IDC 1629

I D C A N A L Y S T C O N N E C T I O N

Jed Scaramella

Research Director, Enterprise Platforms and Datacenter Trends

Converged Sys tems Management : Key Features

January 2014

With the proliferation of converged systems comes infrastructure and management tool consolidation. The motivations for this consolidation stem from the need to reduce operational management staff and management software product costs (i.e., support and maintenance, manual tasks, and training). Organizations also seek to reduce operational complexity and cost by rationalizing applications as well as increase resource utilization due to higher virtualization densities. IDC believes that in the longer run, the vendors that will gain material converged systems market share advantage will be those that seamlessly integrate management automation, monitoring, and optimization functions within the converged systems stack.

The following questions were posed by HP to Jed Scaramella, research director for IDC's Enterprise

Platforms and Datacenter Trends practice, on behalf of HP's customers.

Q. What are the key challenges facing IT organizations in terms of managing the

complexity of their IT infrastructure?

A. Many of the key challenges facing IT are related to the complexity of the IT environment,

which leads to cost and inefficiencies. In a legacy environment, servers, storage, and

networking are each in their own distinct silos, which creates a very static and inflexible

infrastructure. As a result, the IT department is unable to adjust and to evolve quickly and

thus is unable to meet the changing needs of the business. The main challenges center

around the costs associated with running this complex environment and the inability to

respond to business needs in a timely manner.

Q. Converged systems bring together previously siloed technologies. What are the

system management implications?

A. Converged systems bring together multiple hardware components, each of which has its own

management tool. Ultimately, IT departments are not looking for more tools to manage. The

purpose of converged systems is to simplify not just the provisioning and deployment but also

the management of all hardware components. This involves full life-cycle management,

including deployment, provisioning, and monitoring of the systems; patch and firmware

updates; and any other management functionality that's required. This comprehensive

approach to systems management can go a long way in terms of improving IT staff efficiency,

reducing downtime, and improving the utilization of both the IT assets and the IT staff.

IDC studies have found that customers using converged systems have been able to achieve

faster deployment times, reduce system downtime, and improve IT staff productivity.

©2014 IDC 2

Q. Are there organizational impacts to consider when adopting converged systems?

A. It's often true that people and processes in business units lag the technology.

Hardware vendors are doing a tremendous amount of work to integrate and optimize the

previously distinct hardware components into a single platform, which often requires the IT

organization to adapt and change. Getting the previously disparate silos of server, storage, and

networking administrators to work together often involves someone at a higher level

implementing organizational changes to enable business and IT units to achieve consensus.

This process involves a new way of procuring systems because in the integrated model, the

hardware systems are purchased together versus everything being on a different life cycle.

The management and the monitoring of the system are slightly different; the multiple views are

consolidated into a single management platform. Given the competitive business environment

and the stagnant budgets of IT, it's quite necessary for server, storage, and networking groups

to work together. Organizations need to ensure this type of collaboration so they can keep pace

with business needs and respond to the constant and accelerating demands that the business

units place on IT. While it can be a challenge to get the previously siloed groups to work

together, the collaborative benefits that often result make the effort worthwhile.

Q. What are the key pain points for IT managers that can be addressed by centralized

management and converged systems?

A. The legacy approach to IT is quite inefficient. The rack and stack typical of IT equipment is

very difficult to manage and often results in a situation where the 80/20 rule applies.

IDC surveys have found that an IT staff spends 80% of its time simply keeping the lights on.

That includes tasks like management, provisioning, patching, and monitoring. An IT staff

spends only 20% of its time on anything that would be considered innovative, such as new

projects or enhancing the environment.

There is a great opportunity for converged systems to improve efficiencies. Many people are

pointing to converged systems as a way to expedite provisioning, patching, and configuration

management. Monitoring and troubleshooting are other key areas where IT can achieve

great efficiencies. As a result, customers can spend more time on innovation and new

projects as they shift their IT staff away from mundane, routine tasks. Instead, IT staff can

spend time on innovating and enhancing their IT services.

Q. Since time to deploy systems and applications is a key focus for many enterprises,

how can system management tools accelerate the provisioning of IT services?

A. Converged systems are optimized and designed to work together. The management platform

of converged systems usually includes enhanced management tools that can streamline the

provisioning of new IT services. These deliver great benefits in terms of provisioning new IT

services versus traditional distinct tools for each hardware component. In addition, each

hardware component — servers, storage, or networking — no longer needs its own

dedicated administrative staff that formerly used separate tools, so administration is easier

with converged systems. With converged systems, typically there is a single management

console where all the assets can be provisioned. The single management console can

handle every task — identifying the capacity needed, updating and provisioning the hardware

storage and the network resources, provisioning that environment to the end user, and then

deploying the application on that system. At the end of the life cycle, the resources can be

returned to the resource pool with a converged system, allowing for complete life-cycle

management that comes along with the converged system.

©2014 IDC 3

A B O U T T H I S A N A L Y S T

Jed Scaramella is a research director for IDC's Enterprise Platforms and Datacenter Trends. In this role, he examines

server systems deployed within the datacenter, with an additional focus on power and cooling solutions. Mr. Scaramella is

also responsible for a number of forecasts and studies on datacenter energy efficiency, vendor strategies, and the

continued adoption of blade servers.

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