The Data Center

But however that server and network architectures within the data center are being streamlined, many CIOs are looking ahead to the then and there step: consolidation of entire fleets of data centers into a more manageable few. The good news is that this will generate a lot of work for IT professionals. At that time again, the bad news is that it will generate a lot of work for IT professionals.

Busier time at it than federal IT workers

No one will have a busier time at it than federal IT workers, but. The government is preparing to implement a five-year plan to trim its data center count by 40 percent - some 800 facilities - by 2015. The plan affects near every federal agency, including the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security, and is said to rely heavily on virtualization, cloud computing and open source research. As can be expected, although, logistical issues are in the extreme complicated and it is unclear whether the entire program can be accomplished on schedule.

For many organizations, data center consolidation comes with the luxury of building entire new facilities from scratch. In these cases, design considerations for both the physical center and the data architecture is paramount. As IBM's Chris Malloy points out, modularity will be one of the key design components in a consolidated infrastructure, which can manifest itself in everything from facility layout and room design to network trunking and server/storage racks.

Successful consolidations are enabled by several key factors, according to IT consultant Debasish Chanda. Among them are a new core networking infrastructure in other words VLAN-ready and provides instant access to new IP addresses, and a healthy virtual environment that allows for smooth migration of virtual servers. However pay close attention to how you will handle tasks like asset and application mapping and business continuity. The more you leave to manual processes, the longer the consolidation process will be. Yet don't lock yourself into an inflexible automation system either, as the process is bound to produce some unexpected developments.

How processes

Read this research brief to learn how processes and tools providing rich contextual and application visibility from end-to-end across the enterprise and WAN optimisation research help to accelerate high-priority traffic.

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