physical parameters of their data center. This begins with a study of the relevant properties and their geographic aspects (e.g. physical size and available space). It should also include factors related to the data center’s electrical requirements, including cabling, bandwidth, connectivity, and required power supplies.

Step 3: Mapping your workload

The next step is to map your organization’s software and hardware configuration so you can make fair decisions about resources and usage. What is working effectively? What isn’t? Having well-defined discovery and dependency maps can help with this process, while technologies like virtualization can help companies redistribute workloads to handle more workloads on one system.

Step 4: Assemble your team

A data center consolidation project is no small endeavor. And because they impact every department within the organization, these projects need to be led by people with solid project management skills. Likewise, companies need to know upfront what these various technology upgrades (e.g. cloud migration) will cost before the full procurement budget process begins.

Step 5: Design your plan

At this point, the organization should have a comprehensive view of its data assets and a complete idea of ​​how the organization’s new data storage system should work. Therefore, all that remains for the IT architect is to gather all the data collected about the hardware and software systems and develop the final integrated design. As soon as the design has been thoroughly reviewed, the plan can be put into action.

Step 6: Test and Verify

After an organization achieves a post-consolidation environment, it takes time to fully test and verify the viability of the modified data center infrastructure. This means checking every part of the new system and ensuring the stability of your IT infrastructure.

Best Practices for Data Center Consolidation Strategies

There are many best practices that can be applied to data center consolidation.

• Power usage monitoring: Data center consolidation is as much about power utilization as it is about data. It is important to understand the amount of energy consumed in the existing configuration before data integration begins as a basis for future comparisons.
• DCIM software implementation: Data center consolidation is a huge task that requires the use of data center infrastructure management (DCIM) software to monitor IT equipment usage. DCIM software gives you the tools to run more efficiently.
• Assess your assets and storage: This is really a restatement of the entire principles behind developing a data center consolidation strategy. It all starts with a thorough check of your data assets and comparing them to your allocated space.
• Automated process integration: To reap the full benefits of data consolidation, it is important to maximize power efficiency. You can do this by automating your power usage, which is controlled and helps you reach maximum efficiency.
• Remove unnecessary hardware: A thorough inventory of your assets will likely reveal the existence of so-called “ghost servers” or “zombie servers.” These assets contribute nothing and actually consume power and physical space.

Get started with your data center consolidation strategy

Successful data center consolidation provides numerous benefits to organizations that streamline data center operations. A consolidated data center allows you to increase uptime while reducing downtime. In addition, it is an optimization process that helps in effective data center management. When used wisely and in conjunction with existing business requirements, a data center consolidation initiative can be the first step to effective infrastructure management.

Regardless of your business priorities, IBM provides the hardware and software solutions you need to safely store and protect your critical resources, including storage management software designed to help you unify your data and do more with it.

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