The need to manage my datacenter

One of the ongoing challenges with data center management and the associated activities like chargeback, and server support, is managing everything, as in quite simply managing the lifecycle of a server. I’ll prove an easy example to illustrate this, and show why a data center management tool with different functions for the different teams is required. WSNT9007 is a DL380G1 running windows nt 4 with iis for the banks intranet homepage displaying basic information, phone directory, hr documents etc. It has an asset tag 300587, that’s how purchasing track it, but that tag means nothing to the support team to them it’s WSNT9007. Now, the application team require the server be added to our active directory, as part of this the name has to change to WS29007, this is done following the change process, and all the records are changed, someone tells purchasing that the £350 support cost is now for the new name, that asset tag corresponds to new name etc.

The server is virtualized to a VMware session. The physical hardware 300587 is now in fact WS29008, but WS29007 still exists (as a virtual server), the support team know this (as do the infrastructure teams), but now, how do we track all these changes, relate everything? How do I know that WS29007 is now running on the hardware for the old server, and how do i relate this in charge back etc. It sounds simple in a small server estate but scale it up to 45 application teams, 3500 servers and you see the importance of two things due diligence with your data center management, and the accuracy of the information you have for your servers. This is where a tool like aperture could be used with your existing systems. Not only is data center/infrastructure management needed to properly support your environment, it’s also part of the movement to adopting ITIL and being in line with any compliance requirements.

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