Virtualization Expert Cisco's Omar Sultan

Bottom-line, companies today are looking for any way to decrease costs.  Cost savings strategies currently being implemented by many companies include upgrading data centers by leveraging solutions such as server, storage and network virtualization.

Evolving Solution’ Data Center Leaders interview series turns its attention back to the subject of data center cost avoidance this week in our interview with Omar Sultan, Senior Solution Manager for Data Center Switching for the Cisco Data Center Solutions team.

Sultan has over 25 years of experience in the IT industry working work for a number of Fortune 500 companies. Prior to joining Cisco, Sultan developed a broad range of experience ranging from data center management to network operations.  A member of Cisco’s team since 1999, Sultan’s current responsibilities center on the Cisco data center switching portfolio.

In our interview with Sultan below, we discuss how server, storage and network virtualization can lower data center costs today and look into our crystal balls to determine what solutions may be on tap for the future:

Evolving Solutions:
What tips would you offer for business seeking to reduce data center costs?

Omar Sultan:
I think, in the long run, server, storage and network virtualization is the best bet for sustained cost reductions. Technologies such as VMware or Hyper-V can be enormously helpful in reducing the cost of server infrastructure.  Similarly switch virtualization technologies such as virtual device contents (VDC) and virtual port channels (vPC) on our data center switches can simplify network infrastructure.

So, these technologies can save you CapEx up front, but they open up a second area of savings by reducing OpEx–less infrastructure will lower costs around power, cooling, cabling and rack space.

Unified fabric would be another example of both reducing upfront costs and setting the stage for sustained savings. Virtualized infrastructure is also simpler to manage, so that opens up another avenue of savings–increased productivity of your operations staff.

This brings us to the second area, which is improved operations efficiency.  While this is often viewed as “soft” savings, the truth is the people are often still the biggest single budget line item so anything that can be done on this front is important, whether it is improved management and automation tools or a more efficient organizational structure.

Evolving Solutions:
Are there inherent dangers in trying to make your data center too cost efficient?

Omar Sultan:
With a few exceptions, customers are telling us that their year-over-year budgets are flat to declining, so I am not sure “too efficient” is an issue.  I think the bigger risk is not being able to provide support to the business in the areas it needs–and these days, that especially means areas that impact the top line.

Things like energy efficiency and server, storage and network virtualization help drive budget efficiency–they let you target spending where it does the most good.  They also give you more efficient and flexible access to you IT resources so you can run a leaner provisioning model (i.e. less over-provisioning) without running the risk of being caught flat-footed if the business buts some kind of unexpected demand on the IT infrastructure.

Evolving Solutions:
What products or solutions do you envision reducing data center costs 5 years down the road?

Omar Sultan:
If we fast forward 5 years, I think we will continue to see the existing virtualization trends mature–I think they will be fully mainstream by them and will be the de facto operating environment for most companies.

I think we will see a sea change in management in the next five years, with greater use of automation and the introduction of more holistic management models, which will further drive up operations productivity and reduce the costs associated with management and operations.  I also think we will see a continued evolution and maturing of cloud computing as a solution to the point that enterprise companies will start designing their facilities to handle more typical loads and rely on cloud providers to help weather peak load situations.

Server Virtualization Expert Dan Kusnetzky

Server virtualization is gaining mainstream awareness in the business continuity as a viable strategy for data center cost avoidance.  As such, this week’s post in Evolving Solutions’ Data Center Leaders interview series shares best practices regarding server virtualization to those companies who have either just implemented or are planning to implement this solution.

Offering insight on the subject is Dan Kusnetzky.  Kusnetzky, along with Paula Rooney, posts regularly to ZDNet’s Virtually Speaking and is a founding partner of the Kusnetzky Group. Since the late 1970’s, Kusnetzky has been involved with information technology, including his work with the Kusnetzky Group, as executive vice president of corporate and marketing strategy for Open-Xchange, and as vice president for IDC’s System Software.  At IDC, Kusnetzky was responsible for research and analysis on the worldwide market for operating environments and virtualization software.

In Evolving Solutions interview with Kusnetzky below, we discuss best practices for companies regarding server virtualization:

Evolving Solutions:
What tips would you offer businesses who’ve just implemented server virtualization?

Dan Kusnetzky:
I’d say “Whoa, big fella (or lovely lady in the case of a female executive). I’d ask them what their overall plan was to deploy virtualization technology and how that fits into their overall IT plan.  If all they’ve done is install virtual machine software from VMware, Citrix, Microsoft, Virtual Iron, or through one of the distributions of Linux, they may have unknowingly stepped onto a slippery slope that leads to big problems. After all, virtualization technology includes access virtualization, application virtualization, processing virtualization, storage virtualization, network virtualization and both security and management in that environment.

Evolving Solutions:
What are the biggest mistakes companies make after implementing a virtualization initiative, and how can they be avoided?

Dan Kusnetzky:
I’m often surprised that executives who have grabbed onto virtual machine technology as a panacea don’t have a clear understanding of the following:
•    What applications and application components are running on what physical and/or virtual machines?
•    What are the dependencies among these components?
•    How do these components relate to both the network and storage infrastructure?
•    Who is responsible for managing each component, for the underlying physical machines, for the underlying network, for the underlying storage? Do they know one another? Do they have effective processes in place to pass issues to one another for resolution
•    Do the organization’s license management and support policies have a way to deal with easily copied virtual machines that could, in the end, be updated at different rates.
•    Have failure scenarios been explored and plans been created to address what happens if a physical machine, a disk or a network router fail.
I could go on and on about this. One clear message to remember is something Alan Lakein once said “Failing to plan is planning to fail.”

Evolving Solutions:
In “Has Virtualization Jumped The Shark”, Data Center Central’s Arthur Cole negates the idea that virtualization is losing its luster as little else brings more IT value to an organization.  How would you respond to the idea that virtualization is losing its luster in concurrence with its increased awareness?

Dan Kusnetzky:
Virtualization, taken as a whole, has been in use for well over 30 years in the world of mainframes.  It has been in use for well over 20 years in the world of midrange systems. I expect the technology to be of as lasting importance on industry standard hardware.

What’s likely to change, however, is the giddy feeling about virtual machine technology being the be all and end all of datacenter technology.

Evolving Solutions:
Five years down the road, how do you see virtualization evolving, and what other solutions do you feel will make the leap towards mainstream awareness currently being experienced by virtualization?

Dan Kusnetzky:
I expect that many will realize that a virtual environment (virtual access, virtual application environments, virtual processing environments, virtual storage environments, virtual network environments and the necessary security and management tools for those environments) has many of the same characteristics as a purely physical environments and some strikingly different characteristics.  For example, it is quite possible for a virtual server to run in one part of the datacenter in the morning, a different part of the datacenter in the afternoon and might be assigned to sleep on a disk somewhere overnight. People simply can’t do that with a physical machine.

Functions can be replicated for performance, scalability or reliability reasons. Functions can be replicated for development and testing as well.

Evolving Solutions:
Your post on ZDNet’s “Virtually Speaking” titled “The Green Datacenter” is the latest in a series describing how virtualization can ensure data center energy efficiency.  In your experience, is energy efficiency a driving force for companies to implement virtualization, or a secondary force?

Dan Kusnetzky:
This is a big issue in places in which organizations have found that there simply is no more power available to them unless they pay to build the generation plants It is also a big issue when organizations have no more floor space for computers, storage, networking equipment, power supplies and cooling equipment. It is a secondary or, perhaps, tertiary issue in other places.

It is clear to me that it will become an ever more pressing issue in the coming years.

Evolving Solutions:
Wild Card: Anything else you’d like to add?

Dan Kusnetzky:
As an alumni of Digital Equipment Corporation (may it rest in pieces), I’m convince that building an architecture and then bringing products in that fit the organizations architecture is better than being product driven.  There are times that an organization would be best advised to ignore a specific product or technology because the disruption it would cause far outweighs the value it provides.

Green IT Expert Toby Velte, PhD

Data center cost avoidance will continue to be discussed by companies looking to trim budgets in the new year.  As such, Evolving Solutions’ Data Center Leaders interview series continues its data center cost avoidance theme into February as we discuss Green IT with Microsoft’s Toby Velte, PhD.

Green IT is a subject that tends to generate as much in the way of negative discussion as it does positive.  While green IT has at its core lowering data center and business costs as a whole, it is also sometimes unfairly seen more as trendy concept than sound business strategy.

In addition to roles as a  Global Account Technology Strategist with Microsoft, and regular blogger to Fast Company, Velte has co-authored the book Green IT: Reduce Your Information System’s Environmental Impact While Adding to the Bottom Line.  In his book, Velte shares strategies designed to help companies evolve into green IT practices with bottom-line financial benefits financial benefits as an objective.

In Evolving Solutions interview with Velte below, we discuss how to achieve data center cost avoidance, with a focus on Green IT practices:

Evolving Solutions:
What tips would you offer for business seeking to reduce data center costs?

Toby Velte:
The key components of the costs associated in data centers have shifted significantly recently. While the need for more storage and speed are omnipresent, as are high costs for human capital and space, power is no longer cheap and ubiquitous. Management of data centers needs to be completely re-evaluated to take these changes and technology advances into consideration. The starting point is to trend the current consumption of resources (human or otherwise) then project future need. Armed with that knowledge, a fresh look at the future data center should be approached.

Evolving Solutions:
“Green IT”  has at its heart reducing data costs, but can be a hard sell as many see it only as a “hot topic”.  How would you recommend selling the idea of green IT to upper management?

Toby Velte:
By way of an oversimplification, organizations can look at Green IT projects through two lenses.

One lens views Green IT being driven by corporate responsibility or altruism, while the other is like any other IT project -that is in terms of the pressures of capitalism.

I try to cast each Green IT project through the latter. If we can’t produce the most fantastic ROI for these projects they will ultimately not be funded and carried out and I want (like others who appreciate the environment) to get these projects funded and completed.

Evolving Solutions:
KW/hr energy prices in the Midwest are among the lowest.  Do you foresee more companies migrating physical data centers to take advantage of this?

Toby Velte:
Yes, we see that now. But not only in the Midwest, look at the Northwest where power is about the lowest in the US. This is where the biggest new data centers are being built.  Taken further, one could foresee datacenters being built up globally where power, space, and administrative costs are very low; perhaps in a third or second-world location with access to nuclear or hydro-generated power.

Evolving Solutions:
You mentioned in a recent post on Fast Company that over 90% of consumers in the US say they’d consider switching brands if they learned about a company’s negative environmental practices and 75% of MBAs said they were willing to accept a 10-20% lower salary to work for a responsible company.  Why are these statistics alone not enough to remove the “fad” label that hangs over green IT?

Toby Velte:
There are still myths about Green products that were derived from the early days of environmentally-sounds products; specifically that these products are not as effective as the standard counterpart, more expensive, and generally less available.

While not completely unwarranted initially (think early hybrid vehicles or CFLs), more recent products can stand up to any consumer-derived test. Consumers also must start to trust corporations that make “green” claims. There is a lot of greenwashing still going on and it will take standards and certification to come into popular use before our trust will grow enough to move from fad to mainstream. Look at the ‘organic’ food trend for a recent experience.

Evolving Solutions:
Anything else you’d like to add on Green IT or data center cost avoidance?

Toby Velte:
The biggest data center cost avoidance is the data center you never have to build. With approximately a doubling of our data centers every five years, there are many groups contemplating a new data center.

Using green techniques, the enormous cost associated with building a new data center can be deferred for years or eliminated altogether.