Asia/Pacific: Systems Consolidation, Hype or Reality?

Transcription

1 Research Brief Asia/Pacific: Systems Consolidation, Hype or Reality? Abstract: Through 2005, consolidation will be of major concern to IT management in Asia/Pacific as organizations struggle to control costs and improve IT efficiency. By Phillip Sargeant Recommendations Users must recognize that consolidation is not necessarily about reduction of servers and storage and look to where consolidation makes sense in their own organization consolidation is about improving efficiency and reducing costs. Users should view consolidation as systems consolidation, not simply server or storage consolidation. It may involve hardware, software and physical data centers. Consolidation must be viewed as a process and not simply associated with only hardware and software. Consider those vendors that have a wide product offering and have been involved in many consolidation projects understand that some vendors' technological capabilities are more mature than others. References are vitally important so users should consider vendors that can show wide product offerings with a sustained history. Asia/Pacific IT vendors should develop geography-specific strategies to leverage the consolidation momentum. The message about consolidation in Asia/Pacific must be delivered differently than in North America and Europe. Publication Date: September 30, 2002

2 2 Asia/Pacific: Systems Consolidation, Hype or Reality? Introduction Consolidation, whether it is server, storage or system, has been of growing importance to organizations in North America and Europe particularly during the past 18 months. In Asia/Pacific the increased importance of consolidation has been only in the past year, particularly in the small and emerging markets of the region. Just as their counterparts in the United States and Europe have found, the growing number of large data centers, containing hundreds of servers and storage systems, in Asia/Pacific is magnifying the problem users face when trying to manage the hardware sprawl that continues to take place. The addition of a single application typically adds three to five servers and additional storage systems to the data center for issues such as production, development, test and backup. Although many system vendors have major projects under way to provide consolidation technologies, in many instances more must be done. Consolidation vendors must do a better job in articulating the benefits of system consolidation. Additionally, organizations must understand what type of consolidation is available, how server and storage technology is evolving to aid in the consolidation effort, and what vendors have in the way of consolidation capabilities. Many pitfalls must be considered to avoid a failed consolidation effort before it has started. International IT vendors that are developing consolidation practices must recognize that the consolidation messages they use in North America and Europe may not work in Asia/Pacific. Server Consolidation in Asia/Pacific In August 2001, a Gartner Dataquest survey asked Asia/Pacific organizations what their server consolidation plans were during the next 12 months. As shown in Table 1, nearly three-quarters of those surveyed had no plans for server consolidation. When the same question was asked a year later, as shown in Table 2, 63 percent saw server consolidation as a low or very low priority. The result in China was even more dramatic, with nearly 90 percent of organizations demonstrating a very low priority for server consolidation. This is not surprising because China continues to invest in large numbers of Intel architecture-based servers. This shows a huge potential for consolidation in China.

3 3 Table 1 Server Consolidation Status and Plans by Subregion (Percent) ASEAN GCD ANZ India South Korea Asia/Pacific Yes Already Have No ASEAN = Association of Southeast Asian Nations GCD = Greater China District ANZ = Australia and New Zealand Source: Gartner Dataquest (September 2002) Table 2 Priority of Server Consolidation Plans by Subregion (Percent) ANZ China Hong Kong India South Korea Singapore Taiwan Asia/Pacific Very Low Somewhat Low Somewhat High Very High Number Surveyed ,864 Source: Gartner Dataquest (September 2002) What Is System Consolidation? Many Asia/Pacific organizations hear the term consolidation and immediately think of reduction or downsizing less people, fewer servers, less of everything. While some consolidation projects may result in reduced numbers of servers, storage and networks, the consolidation message that must be delivered in Asia/Pacific is about improving efficiency and reducing costs. In some cases, it may mean more servers, storage and networks, only centrally managed so efficiencies can be realized. Sometimes system consolidation may not even involve hardware. System consolidation could simply be rationalizing the number of operating systems in one or multiple data centers. To some organizations it may mean rationalizing the number of data centers that they have. Organizations may purchase or merge with other companies and suddenly have a mixture of everything, which becomes too expensive to maintain and manage, and they then look to mechanisms to bring this under control. On the other hand, consolidation may simply involve rationalizing the software in an organization. The major point is that consolidation has different meanings to organizations. It may involve many elements, and consolidation vendors must be able to articulate just what systems consolidation really is.

4 4 Asia/Pacific: Systems Consolidation, Hype or Reality? Why Are So Many Organizations Considering Consolidation? Large enterprises are becoming more complex hundreds or perhaps thousands of servers (including database, , Web, caching and firewall). Most organizations can't afford to increase the number of staff required to manage the ever-increasing number of servers and storage and are looking for mechanisms to manage more with the same people. The complexity has introduced many issues such as scalability, reliability, availability and security. Better mechanisms are needed to address these issues. System consolidation is seen as a way of improving these areas. Of course, if an organization can address these issues, it often experiences greater efficiency and sees a corresponding reduction in costs. Another interesting outcome of many consolidation projects is that many organizations generate additional revenue. How do they do this? If a company becomes more efficient, can scale things such as capacity and performance, and provides an improved user experience, then it conceivably can process more transactions efficiently under a lower coststructure, attract customers with a lower cost-per-transaction and increase its customer base, leading to increased revenue. Consolidation Savings Savings from system consolidation projects typically come from reductions in the following categories: Staffing Consolidation frequently yields reductions in staffing for operations and systems support. This doesn't necessarily mean less people within an organization, but it may mean that organizations can redeploy valuable staff resources to other revenue-generating activities. Many organizations want to embark on leading-edge projects but are unable to do so with the overhead of staff. With consolidation and effective management of the hardware, an organization can stretch its valuable resource budget further. Hardware Reductions in hardware costs can be derived from lower numbers of servers and more efficient storage mechanisms. Software Greater discounts can be negotiated when purchasing software from fewer suppliers and in larger order sizes. For many larger-scale systems, the incremental cost for software decreases as systems become larger. Facilities Cost reductions can be seen as a result of using less floor space and lower-power devices. Vendor negotiation Centralizing spending power can improve user dealings with the vendors.

5 5 Server Consolidation The main drivers for server consolidation are improved service levels, better system management and an improved total cost of ownership. Other drivers that increase the benefit of consolidation are easier management of upgrades, reconfiguration, fixes, workload balancing and backup, coupled with a more effective use of CPUs and storage. Many distributed systems are managed part time by end users, causing end-user frustration and negatively affecting end-user productivity. With the events of the past 18 months, with respect to data integrity and recovery, systems consolidation has played a pivotal part in driving organizations toward a more centrally managed environment, with the correct levels of business continuity in place. Security is one of the highest technology priorities for organization across Asia/Pacific, and it is easier tosecureonesystemthanitistosecureadisparatearrayofsystems. Storage Consolidation Storage continues to grow at a rapid rate. Many organizations in Asia/Pacific are growing their storage 50 percent to 100 percent per year, and this is creating major problems. It is becoming more expensive to manage. Organizations cannot afford to grow their storage management staff at the same rate they are growing their storage. The way in which storage is implemented must change. For many organizations, internal storage (the storage within the servers) and direct-attached storage (storage connected to only one server) are simply not good enough for future requirements. They are hard to manage, scale and maintain availability, and they are inefficient. Organizations are looking at ways to improve scalability, availability, security and management. Storage networking, including storage area networks (SANs), network-attached storage (NAS) and SCSI over IP, is an enabler for storage consolidation and seen as a way to improve storage efficiency and reduce management costs. During the past few years, major storage vendors have developed hardware that is suitable for storage consolidation. The storage software, while not yet as mature as the hardware, is improving at a great rate and will provide for effective management of consolidated storage. Organizations are looking for end-to-end storage management solutions, and a major trend that is emerging in storage consolidation is storage virtualization. A centralized approach to storage management provides many benefits and can greatly improve storage efficiency and reduce costs.

6 6 Asia/Pacific: Systems Consolidation, Hype or Reality? Geographic Consolidation: Maybe, but Where? Consolidation doesn't have to be hardware consolidation. It could be that organizations have multiple data centers. When companies buy or merge with other companies, they are frequently faced with many data centers, different operating platforms and different skills within the staff. To reign in costs, organizations may embark on geographic consolidation, reducing the numbers of data centers. In Asia/Pacific this can lead to many challenges. Issues such as language, skills and telecommunications infrastructure will play a major part in where Asia/Pacific organizations may locate their consolidated data centers. System consolidation does not always have to do with servers, storage and networks. Many companies in Asia have centralized their IT operations and back-office processing in one country for example the Philippines, India or Malaysia. This is a sign of maturity of data centers and of governments recognizing the power of not just having a headquarters based in their city but having back-office processes be managed in their country. Does Technology Have an Answer? Consolidation can take on many forms, each offering different levels of savings and risk. The choice of consolidation technique, whether it is hardware, software or geographic consolidation, will be based on multiple factors, including finances, technology, risk, platforms and, in some cases, politics. For example, some servers offer good clustering technologies that can aid in consolidation and provide high levels of availability, whereas other servers offer logical and physical partitioning that can aid consolidation in different ways. On the storage front, SANs can provide advantages that NAS cannot, whereas for some applications NAS offers advantages over SANs. The bottom line is that when you are approaching a consolidation project, some technologies provide advantages over others, such as in clustering and server partitioning. In a consolidation effort, an organization will likely have a mixture of many technologies. Consolidation vendors can provide a choice of viable technologies that can enhance a consolidation project. Consolidation Planning When organizations think of consolidation, many simply think hardware, servers, storage boxes and networks.

7 System consolidation is not just hardware, software and networks. System consolidation is about methodology and process. It may involve servers, storage, networks and software, but first and foremost, it is a process. To enter a consolidation process you must follow a series of steps, including the formation of consolidation project teams and the conducting of audits on your systems. When executed well, system consolidation will result in greater efficiency and, in many instances, reduced costs, which may result in major changes to hardware or software infrastructure. Common Pitfalls During the next five years, more than a third of consolidation projects are expected to experience major setbacks because of poor planning. Planning is the key. Many consolidation projects do not achieve the intended results because of one or more of the following reasons: Poorly defined or enforced standards Lack of project leadership Business unit and people resistance Legal requirements Immature consolidation technology Software coexistence problems Version problems across applications Lack of skills Expectations A lack of, or poorly enforced, standards is a major pitfall. This will lead to multiple problems when trying to consolidate, and poor leadership can doom a consolidation project from the start. Many times, individual departments will resist the turning over of their servers to a central site and do everything they can to hinder or stop the process. That is why a "buy in" by every business unit is critical. Despite what some vendors might claim, a lack of good systems management tools may lead to no savings when applications are run on the same system and using partitioning techniques. It is critical to understand the impact of consolidation on software costs. Software costs will vary dramatically on fewer numbers of larger servers. 7 Gartner Dataquest Perspective Consolidation can improve efficiency. It can provide better quality of service for internal and external clients and, in many cases, reduce costs.

8 8 Asia/Pacific: Systems Consolidation, Hype or Reality? For some organizations, it can generate extra revenue by being more efficient. Departments must work together, because changes are likely to affect many people in the organization. Organizations must determine what form of consolidation best suits their needs. It could be one or a combination of server, storage and software consolidation. When considering server and storage consolidation, organizations should consider doing their storage consolidation first. It will make the server consolidation easier. System consolidation can involve many products. Consider those vendors that have a wide product offering and have been involved in many consolidation projects. Contrary to what many say, consolidation is not easy. Organizations should involve people that have had consolidation experience. Consolidation vendors must be willing to demonstrate their consolidation capabilities. Given that 95 percent of organizations in Asia/Pacific are small and midsize businesses, the 36 percent of organizations that consider consolidation as a high priority shows that consolidation vendors are beginning to get the message through. The positive message is that a wellexecuted system consolidation project can improve efficiency and reduce an organization's operational costs. Real-time enterprises must operate consistently in a 24x7 environment, and systems consolidation can provide the efficiencies necessary to do so by improving availability, scalability, reliability and management. This document has been published to the following Marketplace codes: HARD-WW-DP-0346 Key Issue What market forces are affecting computing hardware platform shipments and revenue, now and in the future? For More Information... In North America and Latin America: In Europe, the Middle East and Africa: In Asia/Pacific: In Japan: Worldwide via gartner.com: Entire contents 2002 Gartner, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction of this publication in any form without prior written permission is forbidden. The information contained herein has been obtained from sources believed to be reliable. Gartner disclaims all warranties as to the accuracy, completeness or adequacy of such information. Gartner shall have no liability for errors, omissions or inadequacies in the information contained herein or for interpretations thereof. The reader assumes sole responsibility for the selection of these materials to achieve its intended results. The opinions expressed herein are subject to change without notice