Data Centre strategies

Managing a Data Centre is far more than hosting an open space where technical groups install and manage equipment, using their own approaches and procedures. It requires an integrated set of processes and procedures involving all IT groups at every stage of the ITSM Lifecycle. Data Centre operations are governed by strategic and design decisions for management and control and are executed by operators. This requires a number of key factors to be put in place:

• Data Centre Automation. Specialized automation systems that reduce the need for manual operators and which monitor and track the status of the facility and all IT Operations at all times
• Policy-based management, where the rules of automation and resource allocation are managed by policy, rather than having to go through complex change procedures every time processing is moved from one resource to another
• Real time services 24 hours a day, 7 days a week
• Standardization of equipment.This provides greater ease of management, more consistent levels of performance and a means of providing multiple services across similar technology. Standardization also reduces the variety of technical expertise required to manage equipment in the Data Centre and to provide services
• SOAs, where service components can be reused, interchanged and replaced very quickly and with no impact on the business. This will make it possible for the Data Centre to be highly responsive in meeting changing business demands without having to go through lengthy and involved re-engineering and re-architecting
• Virtualization. This means that IT services are delivered using an ever-changing set of equipment, geared to meet current demand. For example, an application may run on a dedicated device together with its database during high-demand times, but shifted to a shared device with its database on a remote device during non-peak times – all automated and automatic. This will mean even greater savings of costs as any equipment can be used at any time, without any human intervention, except to perform maintenance and replace failed equipment. The IT Infrastructure is more resilient since any component is backed up by any number of similar components, any of which could take over a failed component’s workload automatically.

Remote monitoring, control and management equipment and systems will be essential to manage a virtualized environment, as many services will not be linked to any one specific piece of equipment.

• Unifiedmanagement systems have become more important as services run across multiple locations and technologies. Today it is important to define what actions need to be taken and what systems will perform that action. This means investing in solutions that will allow Infrastructure managers to simply specify what outcome is required, and allowing the management system to calculate the best combination of tools and actions to achieve the outcome.

Date: 2014-12-29; view: 834