Donnie MacColl

Datacentre operators are trying to cut costs, and there are several ways to do so.

Chief information officers (CIOs) will never reduce costs to the levels they desire if the datacentre requires an army of highly paid, highly skilled individuals to keep it up and running.

However, cross-platform system management tools mean you can run an effective, efficient datacentre with a smaller less-skilled team.

We think the mega datacentre should begin to resemble the Marie Celeste – steaming ahead but with nobody apparently at home.

Cross-platform systems management tools allow organisations to manage the entire datacentre from one console, using exception reporting to highlight potential problems as they arise.

Organisations can also improve day-to-day operations using real-time alerts about temperature, processing power or available disk space.

By automating datacentre management routines, the CIO can achieve further cost savings.

Virtualisation is why datacentre operators are investing heavily in automated management solutions to reduce human error, provide early warnings and lower the cost of management.

Companies are moving away from distributed infrastructures towards centralised, consolidated datacentres. Consolidating onto one or two centralised machines should slash power consumption and streamline maintenance.

If one single server fails it is simple to plug in another. If a larger system goes down, though, containing hundreds of virtual servers you need a resilient contingency plan.

Blade servers offer a small footprint but that is balanced out because they generate a lot of heat.

CIOs can counter this by reducing the cooling.

Today’s hardware can operate effectively in greater temperature ranges – typically 10 to 35 degrees Celsius, although some HP kit will run at 50 degrees.

Yet many organisations still waste huge amounts of electricity to keep the data centre at 22 to 24 degrees, in the mistaken belief that systems will shut down if the temperature rises higher.

Simply reducing the amount of cooling, letting the temperature increase five to ten degrees, can slash power costs without compromising performance.

Attention to all these factors, in the right proportions, should go a long way to ensuring success.

Donnie MacColl is head of technical services at Halcyon Software

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