DPC: performance concerns

LSI Corporation published in the summer of 2012 results of a research which purpose was an obtaining information on from what sort problems managers of DPCs face in the daily work. During the research survey of 412 managers of DPCs in Europe was conducted. It is interesting that 93% of the enterprises recognize criticality of optimization of performance in the DPCs and networks, and three quarters from respondents consider that they do not reach necessary performance level.

In the research LSI managers of DPCs report that key factors of deceleration of application performance are bottlenecks in access to network and the data warehouse. Such restrictions are result most often of increase in traffic of the massive these difficult infrastructures limited, in turn, to slowly growing budgets. In LSI it is the phenomenon call "a gap in an avalanche of data". The gap is caused by traffic of network and the needs for the additional capacity of the storages growing more than for 30% a year while IT budgets and expenses grow much more slowly, for only 5-7%.

Main results of a research are as follows:

• 25% of managers of DPCs emphasize that insufficient application performance leads to losses of profit;
• two of five managers of DPCs are concerned by influence of application performance on company competitiveness;
• DWH on a basis a flash attracts keen interest, but budgets in this area are still very low;
• 70% of managers of DPCs say that difficulties with access to network and storage cause the biggest problems with performance;
• The polled managers of DPCs realize that solid state drives (SSDs) can accelerate application performance considerably. Nevertheless the research showed that almost a half of respondents has no budget on purchase of SSD, and it is, according to managers, a basic reason which stops transition to SSD (92%). Managers of DPCs report that top and four business and critical applications are instruments of virtualization, Microsoft Exchange, SQL Server and Oracle.

Analysts of Gartner selected the most important problems which heads of data processing centers in 2010 will face. These are energy costs, location and technologies of DPCs. Specialists defined crucial  questions on which heads of DPCs need to focus to overcome problems of 2010. According to a research of Gartner company [1] (file), such problems of data processing centers as energy costs, location and technologies, will be aggravated in 2010 therefore heads of data centers need to pay on them special attention and to define ways of their solution. According to Rakesh Kumar (Rakesh Kumar), the vice president for the researches Gartner, energy costs of DPCs grow very quickly. However heads of data centers still do not pay attention to process of measurement, monitoring and modeling of energy consumption in data processing centers. Heads should realize that removal of one server of family h86 from a data processing center will lead to power saving for the amount 400 dollars a year.

Analysts of Gartner defined crucial questions on which heads of DPCs need to focus to overcome problems of 2010.  

Whether there are standard methods of reduction of costs for data processing centers? Analysts of Gartner recommend to define the chart of accounts which will include all cost elements of data processing centers and also to select key expense categories.

Whether there is advice which will help to reduce costs for data processing centers? Analysts of Gartner make the following recommendations.

1. 'Rationalize the hardware.  Specialists advise to replace outdated devices and also the equipment which works inefficiently.
2. Consolidation of data centers. Consolidation of data processing centers very often leads to economy of financial resources.
3. Management of the electric power and equipment costs. Tools and expenditure management methods on the electric power include: temperature increase in data processing centers up to 24 Celsius degrees that reduces the level of necessary cooling, use of fresh air as an alternative of a conditioned air, use of servers in the most effective mode of energy consumption.
4. Cost management on personnel. Staff costs are the largest item of expenditure for the majority of data processing centers, often making 40% of total expenses for DPC. 
5. More effective use of assets. The delay with acquisition of new assets is a necessary step for heads of DPCs for the purpose of economy of means.

Whether it is required to take measurement of efficiency of use of the electric power in date '-centrakh? the system of indicators is the most priority area for determination of efficiency of internal costs of data centers, and analysts of Gartner urge heads of DPCs to pay on it special attention.

What problems can the DPC face?

Location of data processing centers. Some DPCs can be located in the cities with the high cost of labor power. The companies need to analyze efficiency of location of data centers in terms of staff costs, costs of the electric power and security.

Service life of the recovered data centers. According to analysts, updating of DPCs should provide at least five-year physical, electric and network potential.

Structurization of DPCs. New components are expensive, however the real problem consists in integration of new products into the existing DPCs with already working components. The companies should focus on technical issues of integration of new components and also estimate a possibility of preserving of work of data centers when carrying out such works.