Service Overview

Server Virtualisation Assessment

Our Server Virtualisation Assessment helps organisations reduce server total cost of ownership and make informed decisions around capacity planning by identifying suitable areas for server consolidation and / or virtualisation.

Server Virtualisation Assessment

Current challenges in data centres

The rapid pace of technology deployment into today’s data centres is creating many challenges for IT organisations. Windows and Linux servers continue to be deployed at a rate that challenges even the savviest administrators. This causes many data centres to be nearing capacity for floor space, power and cooling. A lack of visibility often also leads to low server utilisation and a reactive approach to server administration.

Some questions to consider in conversations around Server Virtualisation Assessments:• Are you under pressure to deploy more

servers than you can manage? Are you asked to do this against a decreasing or stagnant budget?

• How many servers do you currently manage in your environment?

• How will standardising your server inventory improve your productivity?

• How do you determine your server capacity and measure utilisation against this?

• If you are consolidating, how do you gather inventory information and performance data and how much time does this take you and your team?

Many IT managers are considering server consolidation and virtualisation to rationalise their environments and solve these problems.

Some of the main reasons for server consolidation and virtualisation are:• Reduced administrative complexity

and costs (software licenses, asset budget reduction)

• Reduced operational costs (trouble-shooting, optimisation)

• Reduced facility costs (floor space, cabling, weight, power, cooling)

• Increased reliability and availability

• Improved service management

• Simplified disaster recovery solution

Server virtualisation and consolidation are both complex undertakings, and while they often provide the required benefits, they can also introduce significant risk. Dimension Data’s Server Virtualisation Assessment is designed to minimise this risk and provide organisations with realistic scenarios and roadmaps around their specific environments.

Our Server Virtualisation Assessment helps organisations reduce server total cost of ownership and make informed decisions around capacity planning by identifying suitable areas for server consolidation and / or virtualisation.

What is a Server Virtualisation Assessment?

Dimension Data’s Professional Services team conducts an assessment which intelligently:

• Measures the capacity utilisation of the infrastructure;

• Identifies opportunities for consolidation;

• Delivers a virtualisation roadmap for effective server consolidation and containment; and

• Provides return on investment justification for roadmap implementation.

With appropriate analysis and virtualisation, many of these low-utilisation devices can be combined into a single physical server, consuming only a fraction of the power of the original devices, saving on costs as well as taking a step towards a more environmentally friendly data centre environment.

The Server Virtualisation Assessment provides greater visibility into IT infrastructures and allows organisations to analyse, benchmark and predict capacity utilisation. It helps identify consolidation opportunities and model various scenarios, including virtualisation. Finally, clients are presented with clearly articulated scenario outcomes, total cost of ownership analysis and validated architecture recommendations.

Server Virtualisation Assessment

How does it work?

When you commission Dimension Data to conduct a Server Virtualisation Assessment, this is what you can expect from our dedicated engineering, design and consultancy teams:

Discovery One of the tools used by Dimension Data in the Discovery phase is the VMware Capacity Planner, an IT capacity planning tool that provides an integrated set of analysis, planning and decision support functionality. This enables accelerated, more accurate and benchmarked infrastructure assessment services. All regions are currently enrolled with VMware and are capable of delivering the service as a VMware partner.

Another option for data gathering is the tool Plate Spin. Regional Solution Architects will have the option to use this tool model based on their requirement and regional needs.

The Discovery phase consists of the following steps:

• Determine target servers to be assessed

• Deployment of tools used to gather information

• Assess the current state of an infrastructure’s workload capacity

• Measure server loads and capacity utilisation across various elements of the IT infrastructure − including by function, location and environment

• Conduct interviews with application owners

• Review processes and documentation

AnalysisOnce we have collected the required information about the current environment and the issues identified, we will begin to diagnose the source of the challenges. The results from the Discovery phase are reviewed against best practices.

RecommendationOnce the analysis has been performed, a report detailing the findings and recommendations will be compiled and presented to the client.

Pull through business / additional engagementIn addition to the above phases that are included in the Server Virtualisation Assessment, and that fit into the “Plan” section of the Services Continuum, we would also expect a majority of these engagements to lead into follow up actions and projects that are focused on ‘Build’ and ‘Manage’ aspects of the agreed environment.

The last stage of the project involves monitoring, managing and optimising the new architecture.

Server Virtualisation Assessment

BuildOnce the assessment phase is complete, the client is ready for a ‘Build’ engagement. This separately priced service focuses on the transition to the virtualised and consolidated architecture. Measurements indicate that a server is often only utilising from 5-15% of its capacity to service an application. With appropriate analysis and virtualisation, many of these low-utilisation devices can be combined into a single physical server, consuming only a fraction of the power of the original devices, saving on costs as well as taking a step towards a more environmentally friendly data centre environment.

Other benefits of a virtualised and consolidated infrastructure include simplified system provisioning and administration, reduced facility costs (floor space, cabling, power, cooling etc) and improved reliability and availability.

A detailed design and phased migration plan is produced. The new infrastructure will be baselined on the existing architecture, ensuring that no functionality or performance is lost in the migration, but is either kept consistent or improved. The infrastructure is then built accordingly, step-by-step, applications and data are migrated to the new architecture and hand-over documentation is created.

Support & ManageThe last stage of the project involves monitoring, managing and optimising the new architecture. The consolidation exercise should be repeated in other areas within the environment to provide ongoing consolidation and continuous optimisation.

By continually building on our knowledge and expertise in IT infrastructure technologies, Dimension Data has become a global leader in the provision and management of specialist IT infrastructure services and solutions.

CS / DDMS-1215 / 12/12 © Copyright Dimension Data 2012

Server Virtualisation Assessment

What can the client expect?

Report encompassing:• A feasibility analysis: a preliminary

total cost of ownership and return on investment analysis of the sampled environment.

• Results of a Server Virtualisation Assessment which investigates:

• Hardware audit

– Total server count and configuration profile

– Total device count

•Software audit

– Total operating system and application count

•Performance statistics

•Anomaly detection

• Threshold setting recommendations

• Corporate performance benchmarking

•Virtualisation recommendations

• ‘What if’ analysis

•Obsolete servers

•Re-deployable servers

•Re-configurable servers

• Infrastructure improvements

• Action plan and costing to implement recommendations

Presentation to key personnel summarising findings

What are the benefits to the client?

Reduction of wasted server capacity and improved utilisation rates

Why Dimension Data?

Headquartered in Johannesburg, Dimension Data was founded in 1983 at the inception of networked communications with a simple vision – to do great things. Dimension Data is a specialist IT services and solution provider that helps clients plan, build, support and manage their IT infrastructures. Today we are positioned at the forefront of networking and communications in 51 countries across five regions.

By continually building on our knowledge and expertise in IT infrastructure technologies, Dimension Data has become a global leader in the provision and management of specialist IT infrastructure services and solutions.

Drawing on our base of over 14,000 employees and backed by a solid track record of 28 years, Dimension Data applies our expertise in networking, converged communications, security, data centre solutions, Microsoft and contact centre technologies. Our unique skills in consulting, integration and managed services enables us to create customised solutions that ensure our over 6,000 clients achieve their business goals.

We have a proven record in data centre solutions, and have gained extensive experience in the planning, building and supporting of data centre and storage. Today, we manage more than 8,000 servers and 1.5 Petabytes of data for clients around the world. We also have preferential relationships with world leading data centre technology providers, including Symantec, EMC, HP and Cisco.

The Assessment helps organisations gain visibility of all the servers in their IT infrastructure and identifies their location. It also provides a performance analysis that determines the average utilisation of the existing environment and identifies anomalies based on industry averages.Anomaly identification allows problems to be identified and corrected prior to migrating to a virtualised environment. It enables clients to remove servers that have reached the end of their useful life from the environment.

Consolidation and virtualisation roadmapCandidates for consolidation and virtualisation are highlighted in the Assessment and these form the basis for a roadmap which includes an architecture design blueprint, a ‘what if’ analysis highlighting the estimated costings and likely outcomes of different scenarios.

Business justificationPotential cost savings through a server virtualisation project are estimated as part of the Assessment. These can include for example reduced facility costs (floor space, cabling, etc) and reduced administrative costs. One of the deliverables of the Assessment is a feasibility report with return on investment, which can be used to obtain business buy-in to commence with a server virtualisation project.

For contact details in your region please visit www.dimensiondata.com/globalpresence

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