Lack of visibility into system utilization, absence of
documented efficiency strategies and lack of functionality within management
systems serve as the primary barriers preventing respondents from optimizing
data center performance, according to Emerson Network Power.

 

While virtualization is being used in the majority of the
data centers only eight percent had not virtualized at least some of their
servers 44 percent still expect the number of physical servers in their primary
data center to increase over the next three years. In addition, only 2 percent
believe all servers in the data center will be virtualized in the next three
years.

 

Despite what could be considered ample capacity in many
facilities 65 percent are using less than 70 percent of their computing
capacity more than half (57 percent) plan to add additional servers in the next
three years, and 20 percent plan to add capacity by leasing additional space
from a co-location or hosting facility.

 

Survey respondents identified an array of management
tools they are using to help them deal with the increasing complexity brought
on by virtualization and other changes. The most commonly used were facility
monitoring (65 percent), equipment tracking (54 percent), and cooling
management (53 percent).

 

On the other end of the spectrum, tracking virtual
machines and their dependencies on underlying hardware (28 percent) and IT capacity
management (27 percent) were among the least used management tools. Less than a
quarter (24 percent) of respondents has achieved any integration between
virtual and physical management platforms.

 

If you compare managing a data center to flying an airplane,
what we are seeing now is that organizations are no longer willing to fly
without instruments as they have done for the past twenty years but have not
quite reached the point of automation,” said Blake Carlson, vice president of
global IT markets, Avocent business of Emerson Network Power.

 

That is definitely the direction the industry is headed
but achieving that objective will require greater integration between IT and
infrastructure systems, and between the physical and virtual layers of the data
center.

 

By Telecomlead.com Team
[email protected]