As the enabling technology for Cloud computing and Green IT initiatives, virtualization is becoming the dominant IT implementation method. Having emerged due to the need to control server sprawl, expert analysts such as Thomas Bittman at Gartner are already warning of the dangers of ‘virtual server sprawl’.
The technology itself doesn’t help as it’s so easy to change resources within a virtual environment.
To realize the full benefits of virtualization though you need to maintain effective control over capacity.
Implementations need to be closely aligned with business requirements to achieve this and you need to avoid the temptation of over-provisioning solutions, because it’s so easy to do so.
CFO’s are unlikely to countenance such activity in the future, having been bitten once already.
Capacity, along with all the traditional ITIL® processes, such as Change Management, need to be effectively established.
Moving to the Cloud can, to a certain degree, shift some of your responsibilities but it is worth remembering that in a Cloud world the majority of ITIL® processes remain the responsibility of the consumer, i.e. the buying company, typically your IT department, if you’re buying Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) or Platform as a Service (PaaS).
It’s only if you’re buying Software as a Service (SaaS) that capacity management responsibility passes to the supplier but it’s still your responsibility to ensure that the service levels offered are satisfactory from a capacity perspective and more importantly, that they are being met.
Traditional capacity planning techniques allied to some new considerations are the way to go.
If you missed our ‘Cloud Computing and Capacity Management’ webinar last month keep checking our website as some new dates will be coming soon....
Andrew Smith
Chief Sales & Marketing Officer
No comments:
Post a Comment