Halcyon v2 19/12/08 13:03 Page 40
Management
If organisations are to achieve a reduction in headcount
whilst still delivering a robust data centre environment,
there is a pressing need for effective systems management
tools that can support end-to-end business processes
across the multi-platform environment
organisations can also improve day to However, there is a very simple Way Ahead
day operations: from real-time alerts change that organisations can make: Without a doubt the data centre trend
of escalating temperature or reduce the amount of power hungry is based upon sound principles and
processing power usage to checking cooling technology. Today’s hardware reflects current corporate demands
available disk space. Critically, by can operate effectively in greater for financial prudence and
automating these data centre temperature extremes – typically environmental credibility. But it is
management routines, the CIO can between 10C and 35C – although not a strategy free from risk; get it
move away from reliance upon highly some HP kit will run at 50C. wrong and organisations will fail to
skilled, highly paid individuals and de- Yet most organisations are using huge achieve either cost or green objectives
skill the data centre to achieve further amounts of electricity to keep the data andwill risk undermining the quality
cost savings. centre at 22 to 24C, in the mistaken and reliability of service delivery
belief that systems will shut down if across the business. Get it right and
Green Reality the temperature goes any higher. the mega data centre will offer
Whilst organisations will struggle to Simply reducing the amount of economies of scale hitherto
achieve the expected cost benefits cooling within the data centre and unforeseen; it will enable a long
without robust, cross platform system letting the temperature increase by 5 overdue deskilling and a move
management, it is important to truly to 10 degrees will result in a away from over-reliance on ‘IT heroes’
consider the power consumption significant reduction in power and it will deliver significant cost
equation. Take the much vaunted consumption and cost, without savings. Whether it will really reduce
blade technology, for example. The compromising performance in any power consumption, however,
footprint may be impressively small way. remains to be seen.
but each blade generates a huge
amount of heat. While blade
technology enables organisations to
Top tips for effective systems management
add huge capacity to the data centre,
each requires around 15 Kw of power 1 – Adopt automation across platforms with good systems management
for cooling – as compared with 2Kw tools
per rack of traditional servers. - This will control business processes in data centres and satisfy customers
that you’re delivering on the SLA
This is a massive increase in power
consumption and will significantly 2 - Challenge the setting on your air cooling systems
dent the green credentials of any data - Servers are now far less sensitive to heat with much higher operating
centre. IBM has attempted to temperatures. It is vital to know the limits of your hardware but you may not
improve the situation by adding power need to cool the computer room to such an extent and could make
management software to machines significant energy savings
that enable unused processors or disk
drives to be switched off or powered 3 – Adopt virtualisation wherever possible
down. However, the inherent latency - Consolidate software tools as well as hardware. Using an Enterprise Edition
adds a small but significant delay software tool allows you to have multiple instances of products and
when systems are then switched back applications on a single server, saving time and resources.
on, undermining performance.
40 | DATA CENTRE SOLUTIONS |
www.datacentresols.com Winter 2008
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76