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How Do Private Clouds Affect the Data Center?Farmington Hills, MI, Jun 07, 2011 (PRWeb.com via COMTEX) -- For companies that believe business continuity/disaster recovery (BC/DR) planning means there's no way around adding redundant physical servers to the back room, it may be time to reassess that BC/DR strategy. According to Logicalis (http://www.us.logicalis.com), an international provider of integrated information and communications technology (ICT) solutions and services, disaster recovery in the cloud (DR-in-the-cloud) is a trend that is gaining traction among savvy CIOs and IT managers. "Disaster recovery in the cloud is not the answer for every business in every situation," explains Joe Long, director of business continuity and storage solutions for Logicalis. "But today's cloud offerings can give many customers a value-priced tool with which to meet their recovery point and recovery time objectives." So how can CIOs and IT managers determine if their company's data is a candidate for a DR-in-the-cloud solution? Long says the key is to have a qualified, independent third-party conduct a business impact assessment to determine if the business' recovery point objective (RPO) and recovery time objective (RTO) requirements can be supported by DR in the cloud before any decisions are made. If it turns out that the company is a candidate for DR in the cloud, there are several good reasons to move forward with a full-scale evaluation of the advantages. Five Changes Private Clouds Bring to the Data Center 1. Lower Cost: Through an effective virtualization strategy and a resultant reduction in servers, data centers can reduce the amount of cabling, floor space, and power they consume by record amounts. On the flip side, virtualization is only the beginning of a journey into the cloud; systems also need to be able to dynamically provision IT resources as needed on-the-fly. 2. Less Control: Instead of having to over-buy to meet changing demands, the addition of a self-service portal above the orchestration level provides on-demand consumption, enabling the IT team, and designated end users, to spin up capacity as needed, thereby increasing business agility. But the idea of giving end users easy access to resource control leaves CIOs and other IT professionals nervously pacing the floor. 3. Increased Need for Automation: Imagine that a functional cloud environment looks something like an onion with traditional infrastructure at the center and a self-service layer around the outside. Between the resources and the self-service portal, there must be distinct layers for automation, monitoring and governance. Without automation, any savings gained through virtualization and self-provisioning is lost on the additional IT staff needed because there is no staff-on-demand option that will take effect just when you need it. Without monitoring and management tools in place, self-service provisioning could seem like the Wild West all over again. 4. Power & Cooling Changes: While a private cloud is responding to changing business demands on the front end, the back end of the cloud in the data center needs to be able to respond to changing demands for power and cooling. Servers that become virtualized require specific power and cooling needs. As private cloud features like self-provisioning are introduced, hot aisles may get hotter requiring more cooling in that region. Power consumption fluctuates when virtual machines are spun up and down and will require smart power distribution units (PDUs) that can monitor power and respond to changing demands. 5. New Visibility Requirements: With virtualization, self-provisioning and other cloud-enabled advances, it is now possible to develop applications that can right-size themselves dynamically according to pre-determined criteria. That's great for new applications, and great news for IT departments. But there are still decisions that need to be made by a live person, so monitoring the data center in a private cloud environment is key. Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) tools should be deployed so the operations teams can actually see what is happening in the data center with regards to these changing computing capacity, power and cooling dynamics. "Private clouds leverage the equipment and skills a company already has in its data center which makes them extremely cost-effective solutions for delivering IT as a service. But it's also important to recognize that new tools may be needed to take full advantage of everything a private cloud has to offer," says Gruneisen. "Automation and orchestration tools, properly implemented, are the key to moving from a virtualized environment to a private cloud. And knowing just what needs to be added or changed in the data center can only come from a thorough assessment of both the company's business needs and IT's ability to meet those needs." i~ To learn more, visit Logicalis' dedicated private cloud Web site here: http://www.us.logicalis.com/microsites/cloud-computing/private-cloud.aspx. i~ Twitter: Follow us to keep up-to-date with @Logicalis. About Logicalis Logicalis is an international provider of integrated information and communications technology (ICT) solutions and services founded on a superior breadth of knowledge and expertise in communications & collaboration; data center; and professional and managed services. Logicalis Group employs over 1,900 people worldwide, including highly trained service specialists who design, specify, deploy and manage complex ICT infrastructures to meet the needs of over 5,000 corporate and public sector customers. To achieve this, Logicalis maintains strong partnerships with technology leaders such as Cisco, HP, IBM and Microsoft. The Logicalis Group has annualized revenues of $1 billion, from operations in the UK, US, Germany, South America and Asia Pacific, and is fast establishing itself as one of the leading IT and Communications solution integrators, specializing in the areas of advanced technologies and services. The Logicalis Group is a division of Datatec Limited, listed on the Johannesburg and London AIM Stock Exchanges, with revenues in excess of $4 billion. For more information, visit http://www.us.logicalis.com. ### Read the full story at http://www.prweb.com/releases/2011/6/prweb8537060.htm PRWeb.com |