Intelligent Consolidation
The Path to an Effective IT Strategy

Doug Clower

Global Solutions Manager - SCM

Novell, Inc.

dclower@novell.com

Tracy Thayne

Director, Solutions Marketing

Novell, Inc.

tthayne@novell.com

Agenda

Some Background

What is Intelligent Consolidation?

What's included?

What is the process?

Summary

:: Background
what's behind this trend?

IT Sprawl
background

History

Over the last 20+ years the movement to decentralized systems has produced higher costs and increased inefficiencies. Along with the emergence of new enterprise applications and relentlessly shrinking budgets, these inefficiencies are driving a new movement toward hybrid centralization.

Implications

Increased costs due to complexity

Declining service levels

Explosion of inefficient, difficult to manage “server farms”

Expensive server-based software licenses

Delays in the deployment of new applications and services

IT Sprawl
organizational perspectives

“I have seven times as many servers as I did two years ago, and every time I have to touch them it costs me time and money.” (CIO)

“It takes too much overhead to apply patches to all my servers, and they all have different OS builds.” (IT Director)

“It’s too expensive to house such a large and growing number of servers.” (CFO)

“It takes too long to roll out new applications with the current infrastructure.”

(IT Director)

What's at Stake?
business considerations…

IT sprawl translates directly into higher costs

Aging, inefficient technologies have become a liability

Reduced budgets have become the norm

Responding faster to change is a survival issue

Efficiencies realized by combining migration and consolidation

Real value in aligning IT infrastructure and processes with business strategies

What should you do?
how do you address this problem?

Understand the scope

Align with Business Objectives

Develop a Comprehensive Strategy

Why Consolidate?
industry viewpoints ...

A major impetus for operating system environment change is consolidation as corporations “rightsize” the number of servers in their organizations.

- IDC, 11/04

Whether your company has 300 employees or 30,000, chances are that if you looked carefully at your data center you would find that you have a great many more servers and disks than you need.

- Mass High Tech, 1/24/05

In the New Data Center, applications, business processes and information live on a vast fabric of virtualized computing and network resources to enable the extended enterprise."

- John Gallant, Network World

:: What are we talking about?
Why is it important to you?

What is Intelligent Consolidation?
the Novell perspective ...

A complete end-to-end solution for migrating and consolidating existing inefficient environments leveraging Novell's core competencies resulting in more scalable, better performing, more cost-effective and manageable platforms that meet the changing requirements of today’s business.

Intelligent Consolidation
variations on a theme

Intelligent	Sophisticated	Rational

Consolidation	Integration	Co-existence

Choice

Agility

&

physical

(infrastructure)

logical

(process & policy)

information

(data)

Server consolidation

Storage consolidation

Co-location of servers and services

Virtualization

...

Directory integration

Standardization of application and platform management

Operational policy enforcement

...

Secure, seamless information access

Profile-based info provisioning

Customized data, application views

Adaptable interfaces(e.g. mobile users)

...

Intelligent Consolidation
opportunity dimensions

physical

(infrastructure)

logical

(process & policy)

information

(data)

business problem space

Intelligent Consolidation
opportunity dimensions

physical

logical

information

Business Partners

Technology Partners

Intelligent Consolidation
cost savings

direct

indirect

:: Intelligent Consolidation dimensions
Can you give me some examples?

Consolidation Options
physical

Physical Consolidation has three primary manifestations:

Utilization - reducing the number of actual servers by shifting from many small underutilized servers to a few large servers.

Density - blade server, Storage consolidation (SAN), Virtualization, etc. ...

Geographically - minimizing the number of geographical locations that house servers, while maintaining and improving high availability of data

“Information Technology Organizations must first understand the true cost drivers of infrastructure, and recognize that the degree of diversity is almost directly proportional to the cost of operations and maintenance”1

Server Consolidation
physical

NetWare

kernel

NetWare

kernel

NetWare

kernel

NetWare

kernel

NetWare

kernel

NetWare

kernel

NetWare

kernel

hardware

hardware

hardware

hardware

hardware

hardware

hardware

Situation: Multiple servers with low utilization, departmental deployments, acquired though merger & acquisition, or as a result of application deployments.

Server Consolidation
physical

NetWare Services

netware kernel

sles kernel

multi-processor or

blade hardware

Alternative: Consolidate “like kind” servers on newer 8-way hardware platforms to reduce the number of servers or on blade hardware to reduce the footprint.

scalable

x86

x86 cluster

Services Consolidation
physical

Approach: Place the “right” service on the “right” platform

netware kernel

sles kernel

windows

unix

x86 mid-range mainframe

file

print

file

messaging

print

management

edge services

web services

application

application

database

application

database

application

database

x86

risc/sparc

identity and access management

messaging

Virtualization
physical

NetWare

NetWare

Linux

Linux

Windows

Windows

Windows

hardware

hardware

hardware

hardware

hardware

hardware

hardware

Situation: Multiple servers with differing OS's, requiring segmentation or separation due to service level agreements, or as a result of application incompatibilities.

Server Consolidation
physical

sles kernel

multi-processor or

blade hardware

NetWare

SLES

Windows

virtualization layer

directory services

Alternative: Deliver “virtual machines” and “virtual storage” to host instances of the various operating systems resulting in increased resource utilization.

Intelligent Consolidation
Novell data center strategy

physical

(infrastructure)

logical

(process & policy)

information

(data)

Vs + Vm + Rm + Im + SOA

Consolidation Options
logical

“When we think of logical consolidation, we rarely probe the recesses of our organization. We often stop at the technology boundary and forget to look at all the disparate systems that bury us with inefficient duplicity.”1

Logical Consolidation is driven by:

Standards - needing to develop or enforce corporate standards to simplify and streamline operations

Processes - understanding the steps required throughout business operations, looking for inefficiencies and automating recurring tasks

Asset Optimization - Higher utilization of resources reducing operational expense

Disparate systems
logical

Consolidate

or

Integrate?

Situation: Disparate disconnected systems requiring significant manual processing which may give rise to potential process failure.

Disparate systems
logical

Payroll / Mgmt

White Pages

Business Process

eMail/Phone

Equipment

Alternative: Common data synchronized to automate processes and provide electronic management, auditing

Disparate systems
logical

Alternative: Common data synchronized to automate processes and provide electronic management, auditing and access control

Payroll / Mgmt

White Pages

Business Process

eMail/Phone

Equipment

Consolidation Options
information

Information Consolidation improves productivity through:

Security - securing access to mission critical data and facilities by enforcing security policies

Business Intelligence - improved access to information that enables quicker response to rapidly changing business conditions

Employee Productivity - simplified access to all relevant job related resources resulting in better performance and greater employee satisfaction

“Informational consolidation involves dissolving boundaries and presenting a single point of access to any and all, data, systems and Line-of-Business information unencumbered by disparity of source but unified into a common interface”1

Integrated Dashboard
information

Condition: Many of today's dashboards have architectural limitations. They were designed for a single department or business unit, specific applications and/or one business intelligence toolset.

Integrated Dashboard
information

Condition: Dashboards don't do enough to present a comprehensive view of corporate data securely, based on roles and assuring regulatory compliance.

Integrated Dashboard
information

Data Integration

Business Intelligence

Alternative: A complete dashboard includes 4 key elements: data integration, business intelligence, secure identity management, and an integrated portal to access the content.

Secure Identity Management wrapper

:: Where do I Start?
What's the process?

Intelligent Consolidation
program phases

Implementation

Pilot &

Implementation

Strategy

Discovery

Opportunities

Assessment

Readiness Assessment

Analysis &

Business Case

Data Collection

& Assessment

Design

Requirements

Assessment

Support

Project Management

Training

Novell Consolidation
major elements

Novell Integration
process application & data

Novell Integration
intelligent consolidation at work

Physical

Logical

Informational

PAD Mapping
intelligent consolidation at work

i n f r a s t r u c t u r e s e r v i c e s

Physical

Logical

Informational

PAD Mapping
departmental detail

Physical

Logical

Informational

i n f r a s t r u c t u r e s e r v i c e s

PAD Mapping
drilling down

:: Summing it up

Summing up
The benefits to you ...

Successful IC engagements result in a strong alignment of business processes with available new technology to offer compelling and measurable business benefits, including:

Reduced IT costs

IT infrastructure efficiencies

A rational model for coordinating business and operational dimensions

The means to increase organizational agility

:: Appendices

Tools
business & technical

Novell

Server Consolidation Utility

Migration Wizard

Internal Tools

Linux Server ROI/TCO Calculator

Desktop ROI/TCO Calculator

Third Party

Versora

DAS Technology

Alacos

These keys help quickly identify characteristics of a given application relative to:

Geographic usage

Departmental deployment

Application source.

PAD Diagramming
keys

At Novell, and at many companies, we divide our global markets into 5 areas:

North America

Latin America

European Market and Eastern Asia

Asia Pacific

Japan

This row of the key indicates which region(s) utilize the described application. Use an appropriate geographical descriminator to help you classify your application deployment.

PAD Diagramming
geographical

With 10 business units, we divided our PAD assessment into customer facing business units and “back office” units

Training Services

Marketing

Sales

Novell Technical Support

Consulting

This row of the key indicates which business unit(s) utilize the described application. Each customer situation is different, use an appropriate segmentation for your environment.

PAD Diagramming
business unit

This type of application may or may not be custom written for Novell (or the client), but would not generally be available for consumer purchase.

The application is not linked to an enterprise application such as ERP or CRM but may utilize it's data.

PAD Diagramming
application

This type of application is built on a pre-packaged, “off-the-shelf” product. It is often leveraged to accomplish a specific function or task.

The application is often linked to specific data repositories that provide raw data used in completing the applications objective.

PAD Diagramming
packaged application

Use this format for enterprise applications that are core elements supporting business objectives such as CRM and ERP platforms.

PAD Diagramming
siebel application

PAD Diagramming
non-business application

Non-business application

During the next hour, I would like to discuss consolidation as an opportunity to improve your IT operations while reducing expense and increasing value. We will cover the basic motivations of consolidation, what it is, and what the process is to accomplish this effort.

Let get to the motivation ... For the next few minutes, I would like to share with you a number of reasons to, and concepts involved in consolidating your corporate environments.

Show of hands - how many here have more money this year than in the past years to provide IT services?

What was the last major hardware refresh you where involved in? I’ll bet it was Y2K - right?

We’ve come a long way in four + years!

Other reasons to consolidate:

Lower costs

Improved Manageability

Better Security

Bigger operational savings

Greater return on investment

Reduced staff levels

Smoother transitions after mergers

Improved levels of service

More time to focus on strategic issues

More freedom to choose

In short ... Intelligent Consolidation solutions offer immediate, tangible business benefits that far outweigh the risks of consolidating your environment.

Mix the various terms and you get

“Sophisticated Consolidation”

“Rational Integration”

“Intelligent Co-existence”

each a different point of view on the objective (or outcome)

Physical

Many servers into a few or one

Distributed storage islands into a SAN environment

Co-location of servers/services from branch offices to the data center

Virtualization

Logical

Integrating various directory repositories into one enabling identity and access management

Standardizing application and platform management

Enforcing operational polices

Informational

Secure, single sign-on access to heterogeneous information assets

Intelligent, profile-based information provisioning

Consolidated view of selected applications and information sets (e.g. secure dashboard)

Adaptable interfaces accommodating many user styles, access methods (e.g. mobile)

Roadblocks:

Greater risk from single point of failure

More complicated cost recovery/chargeback process and acceptance

(1) Desperately Seeking Server Consolidation Savings, 12 December 2002, Server Infrastructure Strategies, Kevin McIsaac, META Group Research

(1) Unknown

Roadblocks:

Ill-Defined or Poorly Enforced Standards

Legal Restriction on Where Personal Data Can Be Stored

dissimilar functions – common data

Linked data empowering and automating what Novell calls Zero Day Start/Stop

The dashboard concept isn’t new; But do today’s dashboards do enough?

Do they provide a single interface to applications across the enterprise?

Do they display sensitive information (like this dip in sales) while minimizing the risk that it will fall into the wrong hands?

Do they roll up operational facts from across the entire organization into a scorecard of key performance indicators?

Do they support detailed drill-down analysis on demand, even when information resides in a variety of systems?

Do they deliver real-time alerts to the right people about problems that require immediate attention?

Do they provision the right reports to the right people, based on secure identities?

Do they provide information self-service so you can create new reports as needed, regardless of where information resides?

Limited by Design

Most dashboards deployed today suffer from architectural limitations. They were designed for:

One department or business unit

One set of existing applications

One vendor’s business intelligence tools

Each runs in its own portal, not as part of an integrated enterprise portal.

Most important, despite simple LDAP compliance, most lack a secure identity management foundation that ensures access to the right information by only the right people.

A complete dashboard solution includes:

Data Integration Capabilities to pull information from virtually any application or data store.

Business Intelligence (BI) Tools to provide a range of reporting and data analysis capabilities.

A Secure Identity Management wrapper to protect the entire systems environment.

An Integrated Portal that provides a common point of access to all business intelligence tools and views.

It takes all these pieces working together to get the right information to the right people, in a secure and timely fashion.

It's about Possibilities

Intelligent Consolidation - BrainShare Deck v1.1

IO265 Consolidation Data Center

2003-12-08T12:43:39