A truly effective and efficient data centre operation is vital for all large organizations wishing to align their IT investments with business requirements, capitalise on change, reduce operational expenditure and establish a ‘Green’ energy culture.
Despite its six syllables, virtualisation is a straight forward concept. It can enable your organisation to get more value not only from computer and storage hardware but also from the labor required to keep your systems up and running.
The move to next-generation data centers entails a fundamental shift in perspective. For your enterprise to succeed in this new era, it must have an agile technology foundation that can speed business innovation and allow your company to move quickly to capitalize on market opportunities.
HP’s Executive Council, led by CEO Mark Hurd, decided to transform HP’s IT organisation to support significant improvements in operational efficiency, customer satisfaction, growth and profitability. This was not just about technology, this was about the business—technology no longer had to serve the business, technology had to power the business.
The concept of virtualization is not new. As far back as the 1970s, mainframe computers have been running multiple instances of an operating system at the same time, each independent of the others. It's only recently, however, that software and hardware advances have made virtualization possible on industry-standard, commodity servers.
There are many cautionary tales surrounding early virtualization efforts. Although virtualization promises cost-saving optimisation of data centre resources, the path to that payoff is littered with hazards. Here is a quick list of what to expect.
All too often, virtualisation is like a see-saw. As hardware costs are reduced, administrative costs rise. As workloads and compute resources become more efficient, the overarching infrastructure becomes more complex. If organisations don?t get their arms around the administrative complexity that virtualisation introduces, they may never realise the cost savings, performance gains or efficiencies that these technologies can deliver.
Today, IT organisations face unprecedented challenges. The move to next-generation data centers entails afundamental shift in perspective. Your organisation needs a business-centered view of your data center. HP Data Center Transformation solutions enable this shift in focus.
Your business is dynamic. Faced with unpredictable market pressures and limited resources, you must lower your costs, accelerate growth, and mitigate risks, if you are to sustain a competitive advantage. Virtualisation involves pooling and sharing IT resources, so IT supply automatically meets business demands.
