Capacity management

Capacity management's primary goal is to ensure that information technology resources are right-sized to meet current and future business requirements in a cost-effective manner. One common interpretation of capacity management is described in the ITIL framework. ITIL version 3 views capacity management as comprising three sub-processes: business capacity management, service capacity management, and component capacity management (known as resource capacity management in ITIL version 2). Capacity management's primary goal is to ensure that information technology resources are right-sized to meet current and future business requirements in a cost-effective manner. One common interpretation of capacity management is described in the ITIL framework. ITIL version 3 views capacity management as comprising three sub-processes: business capacity management, service capacity management, and component capacity management (known as resource capacity management in ITIL version 2). As the usage of IT services change and functionality evolves, the amount of central processing units (CPUs), memory and storage to a physical or virtual server etc. also changes. If it is possible to understand the demands being made currently, and how they will change over time, this approach proposes that capacity planning for IT service growth becomes easier and less reactive. If there are spikes in, for example, processing power at a particular time of the day, it proposes analyzing what is happening at that time and make changes to maximize the existing IT infrastructure, for example, tune the application, or move a batch cycle to a quieter period. This foresight from proactive capacity planning identifies:any potential capacity related issues likely to arise and justifies any necessary investment decisions to the business and IT stakeholders i.e. the precise server requirements to accommodate a future growth in IT resource demand, a technology refresh or a data center consolidation.