How to Handle Server Consolidation

According to a report by IDC Worldwide, the revenue of the server market is declining with time. The decline is driven by server consolidation and data center consolidation. Server consolidation helps you in efficiently using our resources and hardware. It will allow you to use your server to their extreme capacity. Server consolidation combines your server for increasing your computing power. It will also help you in replacing your legacy technology with virtual technology. You can replace your legacy technology with SaaS products or cloud technology.

What is server consolidation?

Server consolidation is one of the best ways to efficiently use your IT environment. It will help you in combining your servers. You can also replace your legacy servers with new technology like cloud technology. Some of the benefits of using server consolidation are:

• Server consolidation will help you in reducing your electrical and cooling costs
• Reducing your server load growth
• Will help you in reducing your licensing and warranty costs
• It will help you in reducing and controlling server sprawl
• Lower software and hardware CAPEX
• You can use shared and cloud infrastructure

Server consolidation will help you in lowering down your data center costs. But, you have to do proper planning. You should analyze your end-user and application environments. Also, it is important to analyze your server environment. If you have a good understanding of your data center requirements, then you can create an effective server consolidation plan. You can use below strategies for effectively handling server consolidation:

1. Virtualization Technology

Virtualization technology is similar to server consolidation. You can use virtualization tools like virtual machines (VMs) and partitions. There are various resource management tools that you can use for effectively managing your servers. It will help you in dividing your workload among your servers. This is one of the important features of server consolidation. You can achieve flexibility by using virtualization technology. It will help you in dividing the workload between your different physical servers. This will ensure that your servers won’t overheat.

2. Dependency and Application Mapping

First, you should identify all the workload destinations and applications in your network. This will help you in the data center migration process. You should also try to map the dependencies between these applications.

The application inventory will provide you a complete map of your data center. It will help you in understanding how your data center is interconnected. If you are doing this manually, then this can be a very time-consuming process. There are various automation tools available in the market. But, you still need to hire someone who is an expert in data center migration.

3. Post and Pre Migration Testing and Optimization

It is important to do proper testing of your applications. Make sure that they are working correctly in heavy load. This will ensure that your application won’t go down after the migration process. Also, this will ensure that your application will work smoothly in the new data center. You should also test the workload capacity of your Virtual machines. There are many AI tools that you can use for testing your applications. Automation will help you in testing your workload before moving your applications. These tools will also help you in optimizing your applications. You can also do production changes during the testing phase. This will ensure that you don’t need to shut down your applications for making changes.

4. Automation Tools

Most of the data centers are moving from physical servers to virtual servers or from virtual servers to virtual servers. Server consolidation will ensure that you are only moving your workload and applications. You don’t need to rebuild your servers. Automation tools will help you in copying all your data from physical to virtual servers. You don’t even need to shut down your applications for moving them.

These tools will also help you in synchronizing all the changes. This will ensure that the virtual copy of your data is up to date. The original copy will still run on your server. This will help you in reducing the testing and copying portion. You don’t need to worry about copying or testing your data manually. There are various automation tools that will help you in copying your data.

5. Managed Service Provider

Server consolidation is a very difficult process for most companies. It can disrupt your entire business operations. Most of the large enterprises have experienced IT staff. Thus, they can smoothly handle the data migration process. But, most of the medium-sized companies lack IT expertise. They don’t have people with enough specialized skills. Thus, server consolidation is a difficult process for small or medium-sized companies.

You can use managed IT services for eliminating all the potential errors. Your IT service provider will help you in data center migration. Also, you don’t need to worry about hiring IT experts. If you are working with a managed service provider, then you don’t need to buy any third-party tools. Also, the server consolidation process varies according to business size. Thus, you need a customized approach for your business. Your service provider will help you in customizing the strategy.

Conclusion

Server consolidation has many benefits like flexibility and cost savings. It will ensure that your servers are running at their maximum capacity. You can divide your workload between different servers. But, it is a very difficult process for most companies. Server consolidation is a very time-consuming process. Also, it is a very costly process. You need to purchase various third party automation tools. These tools will help you in reducing human errors. You should hire a managed service provider for proper support. They will help you in developing the perfect migration plan for your business. Also, they will help you in selecting the perfect tools for your business. If you need more information about server consolidation, then you can contact Bleuwire.

Contact us today to learn about Bleuwire™  services and solutions in how we can help your business.