16th August 2010
Nowadays, it is unusual to come across an article related to the management of IT Infrastructure without stumbling upon the words, ‘Cost Efficiency’. Organisations across all industry sectors are striving to make IT systems more compact, making the most of existing resources to deliver an even better service and increase productivity. However, another strongly related topic has started to steal headlines and add new pressures to companies planning the management of their IT systems: reduced energy usage, or ‘Green IT’.
Xynomix suggest 5 ways in which companies can increase efficiency and ROI, at the same time as reducing their impact on the environment. We cover Virtualisation, Grid Computing and Clustering, Server Consolidation, Cloud Computing and some of the functionalities of Oracle Fusion Middleware.
1) Virtualise
In the simplest of terms, virtualisation involves pooling existing resources to create a number of simulated environments that deliver processing power, storage capacity, memory, etc. anywhere across the network as required. For example, the virtualisation of storage involves pooling physical storage from multiple network storage devices into what looks like, and can be managed as, a single central storage device. Similarly, server virtualisation involves masking individual physical servers, processors and operating systems and dividing the server resources into smaller virtual private servers. The positive impact of reduced costs and physical floor space that virtualisation has is immediately obvious.
Database virtualisation is no different in principle to the above and can increase cost efficiency whilst significantly reducing the carbon footprint caused by running physical database machines and servers. Database virtualisation involves the use of virtualisation softwares like VMWare and Oracle VM, through which Database environments are decentralised and redistributed across several virtual machines that share available physical resource. Queries are directed to the virtualization software that locates the source of the required information and pulls it back as seamlessly as if the query had been directed to the actual database.
The result? Lower hardware and energy costs, leading to a smaller carbon footprint. Not only that, but overall facility costs and TCO are significantly reduced, whilst the systems themselves can achieve higher levels of performance.
Oracle VM is currently free and fully supports both Oracle and non-Oracle applications. For more information on Oracle VM, or to download Oracle VM, please: click here
2) Get on the Grid
IT Managers are certainly under pressure to maximise resources and minimise cost. The easiest way to achieve this is by unlocking the value that already exists within the company. Many organisations rarely use the technology within their IT infrastructure to full capacity, with resources sitting idle when their particular users are out of the office, or when their specific function is not required.
Grid Computing is effectively computing power on demand. As a collection of resources such as memory and processing power that is available over a network, Grid Computing can help to control costs and reduce energy usage by pooling and provisioning IT assets and processing power, allowing them to function virtually as a whole. Multiple applications can share the IT infrastructure, meaning that resource is always available to users and systems can achieve flexibility, optimum performance and maximum availability.
The way in which Grid Computing can accommodate scalability for IT systems is also a key overall cost and energy saver. Rather than purchasing and running systems that are provisioned to accommodate uncertain growth plans or to see organizations through peak periods, companies can increase computing capacity in smaller chunks, adding and removing machines as required.
The result? IT resources work together to service organisational demands without the need for investment in more power hungry hardware. Resources can be scaled quickly and easily to virtually eliminate cost waste from over-provisioning whilst delivering better all-round availability and performance for users with less energy. Existing resources are fully utilised and users experience increased levels of computing power for greater productivity.
3) Is your head in the Clouds?
‘Cloud Computing’ is a hot topic at the moment. Closely related to Virtualisation and Grid Computing, ‘The Cloud’ allows for the internet-based provision of all IT resources, delivering a scalable, virtualised infrastructure without the need for investment in physical hardware. Because resources are shared and can be accessed on demand regardless of location, Cloud computing has become a viable IT strategy for small businesses to Blue Chips.
The saving benefits of ‘The Cloud’ in terms of operational cost and space can be huge. Cloud services can help companies to significantly scale back on the purchase and operational costs of servers, hardware and storage, as well as their associated maintenance costs. These can be virtualised, with companies paying for the specific resource that they need at that particular time. For example, an organisation could be allocated twelve virtual servers, with nine of those operating full-time and three of them being held in a reserve state in anticipation of spikes in demand. Each server would come with a certain amount of disk space, power, memory and bandwidth, but it would reside virtually within the provider’s dedicated Cloud resource.
The result? There are so many benefits to the ‘Cloud’ approach: entire IT infrastructures become quickly and easily expandable; companies can save money on the purchase of physical hardware, space and running costs whilst actually improving the service; and the organisation’s carbon footprint is significantly reduced. Even if moving mission-critical operations to the Cloud is impractical for certain organisations, there is still huge capacity to utilise Cloud capabilities for low-risk, but resource intensive tasks such as testing and developing software.
4) ‘Pay as you Grow’ Server Consolidation
Server Consolidation is an increasingly popular way for organisations to minimise hardware, maintenance and operating expenses through the more efficient use of server resources and the consequent reduction of physical server locations.
In its simplest form, Server Consolidation is the movement of applications that are moved from separate servers onto the same server to maximise available resources and decrease the number of physical servers required. The consolidation process involves the elimination of servers that are not strictly necessary to the business function, then physically consolidating multiple applications with similar configuration requirements onto a single operating system. Multiple server operating systems can be virtualised onto a single server, so organisations can easily manage capacity across server environments.
Xynomix estimate that most servers function below 35% percent capacity, positioning Server Consolidation as a great route to managing IT spend more effectively. Rather than investing in new equipment that will use more power and take up more space, existing units can be combined to make a highly efficient server stack. Programs can be selected taking load balancing, user experience and demand and software size into account.
The result? When unnecessary servers are decommissioned, requirements for floor space, utility and maintenance costs will inevitably lessen, as will the organisation’s energy usage. If resource is provisioned correctly, application performance will not be affected but the number of servers in use will be significantly reduced, which is great from both management and operational cost standpoints.
5) Utilise Oracle Content Management
Oracle Content Management is an Oracle Fusion Middleware solution to the management of paper-based processes, documents, files, web content and related security. With OCM, organisations can drastically cut back on the use of electricity, paper and fossil fuels to reduce expenditure, waste and environmental impact.
‘Oracle Universal Content Management’ can be used to electronically create, distribute and manage documents so that a single copy of any document within the company can be accessed electronically from any location.
Features:
The result? Faster business processes, costs cut down to the smallest level [paper costs, shipping costs and physical storage costs will all be reduced], documents available across the organisation at any location and good press for a ‘Green’ attitude!
The article above is a fairly non-technical overview of a few popular routes to achieving government goals and ‘Green IT’ status. Hopefully this document shows how a few adjustments to IT management processes and strategies can have resounding effects, not just to the benefit of the environment, but also to the huge benefit of the organisation.
