The Hindu Business Line : Hook 'em all up

A heart attack is imminent unless the decision to consolidate is taken immediately. Many big and small organisations have realised the necessity for a single IT heart of late, as pools of IT resources scattered around either go under-utilised or unused.

"As a business grows, so does the IT infrastructure required to support its daily operations. Often, the result is a widely distributed host of servers and storage devices.

Organisations need to gain control and create a flexible IT infrastructure that can adapt to changing business needs," says Unnikrishnan, Sun Microsystems.

"Currently, hardware is being bought and added on an ad hoc basis. This will prove to be a problem for companies two, three years down the line, warns Graham Penn, Director, Storage Research, IDC Asia-Pacific.

Optimal heart

In today's business environment, organisations need to optimise their resource utilisation to compete in the global marketplace, says Manoj Chugh, President, EMC India & SAARC, a storage solutions firm.

This is where consolidation steps in to `reap' hidden benefits of the accumulated hardware, and prevent the organisation from suffering a collapse (heart attack?) due to its unmanaged IT infrastructure.

Consolidating mainly brings up a picture of simplification of a system, of unifying different storage platforms and networks.

This process involves the integration of diverse IT hardware from various vendors. Storage, servers and networks have changed a lot over the years and many organisations have not kept track of this change. Updates, upgrades and outdated hardware can be corrected by consolidating.

Phil Sargeant, Research Vice-President, Storage, Gartner, says that 34 per cent of Asia-Pacific (APAC) companies that performed IT consolidation now procure fewer servers as a result.

SAN (storage area network) or NAS (network attached storage) need to adopt new technologies for consolidation. Seven years ago, technology was immature for SAN management. Today it has matured with virtualisation techniques.

Virtualisation

Virtualisation is a blanket of software that would cover the entire IT hardware, says Shailesh Agarwal, Country Manager - Storage, IBM Systems &Technology Group, IBM Global Services India. It is a layer that integrates and manages all the devices, freeing the user from tinkering and worrying about the layer beneath it (physical layer).

Consolidation of the physical infrastructure brings along with it certain definite benefits such as reduced space and power consumption too, says Unnikrishnan of Sun.

Harness information

"While consolidation of the physical infrastructure is a good start, it is only part of the answer to maximise the business benefits of consolidation," Chugh of EMC points out. From a business perspective, companies need to focus on harnessing information as a competitive differentiator," he feels.

Of course, harnessing information can be done only when the bulls (servers) are tame; the yoke (network) is in one piece; and the fields (storage, where the information resides) are ready.

Consolidating helps put these pieces together so the IT staff (farmer) can work efficiently.

A less complex IT environment frees up your expert staff to work on more strategic business objectives, says Unnikrishnan of Sun. You could reduce software licence fees and associated maintenance costs too.

Also, having a standardised infrastructure simplifies staff and end-user training. Consolidation also simplifies implementation of best practices.

Healthy heart — healthy body

Consolidating the IT infrastructure reduces risk for the company. Humans are error-prone and automating will bring in surety that the mistake of one will not affect the entire body. The chances for human error are reduced, more control is given to the IT staff and job profiles are smoothened out.

According to Sargeant of Gartner, 78 per cent of APAC companies that undertook consolidation measures were able to reduce/reassign staff.

This is probably why India is not yet involved in IT consolidation while less populated countries such as Australia and Singapore spend more on it as labour costs in India are not high, so software for replacing administration salaries is not needed, feels Andreas Schmid, Product Marketing Manager, Storage Works Division, Hewlett-Packard.

Compliance

Another reason to consolidate is the growing regulatory environment. New regulatory drivers compel organisations to protect information for longer time periods and have the ability to recover it faster.

Business process outsourcing service providers have to abide by regulations that their clients follow — Sarbanes Oxley Act, Gramm Leach Bliley act, EU Data protection Act, HIPAA, etc. Regulations are also applicable to organisations that are first-level subcontractors of US firms governed by Sarbanes Oxley; Clause 49 of Listing Agreement which includes Risk Management Disclosures and a Certification by CEO and CFO.

This increased accountability has pushed CIOs/CTOs into the hot seat concerning corporate governance and compliance issues.

In the face of such pressure, consolidation of IT infrastructure becomes paramount, says Chugh.

Smart CIOs can use compliance as a `Launch Pad'for updating systems, smoothing operations, and staying ahead of the competition.

Remove those blinkers

So what is stopping companies from taking the consolidation restorative? Paradigms continue to exist in the IT industry regarding this topic, says Sargeant of Gartner.

He identified internal politics as a problem area, and urged decision makers gathered at an APAC meet on storage to consider the advantages of consolidation without blinkers.

Unnikrishnan too feels the foremost and possibly the only issue that affects the consolidation process is short-sightedness on the part of management. "This is both from a ROI (return on investment) as well as a technology perspective.

Even though CIOs might have more funds available today than they did a few years ago, the lessons learned during the down economy about being fiscally accountable will last for a long time. Companies will always strive to reduce IT capital expenditure, by managing disparate systems across geographically diverse regions through a large team of system administrators and IT managers, thereby causing system management costs to shoot up," he says.

Sun saved more than $10 million annually in maintenance and operating costs by consolidating its own internal systems, he says.

Less than half have consolidated

Other issues in IT consolidation are bandwidth availability and cost, says Sargeant of Gartner.

Only 43 per cent of Asia-Pacific companies have done a storage consolidation, according to Gartner. Chugh feels downtime, when you want to consolidate information or technology that is in production, is a hurdle for IT consolidation. "No customer likes taking production systems down, especially when there maybe even the smallest degree of uncertainty about `how long' the system may be down," he says.

preethij@thehindu.co.in