I've written several posts describing how EMC's IT department has improved quality of service by tracking "percent virtualization" of their IT-owned server assets. Once the team had virtualized roughly one-third of their servers, they crossed over into the "business production" phase. This phase allows IT to further enhance their quality of service, as indicated by the chart below:
I was reading a customer case study that represented a rather substantial example of IT sprawl. TBC Bank, in the country of Georgia, had spontaneously grown their IT operation to the following server configuration in 2008:
- 170 servers
- 28 different types of servers
- 8 different server vendors
These numbers led to a slew of problems:
- Low server utilization (as low as five percent)
- High maintenance (training, managing, and patching so many different types of servers)
- Unacceptable planned downtime (at least one hour per month)
- Long lead times for server deployment (at least one month)
- The cost of acquiring/running new data centers (to house/power physical servers)
They began migrating their applications to a VMware ESX/CLARiiON configuration (with MirrorView and Recovery Manager for DR). The theory behind their virtualization journey was to realize the benefits of IT Production Phase 1: Lower Costs. In 2009 they started the journey. Two years later their lab infrastructure has changed…
- …from 170 servers to 70,
- …from 28 server types to 6,
- …from 8 server vendors to 3
According to the theory, the increase in virtualization not only brings efficiency gains, but TBC Bank should also begin to experience higher quality of service as they start virtualizing mission critical apps. TBC Bank's Deputy CEO Alexander Jejelava explains:
- "We have reduced our operating costs by 20%"
- "Downtime has been reduced from 1 hour per month to 15 minutes per month"
- "TBC Bank is no longer planning the building of a new data center"
- "We can roll out a new virtual server in only an hour or two. That's exceptionally better than the month it used to take."
- "We plan to roll out four to five new virtual servers every month to quickly meet application requirements"
TBC is a great example of how to incrementally migrate from sprawl to private cloud. More detail on this case study can be found here.
Steve
Twitter: @SteveTodd
