Start with part one of this blog: 5 Benefits of Data Center Consolidation
In a perfect universe, performance management is straightforward. When problems arise, they're easily detected, the source is obvious, and the trouble is quickly solved, never to return again.
However, consolidated data centers aren't utopia and monitoring and managing network, application, and service performance isn't so simple. In many instances, performance degrades slowly over time, and problems come and go intermittently.
Gathering performance information from all data sources across the enterprise and presenting that information from the end-user's perspective sets the stage to successfully address more sophisticated problems, but only if all the information remains available for an extended time period. Most performance management tools either don't acquire all of the necessary information, or discard it too quickly.
Next generation performance-management solutions must be capable of obtaining and storing the most granular information for a meaningful, extended duration. Doing so empowers the operations and IT teams to conduct real-time analysis, as well as go back in time to discrete points in an effort to assess and correlate environments with intermittent trouble reports.
It also promotes the development of nominal performance baselines over the short-, medium-, and long-term so deviations can be identified and addressed as early as possible.
With the right performance management solution, businesses can transition smoothly into a consolidated data center culture, meet the needs of business units and end users, and truly make today’s IT maxim of “do more with less” a reality.
Belinda Yung-Rubke is Director of Field Marketing for Fluke Networks.
