Chapter 7 – Server Consolidation

Publisher Summary Companies are realizing that the proliferation of servers is increasingly difficult to manage and can actually hinder IT from meeting the needs of business. CIOs' agendas for cost performance, mergers and acquisitions, and compliance risk reduction are driving organizations toward server consolidation and virtualization projects. Furthermore, consolidation and virtualization projects involve complexities beyond the technology. This chapter deals with the people and process components that make up a server consolidation and virtualization project, and leverages many of the best practices and lessons learned from the customer engagements in the area of server consolidation. In general terms, consolidation means joining multiple entities together into a single entity. Consolidation has many benefits, including better utilization of company assets, better control of resources, and the overall reduction of hardware capital costs. Server virtualization does for server hardware what storage virtualization did for disks: it makes the server hardware a generally available, shared hardware platform. Reducing hardware platforms can lower an organization's total cost of ownership. Coupling technologies such as VirtualCenter and VMotion provide benefits in the area of maintenance and recovery of the servers and help ensure that improved service levels are met.