Each stage increases the complexity of the process but also improves the payback.
Server consolidation can mean a variety of things to different people, and users considering launching a consolidation project would be wise to think through their goals. As a starting point, consider these four distinct phases for your server consolidation project, IDC says.
1. Centralization
The easiest and most basic stage. During this stage, IT centralizes its various distributed application servers to one data center by moving the physical boxes to a central location. Administration is eased, but not much is gained because the applications remain tied to a plethora of individual servers.
2. Physical consolidation
During this stage, IT combines like application servers – say several Microsoft Exchange mail servers – onto fewer or larger systems with the same application type or platform. This results in fewer servers overall, leading to lower maintenance and administrative costs.
3. Data integration
During this stage, IT combines applications with different data formats onto a single platform. For example, it moves from a mix of database platforms to just Oracle. This not only reduces the number of application servers, but standardization helps further streamline support and maintenance costs.
4. Application integration
This provides the most bang for the buck. During this stage, IT consolidates servers supporting different application workloads onto fewer or larger systems.
– Joanne Cummings
