Holistic planning becoming vital for data centers
Effective data center planning often hinges on a holistic strategic process.
By Max BurkhalterNovember 14, 2012
The data center industry has changed substantially in the past few decades. A recent CFO.com report illustrated how different the data center has become by explaining that it has come full circle from ideas that did not work decades ago but are becoming essential now.
Consider data center strategies
To understand this dynamic, the news source said that you should consider an old slogan from Sun Microsystems that claimed "the network is the computer." The concept was simple - end users only needed thin clients because the mainframe did all the work and the network functioned as the computer that delivered the information. This premise did not work out, however, as too many people got excited about the prospect of the personal computer and the ability to give everybody access to the technology.
After a while, the data center became a basic building that simply housed computing systems. The report explained that this created a horizontal outlook to facility planning that still exists in many organizations. Since end-user devices did all the work, the data center was less important from a strategic perspective and was primarily a background facilitator. As a result, the real estate team would find the cheapest location, without regard to power and reliability considerations. At the same time, the network team would only focus on low-cost data delivery, creating major problems when disaster recovery considerations came into play. Other teams would all focus on their particular areas of operations and the end result would be a mashup of these ideals.
According to the news source, the data center is now much more than just a building to house computing systems: It has become a strategic asset. Therefore, these horizontal planning methods need to be cast aside and replaced by a vertical approach that is much more holistic and efficient. This is especially important in an era when cloud computing and virtualization are making the potential of early thin client ideals much closer to a reality in many organizations.
Introducing holistic management
As organizations vertically establish their data center systems, the need for more holistic and efficient management rises. In this climate, console server solutions can play a vital role in enabling more efficient and cost-effective data center operations. Console management systems allow IT managers to control most aspects of the data center from any location, allowing them to make strategic decisions quickly and enact them more effectively.
Perle’s wide range of 1 to 48 port Perle Console Servers provide data center managers and network administrators with secure remote management of any device with a serial console port. Plus, they are the only truly fault tolerant Console Servers on the market with the advanced security functionality needed to easily perform secure remote data center management and out-of-band management of IT assets from anywhere in the world.
Consider data center strategies
To understand this dynamic, the news source said that you should consider an old slogan from Sun Microsystems that claimed "the network is the computer." The concept was simple - end users only needed thin clients because the mainframe did all the work and the network functioned as the computer that delivered the information. This premise did not work out, however, as too many people got excited about the prospect of the personal computer and the ability to give everybody access to the technology.
After a while, the data center became a basic building that simply housed computing systems. The report explained that this created a horizontal outlook to facility planning that still exists in many organizations. Since end-user devices did all the work, the data center was less important from a strategic perspective and was primarily a background facilitator. As a result, the real estate team would find the cheapest location, without regard to power and reliability considerations. At the same time, the network team would only focus on low-cost data delivery, creating major problems when disaster recovery considerations came into play. Other teams would all focus on their particular areas of operations and the end result would be a mashup of these ideals.
According to the news source, the data center is now much more than just a building to house computing systems: It has become a strategic asset. Therefore, these horizontal planning methods need to be cast aside and replaced by a vertical approach that is much more holistic and efficient. This is especially important in an era when cloud computing and virtualization are making the potential of early thin client ideals much closer to a reality in many organizations.
Introducing holistic management
As organizations vertically establish their data center systems, the need for more holistic and efficient management rises. In this climate, console server solutions can play a vital role in enabling more efficient and cost-effective data center operations. Console management systems allow IT managers to control most aspects of the data center from any location, allowing them to make strategic decisions quickly and enact them more effectively.
Perle’s wide range of 1 to 48 port Perle Console Servers provide data center managers and network administrators with secure remote management of any device with a serial console port. Plus, they are the only truly fault tolerant Console Servers on the market with the advanced security functionality needed to easily perform secure remote data center management and out-of-band management of IT assets from anywhere in the world.
