Maslow in the Datacenter
Maslow created a model for human needs. There is a strict hierarchy: our physiological needs must be met first, and then our needs for security, social acceptance and self-esteem. It is only after all these needs are met can we hope to reach the pinnacle of human achievement - self actualization. The state of becoming all you can become!
Transformation appears to be the key goal these days for datacenters. Every IT department is in the midst of some change, driven by compelling business and operational needs. Some of these are modest, like standardizing on one vendor for all their x86 server needs, while others are grandiose, like building an adaptive enterprise.
But before taking the leap, no matter how modest or how grandiose, IT managers should take a page out of Maslow's model for human needs. It seems that there is a hierarchy of needs for enterprise data centers as well. Implementing a single vendor strategy for x86 servers sounds like a basic need, while building an adaptive enterprise sure sounds like the datacenter equivalent of self-actualization! Can the datacenter become all it can become without satisfying the hierarchy of its needs?
Here's a useful model for datacenter hierarchy of needs. At the basic level is consolidation, followed by virtualization, standardization, automation and finally leading to a self-managed infrastructure.
The idea of consolidation is simple - reduced footprint. This applies to physical datacenter (fewer the better), equipment form factor (racked servers to blades), software (from multiple OSs and application platforms to a single one), vendors (from the hundreds to tens). By simply reducing footprint, the optics for datacenter operations improves tremendously.
Virtualization, whether at the processor, server, operating system, or application, is next. It aims to make the most of the resources available. By keeping the resources abstracted away from the actual hardware, manipulating them becomes easier. Consequently, resources can be allocated as needs, re-allocated when the needs shift. In other words, the utility of resources is maximized.
Life would be a lot simpler, if the datacenter infrastructure were made up of homogenous components. You need to learn how to manage one thing, and apply across the entire datacenter! But alas, that is not the case and never will be. The alternative is the next level in the IT hierarchy of needs - standardization. Standardization leads to simplicity. But, standardization at the infrastructure level does not come easy. Someone has to take on the challenge of providing the right abstraction or data model for the entire spectrum of infrastructure elements - server, storage, network and software.
Once standardization is in place, automation becomes so much easier. You could even go the extent of saying that without standardization, automation is like the dog chasing its own tail! It never ends, because change is the constant in any datacenter. With a standardized abstraction of the infrastructure, this vicious cycle can be broken.
It is only after a datacenter has gone though the steps of consolidation, virtualization, standardization and automation, can it even begin to think about building an adaptive or autonomic, self-managing, self-healing infrastructure. That is the pinnacle of datacenter achievement, and skipping steps in between is not the way to get there, just as human beings can never really become their best when they are still fighting for survival.
Maslow in the datacenter. Who would have thought? We at Scalent did. And each step we take in developing innovative technologies for datacenter management, is a step that moves the datacenter closer to self-actualization.
Transformation appears to be the key goal these days for datacenters. Every IT department is in the midst of some change, driven by compelling business and operational needs. Some of these are modest, like standardizing on one vendor for all their x86 server needs, while others are grandiose, like building an adaptive enterprise.
But before taking the leap, no matter how modest or how grandiose, IT managers should take a page out of Maslow's model for human needs. It seems that there is a hierarchy of needs for enterprise data centers as well. Implementing a single vendor strategy for x86 servers sounds like a basic need, while building an adaptive enterprise sure sounds like the datacenter equivalent of self-actualization! Can the datacenter become all it can become without satisfying the hierarchy of its needs?
Here's a useful model for datacenter hierarchy of needs. At the basic level is consolidation, followed by virtualization, standardization, automation and finally leading to a self-managed infrastructure.
The idea of consolidation is simple - reduced footprint. This applies to physical datacenter (fewer the better), equipment form factor (racked servers to blades), software (from multiple OSs and application platforms to a single one), vendors (from the hundreds to tens). By simply reducing footprint, the optics for datacenter operations improves tremendously.
Virtualization, whether at the processor, server, operating system, or application, is next. It aims to make the most of the resources available. By keeping the resources abstracted away from the actual hardware, manipulating them becomes easier. Consequently, resources can be allocated as needs, re-allocated when the needs shift. In other words, the utility of resources is maximized.
Life would be a lot simpler, if the datacenter infrastructure were made up of homogenous components. You need to learn how to manage one thing, and apply across the entire datacenter! But alas, that is not the case and never will be. The alternative is the next level in the IT hierarchy of needs - standardization. Standardization leads to simplicity. But, standardization at the infrastructure level does not come easy. Someone has to take on the challenge of providing the right abstraction or data model for the entire spectrum of infrastructure elements - server, storage, network and software.
Once standardization is in place, automation becomes so much easier. You could even go the extent of saying that without standardization, automation is like the dog chasing its own tail! It never ends, because change is the constant in any datacenter. With a standardized abstraction of the infrastructure, this vicious cycle can be broken.
It is only after a datacenter has gone though the steps of consolidation, virtualization, standardization and automation, can it even begin to think about building an adaptive or autonomic, self-managing, self-healing infrastructure. That is the pinnacle of datacenter achievement, and skipping steps in between is not the way to get there, just as human beings can never really become their best when they are still fighting for survival.
Maslow in the datacenter. Who would have thought? We at Scalent did. And each step we take in developing innovative technologies for datacenter management, is a step that moves the datacenter closer to self-actualization.
posted by Scalent Systems at 11:41 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home