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Redefining IT Consolidation Strategy
[December 28, 2005]

Redefining IT Consolidation Strategy


By Eedo Lifshitz, DiskSites
 
IT consolidation is one of the hottest trends in today's economy. It is viewed as a means of lowering IT expense while simplifying IT management.
 
Some perceive the consolidation trend as a desire to return to the 'old mainframe days,' when IT was centralized and considerably easier to control and manage. The real opportunity presented by the consolidation trend, however, is gaining the best of the two IT models: the benefits of centralized management of IT along with the high performance and end-user productivity of the distributed computing model.


 
In its Enterprises' 2005 IT Priorities report, issued in March 2 2005, Forrester Research surveyed 515 large firms and discovered that Infrastructure consolidation will be a high priority for 63% of enterprises during the next 12 months. In its "Remote Offices: Critical Links In Enterprise Architecture" report published March 24th, Forrester stated that 'a critical aspect of the consolidation and IT rationalization plans of large enterprises is support for remote offices. If not planned for data consolidation will slow branch office users' data access to a crawl, hurting productivity and morale.' Many enterprises enter into data center consolidation programs only to realize that a substantial fraction of their IT resources and expenses are "outside the walls" in hundreds of remote offices of varying sizes and degrees of independence. Companies that fail to plan for this consolidation will end up spending more for their remote branch offices than their peers -- and will not be able to respond as rapidly to the dynamics of today's business: change!

 
The Server- Based Computing Approach
 
Server-Based Computing (SBC) solutions, such as Citrix, were introduced to the industry several years ago as a mean of consolidation -- and have gained significant market share. The key concept behind SBC is that both the data and application reside in the data center -- and that the user interface is transferred, over the wide area network (WAN), to branch users. This solution introduces significant benefits as a result of the centralized management approach -- but it does so at the cost of performance and end-user productivity:
  • For GUI-intensive applications, such as MS-office suite, Outlook and CAD/CAM, the end-user experience of SBC solutions can often be frustrating -- and, therefore, are not recommended.
  • When a branch user prints a file, it is generated with all the required rendering and drivers in the corporate data center -- then transferred over the WAN. This results in slow response time and high bandwidth consumption of the WAN.
  • When a WAN outage occurs, branch users have no access to either their data or applications, since both are stored centrally.
  • Some may also argue that SBC solutions do not reduce the number of servers or their associated IT costs, but rather increase them -- as SBC solutions require that a large server farm be added to the IT infrastructure.
The Wide Area File Services Approach
 
Wide area file services (WAFS) solutions allow branch users to have access to a centralized file server - but do so at LAN-like speeds and over the existing WAN. What makes this approach more valuable is that users can benefit from the data (no -) center's best practices regarding IT, along with significant shared infrastructure cost savings.
 
WAFS solutions are implemented by replacing file and print servers at the branch with an appliance that is simple both to install and maintain. In this approach, data is stored in the data center, taking advantage of the centralized management model, while applications run on user desktops, achieving the high performance and end-user productivity of the distributed computing model.
 
Consolidation Requirements
 
Branch offices typically have four main components: Exchange Servers, Application Servers, File Servers and Branch IT infrastructure services:
  • Exchange: Microsoft is leading the industry with consolidation solutions that include as cache mode or Outlook Web Access. Providing a non-Microsoft consolidation solution may be beneficial in the short term, but will probably not endure -- and may not, after all, justify the investment.
  • Applications: Application vendors are introducing web- based versions of their applications, such as Oracle 11i, new versions of SAP, and Siebel,.
  • This further results in consolidation of application servers at the data center.
  • File Servers: As a result of implementing WAFS solutions, enterprises are able to increase service levels and collaboration for branch users while controlling the cost of managing IT for the branch offices.
  • Branch IT infrastructure functionality (print, DHCP, DNS, SMS, RIS) that usually resides on branch file servers, should be addressed in order to facilitate branch server consolidation.
Defining the Consolidation Strategy
 
The consolidation strategy should be derived from the requirements and the available solutions. In some cases, the SBC solution is clearly the best approach; in other cases, a WAFS approach with branch IT services should be selected. In yet other situations a combination of the two approaches will provide the ideal consolidation strategy.
 
Conclusion
 
Consolidation is a key trend in the market and there are several ways to approach it. WAFS solutions have added a new opportunities for consolidation while achieving improved service levels and cost reductions. In some cases, the SBC solution is clearly the best approach; in other cases, a WAFS approach with branch IT services should be selected. In yet other situations a combination of the two approaches will provide the ideal consolidation strategy.
 
Author Bio:
Eedo Lifshitz is VP of International Sales for DiskSites, Inc. DiskSites VBranch solutions provide wide area file (WAFS) and branch level services that simplify network administration, increase data integrity and ensure access to resources, while also protecting enterprise information. For more information please visit us at www.disksites.com, or contact us at [email protected].
 

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