Data Centre Consolidation Improve Service Quality and Resource Utilisation Through

Data Centre Consolidation Improve Service Quality and Resource Utilisation Through Data Centre Consolidation Consolidation of IT operations is a common pursuit towards enabling cost reduction and efficiency improvement, technology consolidation, Service Level Agreements and quality-driven best practices. The needs to reduce complexity, increase efficiencies and drive cost from the business are the primary goals of consolidation activities. However, inadequate planning for a consolidation can often result in recovery and continuity challenges, compliance issues and security complexities that can quickly diminish the benefits and savings that organisations are hoping to realise through consolidation. The following are common problems that IT organisations are facing today: • Acquisitions have resulted in two or more data centres to be supported by a single shrinking IT budget. • Data Centres have exhausted the limits of power, cooling or floor space. • Servers have multiplied beyond the ability to be effectively and economically managed. • Applications have become much more complex, often resulting in multiple layers of technology, each of which is managed by a separate functional group. • Historical organisational boundaries (often the result of merger or acquisition) prevent smooth communication or cooperation and often diminish the service quality delivered to the end user. • IT spending is spread across dozens of budgets from the business units, making overall management of IT costs nearly impossible. • Organisations have grown organically without adequate planning and foresight resulting in a disjointed and ineffective organisation. • Users report inconsistent perceptions of IT service quality, often correlating to their location or the exact group that supports them. • The transition from a division to an internal service provider has not been realised resulting in the continuance of best efforts service in an environment that should be dictated by well-defined Service Level Agreements and best practices such as IT Governance and ITIL standardisation. BT has assisted hundreds of enterprises and service providers in overcoming these problems as they pursue a more consolidated and efficient IT service model. Our Data Centre Consolidation solution assists in every phase required to plan, design, implement and operate a consolidated data centre. The solution considers the total environment, holistically addressing the network, storage, servers and applications as well as the business, operational, technical, organisational and logistical issues that affect the data centre. Leveraging our business-driven approach, proven Network Engagement Methodology, multi-vendor expertise and 15 years of experience designing and implementing IT operations centres, our network and business consultants will evaluate your current data centre environment, determine your business and financial goals, design the operations architecture and implement your data centre consolidation on time, within budget and with minimal disruption to your business. Bringing it all together Highlights Benefits In our experience, many organisations undergoing data centre consolidation have failed to properly consolidate services, or to realise the anticipated savings from such efforts. BT has the experience needed to successfully plan and implement your data centre consolidation. • Increased ROI through improved utilisation and compatibility of IT resources • Reduced cost of staff and facilities • Reduced complexity • Improved service levels and data availability • Improved scalability • Ability to address new business challenges • Lower total cost of ownership Features BT utilises a structured and business-driven methodology for meeting the goals of our customers. Our focus is on the planning and business impact of data centre consolidation efforts in order to establish a service-level management mindset within the company, improve business continuity practices and create the foundation for more equitable business unit charge-back for services utilising business service management. Our approach ensures continued or improved quality while realising the benefits of a consolidated environment. Features of our Data Centre Consolidation solution include: • Business Value Justification – Business case development to demonstrate ROI for the consolidation effort and resulting IT projects. This can be essential in gaining the funding necessary to pursue a consolidation effort. • Financial Analysis and Planning – Identification of what services or hardware should be consolidated and which should remain distributed. This analysis is based on the financial gains or liabilities of each infrastructure component in a blended analysis. • IT Governance – Alignment of IT spending with overall business strategy and the consolidation effort. Prioritisation of which projects within the data centre provide the most benefit and least amount of risk. • Application Profiling and Mapping – Identification and mapping of business applications with the underlying IT infrastructure logical, physical and service dependencies. • Server Consolidation and Containment – Use of virtualisation technologies to reduce hardware proliferation, and contain server and application sprawl. • Network Readiness Assessment – Analysis to ensure that the network and systems infrastructure is capable of handling the changing traffic patterns that a consolidation effort will cause. • Operational Architecture Design – A complete review and recommendation for the tools, processes and staffing of a network or IT support organisation in the new consolidated environment. • Project Planning and Management – Central coordination that leverages our previous experiences in data centre and application consolidation to properly plan the consolidation and manage schedules, milestones, vendors and resources through to completion. Overcoming Common Pitfalls In our experience performing data centre consolidations, moves and build-out efforts we have identified common pitfalls and can help you avoid them when pursuing a server or data centre consolidation effort: • Consolidation effort is often incomplete. Choosing to leave numerous distributed servers or applications out of the consolidation effort can reduce the financial benefits unless a detailed financial impact analysis has justified the plan. Application of virtualisation technology can be used to further reduce data centre footprint, server/application sprawl and maintenance costs. • Organisational and process impacts are overlooked. Consolidation must be planned on the organisational level, not the technology level. The plan must include strategies for consolidating the organisation and designing the processes to operate under the new structure, or service quality will suffer. • Response times and availability are compromised. As servers and applications are relocated, the traffic patterns of the network will change dramatically. Without solid network modelling and performance impact analysis, slowed application response times or network failures are unavoidable. • All problems will be magnified. Any reduction or failure in service quality, availability or response time will reflect directly on the consolidation effort itself. Careful planning and tested contingency plans are essential to achieve success in a consolidation. • Business continuity and disaster planning is impacted. No consolidation plan is complete without an overhaul to the BCDR plans of an organisation. Often, the second data centre is utilised as a disaster recovery site. Consolidation will eliminate this, leaving the company exposed to financial catastrophe in the event of a disaster. Plans must be updated along with the consolidation plans. The BT Approach With each consulting engagement, BT takes a business-centric approach to mapping people, process and technology with corporate objectives. Utilising our structured methodologies, our consultants work closely with your executive and functional staff to understand your business needs, deliver in-depth analyses and provide solution recommendations. We also ensure thorough knowledge transfer via hands-on explanations, formalised training for key personnel and detailed engagement deliverables to help you establish an operational framework as a foundation for continued success. With 15 years of technology integration and business solution delivery experience, our expertise spans the entire IT enterprise, from strategy, planning, compliance and governance to networking, security, storage and application development and integration. By combining our comprehensive expertise with our best practices and proven processes, we are able to deliver consistent and exemplary results that help innovate your business operations and create a foundation for continuous improvement. About BT BT Global Services helps multi-site organisations master the complexities of business communication by providing integrated services around the world. BT provides global connectivity to help you efficiently communicate and collaborate through a wide range of options for voice, video, data and converged communication services, plus global sourcing and consulting services. Offices worldwide The services described in this publication are subject to availability and may be modified from time to time. Services and equipment are provided subject to British Telecommunications plc’s respective standard conditions of contract. Nothing in this publication forms any part of any contract. British Telecommunications plc 2006. Registered office: 81 Newgate Street, London EC1A 7AJ Registered in England No: 1800000 PHME XXXXX For more information on the services contained in this datasheet, please visit http://bt.ins.com