HP Solve the 6 Top Problems in Your Data Center White Paper

7/31/2019 HP Solve the 6 Top Problems in Your Data Center White Paper

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Solve the 6 top problems in your datacenter by depending on a primary service vendor who can unify support strategiesfor your multivendor server, software,storage, and networking environmentsinto a consistent, manageable whole.

A primary service vendor can boostyour return on investment, improvechange management, reduce totalcost of ownership, meet servicelevel agreements, simplify service-

management, and improve end-user satisfactionall with a singlepoint of accountability.

Business white paper

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Table of contents

SOLVE the 6 top problems in your data center .............1Problem 1: calming your cost accountants .................3Problem 2: managing your multivendor environment ..6

Problem 3: maintaining your mission-critical uptime ....7Problem 4: controlling your constant change .............8Problem 5: getting virtualized without vulnerability ... 10Problem 6: reaching paradise in the private cloud ... 10

HP Integrated Multivendor Services for yourdata center ........................................................... 12

Why HP ...............................................................12


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But at the other end of the scale, some data centersare actually comparatively smallin fact, they mayeven be co-hosted, occupying a few thousand feet orless within a larger structure.

Whether your data center is large or small, itprobably faces a similar set of roadblocks toefficiency, uptime, and ROI. Figure 1 shows six of themost common and intractable problems you may befacing, whether today or in the future.

In this white paper, well take a look at theseproblems. As youll see, all can be rectified, in manycases with a solution that also improves efficiency anduptime.

Problem 1: calming your coSt accountantSGiven the state of the economy today, your budgetand headcount probably arent going to grow much.In fact, they may even be cut. But at the same timeyour costs and responsibilities are rising. Lets examinethe sources of your costs, and then well look at howto lower them.

Pressure on operationsCosts for power and cooling are rising. A 2009Gartner report predicted power and cooling issuein servers, networking, and storage devices woulincrease over the next five-year period, and will single biggest issue in data center topology throu2014. 1 Youre probably paying more for your tecstaff, too. Workers are the lions share of your dayto-day data center outlay, making up as much as percent of ongoing costs.2 So you simply cant afto squander your staffs time. Finally, the tightenof budgets means youre probably trying to figurout how to make do with what you have. You cansimply rip and replace every year; somehow youto keep pace with new business demands while sshackled to your existing equipment and softwar

What to doOne way that many companies are dealing withsmaller operational and support budgets is by dosomething that may seem counterintuitive: theyappointing a primary service vendor to provideservice management expertise. A targeted servicmanagement solution from an outside vendor cansimplify that service management, improve servquality, reduce operational expenses, and improvefficiencyand it can free your staff for work thdirectly related to your business success.

1 Kumar, Rakesh, Eight Critical Forces Will Shape Enterprise DaStrategies, Gar tner, 2010.

2 Information Week, 11/25/09. Gartner: Data Center Problems Ahehttp://www.informationweek.com/news/hardware/data_centers/showArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=RDD1CREMJDPQLQE1GHRSKarticleID=221901180&pgno=2&queryText=

WHen We talK about a Data center, WHat Do We mean? tHe term conJureS uP imageS oF a large, DeDicateD bricK-anD- mortar builDing, briStling WitH PoWer anD cooling, PacKeD WitH Heat-generating ServerS anD Storage, anD linKeD to tHe outSiDe WorlD via routerS anD otHer netWorKing eQuiPment. anD a lot oF tHe time tHatS not Far oFF tHe marK.


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A primary service vendor can help you redefine yourIT and data center support strategies, and deliverservice solutions that address the needs of yourbusiness while complementing your in-house expertise.You may want to use outside help to provide short-termskills you dont have in-house, or to fill in when your ITdepartment is overloaded by some unusual event, likea merger or a new product launch. The added servicesupport can actually boost the productivity of your ITemployeesimproving customer service, decreasing

costs, and freeing up CIO and IT staff time to focus oncritical business endeavors.

Determining exactly where to apply the outsidehelp may not be a simple task. But heres a hint: Ata typical enterprise data center, about 70 percentof the IT budget is spent just on management andmaintenance.3 This means that very little of yourstaffs time is spent on using IT for innovation that willimprove your business.

So how best can outside help be used? Youll want todecide things like IT strategy and initiatives in-house;

but then you can turn over the laborious, time-intensiveexecution of the strategy and initiatives to that primaryservice vendor. Youll probably want permanent staff

to focus on the more strategic areas, including loterm programs with significant business impact talign with your overall corporate strategy. And ycan use the outside help to do the day-to-day tasYou may even want the primary service vendor tmanage all your other service vendors. The impothing is, you maintain control, and the work gets

How much of a payback can you expect? A goodtarget is reducing infrastructure and operations (Icosts for a unit of work by 10% during the courseof the year, and by 25% or more over a three-yeaperiod.4

Table 1. How to use a primary service vendor wisely

Use your own staff to: Employ a primary service vto:

Plot IT strategyCreate business initiatives

Work on long-term projects withsignificant impactPerform key tasks that are coreto your business

Execute tacticallyCarry out business initiativesyour directionHandle short- term, quick-hitprojectsPerform day-to-day service

management tasks such as: Vendor management Basic problem resolution Software updates Password restores Backups Moves, adds, and changes Etc.

3 Dana Gardner, Interarbor Solutions, LLC, Converged Infrastructure Approach Paves Way for Improved Data Center Productivity, PrivateBusiness Edge, Feb. 9, 2010. http://www.itbusinessedge.com/cm/community/features/guestopinions/blog /converged-infrastructu re-approachfor-improved-data-center-productivity-private-clouds/?cs=39310

4 Rakesh Kumar, Jay E. Pultz, I&O Cost Reduction and Investment Are Both Required in 2010, Gartner, 16 February 2010.

Figure 1.Major challenges for your IT staff

Making cloudcomputing work

Manipulating virtualization

Mastering change

IT staffMatching lowerbudgets to risingcosts

Managing multiple vendors

Maintainingmission-critical SLAs

99.9999%


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a Primary Service venDor can HelP you reDeFine your it anD Data center SuPPort StrategieS, anD Deliver Service SolutionStHat aDDreSS tHe neeDS oF your buSineSSWHile comPlementing your in-HouSe eXPertiSe.

Where to goOnce youve decided you need outside help, wherecan you turn for provenbut affordableexpertiseto supplement your own in-house capabilities? Theanswer is Hewlett-Packard. Our HP IntegratedMultivendor Services are a complete servicemanagement solution for the entire data center. As thelargest technology company in the world, we provide

this kind of support in countries all around the globe.Our innovative service management solutions includeautomated system monitoring and diagnosis forx86 multivendor environments, coupled with othersophisticated techniques for problem identificationand resolution. A typical solution might include theHP Insight Remote Support toolset; centralized callmanagement; rationalized service-level commitment;tailored invoicing; and a combination of remote,mobile, and onsite resources, all tailored to meet yourneeds.

What about the staff youre using to run the datacenter? HP Integrated Multivendor Services can a number of ways to keep that staff productive afocused on your strategic goals. This may involvdepending on HP for some tasks, while combininyour existing staff in a collaborative partnershipwith HP for others. With HP Integrated MultivenServices on your team, you spend less time solvi

problems and more time focused on your busineimproving ROI and reducing costs.

The budgetary benefits of HP support services ctouch all facets of your data center operations.Sometimes our engineers can help you achieve bsavings merely by making simple recommendatiFor example, in one data center, increasing the Uroom temperature setpoint resulted in a projectedannual savings of more than $12,000. 5

Figure 2.HP Insight Remote Support provides remote problem resolution and management for the data center

5 http://www.dataplex-systems.com/Documents/Blueprint%20for%Reducing%20Energy%20Costs%20in%20your%20Data%20Cen

HP engineer

Customer data center

Proactive advice

Problem resolution

Remote monitoringRemote configurationCollectionProblem analysis

HP support processautomation

SecureInternet

connection


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Using such techniques, we have a record of helping customers slash data

center power consumption by 30 to 40 percent. Whats more, wevedesigned more than 60 Greenfield data centers; and HP designed thefirst LEED6-Certified Data Center and the first Greenfield-LEED GoldData Center, both of which save considerable sums on energy costs.Chances are, we can help you run more efficiently and knock downthat monthly energy bill.

Problem 2: managing your multivenDor environment The reality of business IT today is that standardization may be inshort supply: in the drive toward efficiency, many organizationsgo for the best-of-breed solution regardless of vendor. So,whether your enterprise is large or medium-sized, youreprobably holding a real mixed multivendor bag of hardwareand boasting an abundance of different applications andoperating systems installed within your IT environment.

When something breaks and you have to find the root cause,thats when the problems begin. You can wind up with alot of wasted time and inter-vendor finger-pointing. Whatsmore, vendor quality can vary substantially. And everythinghas a different process, different licensing, and a differentwarranty horizon. You may be faced with dozensandsometimes hundredsof individual support contracts to

manage, so you need to devote valuable staff resourcesto the time-consuming, labor-intensive process ofmanaging them. Youve got patches and upgradesto worry about, too, adding to your managementand budgeting nightmare. Plus, theres a cost to theincreased staff, and their training, necessary to stayon top of this convoluted world.

What to do Again, the answer could be to let a primaryservice vendorpreferably one with wide-rangingexperience at delivering managed supportsolutions for the data centerdo all this on

your behalf. You simply hand off the overallmanagement of support to the primary servicevendor, and that company takes ownership

6 Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED)certification by the U.S. Green Building Council astandard for its new buildings.


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and responsibility. Now you have one service contractto deal with, one predictable line item in your budget,and an account-assigned service manager or servicemanagement team to contact if something goeswrong.

Where to go As your primary service vendor, HPs IntegratedMultivendor Services can provide all this, and more.It can deal with all of those vendors, leveraging HPexpertise while meshing with your existing in-housesystems. The result is end-to-end multivendor IT servicemanagement (ITSM) that is fully integrated into yourIT infrastructure. A variety of service levels providehigh-quality technical assistance and operationalexcellence, and can condense the complexity of amultivendor environment down to a single point ofaccountability.

We can consolidate responsibility for vendormanagement and service delivery across your entiretechnology stack, providing you with more consistentservice levels and outcomes. Our engineers can turnyour finger-pointing multivendor nightmare into asmooth-running operation. And do you remember thatone-contract, one-contact, one-invoice service for yourmultivendor environment? Of course, HP IntegratedMultivendor Services can provide that, too.

Problem 3: maintaining your miSSion-critical uPtime If youre in a time-sensitive business, or theapplications running on your servers are business-critical, you need to guarantee those service levelsno matter how complex your environment, or how

overloaded overloaded your staff. Unfortunately, itsa harsh but true fact of life that with the resources you

have, you simply may not be able to deliver that of 24x7 computing day after day, year after year.If your IT infrastructure supports a business-critiapplication environment, where downtime puts ycompany at major risk of going out of business, yservice management and support capabilities neebe way beyond sturdy.

What to doOne way to improve your business-critical applicavailability is with a primary service vendor whohas expertise in that field. You might start by usithe vendor to provide a one-time evaluation of ycurrent environment, then recommend improvemThis can be a fairly inexpensive route to reducindowntime; you may discover that improvement iservice management procedures, or modifying thtopology, can make a big difference without the to purchase new equipment.

Or you can engage that primary service vendor fa longer period of time, bringing in the vendorsprofessionals to improve efficiency or to free youfor work thats more directly related to your busiThese experts can help to highlight potential issuin application availability, data retention, speed orecovery, network availability, and more. When ydealing with business-critical applications, the pra long-term contract may be significantly less thcost to your business of a single unplanned outag

To successfully implement the Uptime InstitutesFour level, where youre at 99.995 percent uptim(which translates to just24 s of unplanneddowntime per year), you really need to dot all thand cross all the ts. And that means doing predic

analysis, and considering all possible factorsbinternal and external to your data centereven ithose factors dont seem to have any effect right


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By joining forces with the primary service vendor, youcan bolster your own capabilities and ensure yourmission-critical operational service level commitmentsare met. The right collaborator can assumeresponsibility and help you avoid downtime whileimproving your service management.

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Where to goHere again, HP Integrated Multivendor Services canplay an important role in your business-critical datacenter. In fact, HP is without peer as a partner indelivering mission-critical computing.

When you engage HP, our professionals willhelp improve service management and ensureservice levels. Theres even a specific program, theMission Critical Partnership (MCP), with a singlecustomer contract tailored to meet your objectives.In this program, you get a named account supportteamtrained engineers who are familiar with your

applicationsas well as flexible reactive support anda proactive IT support solution.

About the MCP:The MCP service delivery teamstarts the risk assessment process with a thoroughassessment of all aspects of your critical IT services.Your IT service management practices are comparedto a library of almost 1,600 best practices based onIT Infrastructure Library (ITIL), COBIT, and ISO/IEC

20000 standards. Following identification of riskgaps, the team works with you to create a prioritservice improvement plan (SIP) containing tasksmilestones to improve your capabilities. The SIPcontinually updated to reflect any changing busiand technology requirements and to address issuidentified during operations.

HP also assists you with ongoing technologymanagement activities, providing both hands-onassistance and knowledge transfer. Through proaelimination of risks across your people, processetechnology, coupled with added skills and resourfrom HP, the MCP helps you continue to meet animprove your performance against key service-leagreements (SLAs) and other commitments.

HP can help enhance all your IT operations,whether mission-critical or not. We have a wealtof experience and service management intellectuproperty (IP) ready to help solve difficult and coservice management problems. With our help,youll be able to introduce service management bpractices and leverage HP expertise.

Problem 4: controlling your conStant cHange

What about change management? According to Iover 80 percent of business-critical service disrucan be attributed to poor change control processeincluding flawed change impact assessment.7

In todays economically constrained times, you creplace equipment or purchase all-new softwareto stay abreast of every new technology hiccup.However, you still need to keep your existinginfrastructure up to date. And that means you nestay on top of change: you have to plan for it, traand manage it. Because change management is nnormally the best use of staff time, nor is it likelycore competency, this may be another good activentrust to a third party.

8

7 Stephen Elliot, Research Manager, IDC, March 2006.


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Problem 5: getting virtualizeD WitHout vulnerability

Virtualization is becoming more and more popular.But heres a remarkable fact from Gartner: Despite allthe hoopla surrounding virtualization, only about 20to 30 percent of workloads are actually running onvirtualized servers today8. And at most companies,the virtualization percentage isnt changing much.

Thats because virtualization has its own set ofproblems.

First, virtualization can encourage network complexityand server sprawl. Instead of the old paradigm ofone server, one app, you now have perhaps 10applications running on one physical server; thatmeans the consequences of a single hardware failurecan be magnified many times over. In addition,locating the real source of a problem can be anightmare in a virtualized environment.

Because of these issues and others like them,virtualization in many companies is limited to testingor R&D. It rarely finds its way into productionenvironments and is hardly ever running mission-critical applications.

What to doBut these problems can be solved. And mainstreamingvirtualization in your data center is another placewhere a primary service vendor and third-partyexpertise can prove invaluable. Equipped with specialtools, and with lots of experience in virtualizationtechnologies, third-party experts can help your

business-critical applications make the labor-intemove into virtualization. Such support can helptransform your infrastructure into one that makeoptimum use of the virtualization technology, wistrong emphasis on business agility and achievinSLAs. And once you have your virtual environmset up and running, you can throttle back on thirparty involvement or end it altogether. Or you mwant to continue the engagement with compreheproactive and reactive support for both your crit

physical and virtual assets alike. Where to goHP Integrated Multivendor Services can help yomanage the complexity of virtualization and mitrisk, using techniques like proactive monitoring help avoid problems before they occur. Whats mHP offers mission-critical support for the VMwaMicrosoft Hyper-V, and Citrix XenServer hypervright along with our mission-critical support for of the data center. Such support will go a long wtoward convincing the CEO that virtualization caindeed be used for business-critical computing.

by simplifying the management of your virtualizmultivendor environment, our support professiocan help you reduce associated costs, too.

Problem 6: reacHing ParaDiSe in tHe Private clouD

After virtualization, the next logical next step insolution development is the private cloud, or evepublic-private or hybrid cloud. Cloud computingthe next nirvana, the promised landand in mancompanies its no longer just a future vision butreality. However, this reality can present challenespecially as cloud solutions begin to span multiplatforms, multivendor environments, and variouoperating systems.

Creating a private cloud involves making pools oresources available to users, to be checked out wneededkind of like a lending library. Think hoflexible and efficient such a system could be to ybusiness. You use only the computing power andother resources you need, and only for as long aneed them. The resources themselves might com

8 Thomas Bittman, Q&A: Six Misconceptions About Server Virtualization,Gartner, 29 July 2010.

mainStreaming virtualization in your Data center iS anotHer Place WHere a Primary Service venDor anD tHirD-Party eXPertiSe can Prove invaluable.


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a companys private, in-house cloud. Or they mighteven be supplied by a public cloud such as Amazon

Web Services, or by a combination public-private orhybrid cloud.

And while virtualization is one of the key technologiesthat make this happen, its not the only one.In addition to the aforementioned issues withvirtualization, cloud computing comes with its ownpotential pitfalls. Private clouds are often closedcloud in a box environments that dont scale well,forcing large capital investments when capacity limitsare reached. Meanwhile, public clouds, dependingas they do on shared resources, encourage cloudsprawl with the attendant risk to data security and thedangers of inviting regulatory scrutiny and the risk ofnot meeting internal SLAs.

What to doBut these problems can be solved. And one way toget started is by engaging a primary service vendor.Equipped with expertise and tools, and with lots ofprior experience in virtualization technologies andcloud computing, this vendors experts can help,especially with the labor-intensive move to virtualizingbusiness-critical applications.

Where to goHPs services and solution expertise extends acrossthe entire data centerincluding cloud computing. Infact, HP support can help you configure and operateyour converged infrastructure, whether based on aprivate or a hybrid cloud, while ensuring that cloudcomputing will help achieve your business objectivessafely and securely. Our monitoring services can keeptabs on cloud resources, and our education services

will enable your own staff to become knowledgeableas well.

One service to consider is HP CloudStart. HPCloudStart enables you to reduce provisioning tiby up to 80 percent: in less than 30 days afterinitial hardware installation and start-up, your clis up and running. Whats more, HP CloudStart icustomizable and can be integrated with legacyapplications for an easier evolution to cloud serv

Besides CloudStart, other cloud services include

HP Cloud Consulting Services for CloudSyste

which provide the roadmap, design, andimplementation services that help your organiimplement HP CloudSystemHP Cloud Roadmap Service, a service that heldevelop a strategic cloud architecture, conducta gap analysis, and provides a comprehensiveroadmap for cloud adoption and integrationHP Cloud Design and Implementation Servicewhich can provide architectural analysis andvalidation, generate a detailed design and billof materials, and even perform planning andimplementation

These are all examples of the many cloud-focusmultivendor support services you can get from H


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Copyright 2011 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. The onlywarranties for HP products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services. Nothing hereinhould be construed as constituting an additional warranty. HP shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein.

Microsoft is a U.S. registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation.

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HP integrateD multivenDor ServiceS For your Data center

HP Integrated Multivendor Service options include:

What this option does for you:

Service Management Reduces complexity for supplier management, call management, contract management, inventory manand tailored invoicing. Offering includes single-source service management solutions, including improvservice management processes and a simplified vendor management interface. You get: Service delivery management simplification Reduced cost of service support for the data center Service transformation through introduction of ITIL service management best practices

Improved service quality Reduced number of suppliers

Networking Services Provide proven networking consulting, integration, and support services.

Mission Critical Partnership Provides assessment, proactive and reactive services and monitoring, service improvement planning, ooperational service management support, and ongoing reassessment for your mission-critical environmeOptional SAP enhancement adds proactive SAP support.

Software Technology Services Provide installation, implementation, or virtualization. Services include software support from basic tcritical.

Cloud Consulting Services Provide cloud services or access to them. Services can help you build a private, internal cloud.

Critical Facilities Services Improve compute performance and availability, help maximize data efficiency, and cost-effectively tryour data center. Service solutions include data center management, power, and cooling services solutio

Insight Remote Support Provides remote monitoring, diagnosis, and problem resolution.

Virtualization Services Help you realize the benefits of virtualization more quickly, with expert services targeting client, storagserver technologies.

Integration & Technical Services Address diverse operational continuity tasks that span the data center lifecycle, from strategy consultiassessment to deployment and ongoing maintenance.

WHy HP Whatever the source of your data center problembudgetary, staffing, performance, or uptimeoutsidesupport from HP can make a real difference. WithHP as your partner, youll be on your way to makingvirtualization production-ready, enabling support

solutions for cloud computing, or simply gettingthe greatest return on your hardware and softwareinvestment. Contact us today and learn more abouthow HP Integrated Multivendor Services can helpsolve your data center problems.www.hp.com/services/multivendor
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