Many
organizations have a Capacity Management process or function in place, but no
practical way to assess the effectiveness or even the strengths and weaknesses
of the process or function.
A strong, visible, people-oriented Capacity Manager can find his/her way in today’s IT data center and still provide considerable value to the business. Without a change in perspective, however, the Capacity Manager faces the possibility of becoming extinct in even the largest of organizations.
My morning involved showing up for work, making a coffee, and looking painstakingly at charts for the 7 or 8 Unix servers I was responsible for. Sounds quaint today, I know, but that was the job and I was paid pretty well for a recent PhD program dropout.
This blog series will talk about Capacity Management
and how the focus of it has changed in the last two decades – from a
technically-oriented process with little interaction with the business to a
more people-centric process.
There has also been a huge shift in how IT is done in
many companies. In the past, IT purchases
were managed closely, each expenditure carried out after careful deliberation
and multiple models predicting the right decision over a host of
alternatives. Today, many IT
capacity-oriented purchases are commoditized – interchangeable blades, machines
where upgrades involve turning on already-existing processors, or adding
capacity to cloud purchases.
As IT becomes more commoditized, the role of the
Capacity Manager changes – what value add does the Capacity Manager bring to
the organization? Cost savings aren’t as
readily seen and the new technologies are frequently managed by people who
think that their role also includes managing capacity and performance.
A smart Capacity Manager today focuses on key areas
where he/she can provide value – on relationships with the business which can
help negotiate changes in demand for IT services. A strong, visible, people-oriented Capacity Manager can find his/her way in today’s IT data center and still provide considerable value to the business. Without a change in perspective, however, the Capacity Manager faces the possibility of becoming extinct in even the largest of organizations.
What’s changed?
A look back – 1997
•
Mainframes ruled most/many datacenters
•
Teams of people closely monitored capacity and performance
•
Capacity Planning was purely an IT function
•
UNIX just starting to do “real” work
•
Few e-commerce, internet things done
I know that this is one person’s experience, but I
can’t help but think it was pretty similar in many larger organizations 20 years
ago.
I was hired as part of a 9-person Capacity Planning
and Performance Analysis team for a regulated utility. We had a mainframe (or two) and about 50
production Unix servers. The Unix
systems did nothing that directly interfaced with the clients.My morning involved showing up for work, making a coffee, and looking painstakingly at charts for the 7 or 8 Unix servers I was responsible for. Sounds quaint today, I know, but that was the job and I was paid pretty well for a recent PhD program dropout.
In my year with this organization (I left because of
the location, not the job), I never once met with anyone from the
business. The Unix machines I looked at
were critical pieces of equipment that helped our technicians do their jobs,
but back then all customer-facing information was held on the mainframe and
customers called people who accessed the information for them.
The explosion of the Internet in the coming years
changed everything. So did the advent of
new technologies, new mindsets, and the changing economy played a role as well.
On Wednesday I'll look at what Capacity Management is, in the meantime have a look at our Resources, you'll find a great selection of white papers and on-demand webinars on Capacity Management
Rich Fronheiser
Chief Marketing Officer
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