Data Center Consolidation

Data center consolidation is a growing trend for good reason. Enterprises, cloud companies, and even government agencies have realized tremendous benefits from consolidating their data centers. 

In addition to cost savings, another major factor driving data center consolidation is the outsourcing of enterprise IT workloads to the cloud to enable greater efficiency and scalability. As enterprises migrate their data centers, IT infrastructure processes, and computing platforms to the cloud, many seize the opportunity to realize cost savings by consolidating on-premise data center equipment and space. 

Physical locations – Consolidating multiple physical locations can reduce operation expenses through lower energy consumptions, lease reductions, and lower maintenance costs
Procurement – Consolidation can reduce the quantity of necessary equipment such as servers, storage, and networking equipment, which saves the organization significant procurement expenditures.
Software – Consolidation of software onto less systems can reduce software licensing costs as well as maintenance costs
Environmental benefits –It’s no secret that data centers are massive energy hogs and a large contributing factor to global warming. Data center consolidations reduce total energy consumption significantly, greatly reducing the footprint of the organization
Simplify replication
Security – By having fewer points of entry and reducing the total number of programs and systems to secure, avoiding vulnerabilities becomes simpler
Reduce errors – Data center consolidation can reduce errors by simplifying system processes like system discovery and network services. 

Step #1: Business Planning

Establishing business objectives and technology goals requires an understanding of need across the enterprise, including requirements for data processing, storage and back-up, continuity of operations, future expansion, and so on. 

Step #2: Discovery

Once goals are in place, an organization must have a clear and detailed picture of the data center assets including servers, storage devices, network devices, multi-tier applications, and middleware. 

Step #3: Dependency Mapping

The mapping of physical assets precedes the next important step of mapping the interdependencies and has a major impact on asset consolidation for the most effective and efficient use. 

Step #4: Capacity Planning

Identifying and planning capacity is an important consideration of data center consolidation.

Step #5: Implementation

At this stage, you’re ready to begin consolidating the infrastructure defined in your plan, which will include both physical and virtual systems, and the application infrastructure on top of those systems.

Step #6: Management and Continuous Optimization

Only with effective management can you realize the full benefits of data center consolidation.