A consolidated data center has been an attractive alternative for CIOs to protect the IT investment as many of them have realized that centralized infrastructure and processes help optimize the shared resources and in turn bring greater ROI from their IT investments. This whitepaper explains the various benefits of data center consolidation and how CIOs can work collaboratively with service providers to build an outcome based IT framework that can deliver cost efficiencies, savings and innovation in an organization.

1. Data Centre Flexibility & Efficiency
Enabling Your Path to Outcome Based IT

2. Executive Summary
The resulting cost saved can be reinvested by the organization in
growth & transformation
initiatives rather than using the
maximum IT budget on mere
operations & maintenance.
Virtualization and managed
services help enterprises offload
their IT assets without actually
purchasing the hardware
components for the growing
business needs. A cloud-enabled
or cloud-ready IT Infrastructure as
the business terminology goes
resulting in Cloud-based services
like Infrastructure-as-a-Service
(IaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service
(PaaS) deliver several upfront
benefits without causing severe
changes in existing management
strategies. Flexible cloud
computing models have also given
rise to outcome based IT
investments giving CIOs more
control on budgets. Organizations
today are focusing on a long term
roadmap for their IT Infrastructure
achieving efficiencies through a
phased approach through
managed services, virtualization
and ultimately building
provisioning to create a cloudready infrastructure.
Studies indicate (refer) that up to
80 to 85 percent of IT
infrastructure management
activities can be done remotely,
saving thousands of dollars in cost
savings every month. In addition
to the cost benefits, enterprises
also benefit from the advanced
technologies delivered by
managed service providers and
from the global best practices
gained through several such
implementations globally.
Many CIOs believe that
consolidation of IT infrastructure
will be the key driver of datacenter
growth in the coming years.
Forrester Research (refer) recently
revealed that IT infrastructure
consolidation was a “critical” or
“high priority” for nearly 70
percent of Indian IT decision
makers.
The increased digital capability
created as a result of trends such
as mobility, social media, cloud
computing and virtualization has
made enterprise IT infrastructure
complex and unwieldy. These
trends disrupt existing business
models and introduce new
competitive threats making
infrastructure transformation &
consolidation more important
than ever for the integrity of IT
assets in a complex business
environment.
“
80 to 85 percent of IT
Infrastructure
Management activities
can be done remotely,
saving thousands of
dollars in cost savings
every month
“
As economic crisis continues to
hamper IT investments, CIOs look
for ways to cut costs beyond just
operations front. Infrastructure
transformation through right
management, consolidation and
high automation emerges as an
ideal way to achieve this objective
as the process brings great cost
savings while also making the IT
infrastructure leaner, agile and
efficient. Adopting advanced
technology trends like
consolidation, virtualization and
managed services are now viewed
better as a “cost-containment”
strategy rather than a cost-cutting
strategy.

3. However, data center
consolidation also comes with
associated challenges. With ROI
being the focus of such initiatives,
CIOs are likely to be judged by
their ability to expand the
business impact of the data
centers creating new avenues for
innovation and profitability. In
today's competitive scenario CIOs
should also focus on how these
investments drive real value and
execute new strategies to deliver
tomorrow's business outcomes.
managed services can be
leveraged to achieve significant
cost savings and increased
infrastructure agility in the long
term.
This whitepaper explains the
various benefits of data center
consolidation and how CIOs can
work collaboratively with service
providers to build an outcome
based IT framework that can
deliver cost efficiencies, savings
and innovation in your
organization. It also explains how
CIOs are likely to be
judged by their ability
to expand the business
impact of the data
centers creating new
avenues for innovation
and profitability
“
“
A consolidated data center has
been an attractive alternative for
CIOs to protect the IT investment
as many of them have realized
that centralized infrastructure and
processes help optimize the
shared resources and in turn bring
greater ROI from their IT
investments.

4. Consolidation Drives Cost Savings
and Operational Efficiencies
Data center consolidation evolves
from the idea that having less is
easier to manage. Consolidated
infrastructure requires less
hardware resources like server,
routers and other equipments.
Such a system consumes less
energy and cuts the demand on
cooling resources, so it
strategically aligns with
organization's green initiatives. All
of these help drive operational
efficiency in organization.
Another key benefit of data center
consolidation is resource
utilization. Hardware or storage
associated with individual data
centers remain underutilized in
many cases because redundant
capacity is maintained to handle
spikes in demand. By consolidating
the assets of each data center, you
can ensure that the resources are
used in the optimal way, while also
ensuring that sufficient resources
are available to meet the demands
in case of a spike in traffic.
“
By consolidating
the assets of each data
center, you can ensure
that the resources are
used in the optimal way,
while also ensuring that
sufficient resources are
available to meet the
demands in case of a
spike in traffic.
“
Many organizations today have to
deal with multiple data centers,
often resulting from merger or
acquisitions. As the company
grows, data centers become
complex with each one having its
own system and storage
infrastructure to manage
independently. The complexity
increases if the data centers are to
share the data or applications with
each other.

5. Role of Managed Services Providers
(MSPs) in IT Infrastructure Consolidation
Managed services best fit into the
scenario of IT infrastructure
transformation & consolidation as
it delivers the right efficiency and
cost savings. In parallel, Cloud
Computing services around IaaS
and PaaS are emerging as the
viable alternatives for the CIOs
today mainly because of the
flexibility and scalability they
deliver to clients. The best selling
point, however, is their transaction
based pricing models. The pay-asyou-go model gives immense
freedom for organizations to scale
their IT infrastructure to meet
their needs while keeping a strict
eye on their IT budgets.
It is important that CIOs identify
those areas where immediate cost
savings are visible as well as the
strategies that will bring huge
savings in the long run. For
example, managed services can
bring immediate cost benefits by
trimming the hardware equipment
and support personnel. On the
other hand, standardization of
infrastructure and usage of tools
for automation cuts down the cost
of software license in the long
term because organizations can
handle the entire IT with a single
software license.
However, managed services
should be able to provide a
standard framework that can
sustain all of these activities in the
long run. MSPs should identify
strategies that reward their clients
throughout and help them
prepare their IT infrastructure to
accommodate future needs. It is
important for the MSPs to
continuously benchmark its
services with its competition and
also with its client's competition.
Let's analyze a typical scenario. A
leading business school in the
world wanted to build a future
ready IT Infrastructure that can
support its growing student base
& activities, has a minimum
downtime and more so result in
predictable cost for better
planning. The business school
turned to HCL to manage its
complete IT infrastructure through
the use of right set of tools and
governance framework. After
careful evaluation of the future
requirements of the client, HCL
delivered a standard ITIL
framework with committed SLAs
with end user feedback ratings.
HCL delivered the following
services to the client: Assets and
Inventory Management Services,
Network Management Services,
Data Center Management
Services, Microsoft

6. Implementation Services and Help
Desk Services.
Thanks to the managed services
delivered by HCL, the business
school was able to monitor
utilization of the IT assets and
control their usage as per their
requirements. They also
benefitted from 200+ standard
operating procedures and
processes developed by HCL for
Incident, Change, Problem
Management, Continual Service
Improvement (CSI), etc.
IT infrastructure consolidation
relieves organizations from
managing cumbersome servers
and associated equipments. This
would mean lessened burden on
IT operations and personnel.
Companies can save significantly
on management and
communications costs in remote
sites as well, allowing IT personnel
to focus on their responsibility to
isolate and resolve problems
faster and ensure business
continuity even in critical scenario.
With a more centralized approach
to IT, organizations gain from a
streamlined architecture that is
easier to control, and traffic
patterns that are clearly defined.
Consolidation helps organizations
bring the best technologies onto a
single platform and implement
advanced protocols and
management strategies to
maximize the utilization of the
network and increase the ROI.
Security has been one of the key
reasons behind organizations'
interest to pursue consolidation of
IT infrastructure. Consolidation
brings down the number of IT
assets and network connections,
and so IT consumes less resource.
By simplifying transport layer
connectivity, organizations can
deliver increased information
security.
Data center consolidation also
helps simplify disaster recovery
and compliance. As all vital
components are available in one
place, replication and failover
initiations are easier and more
efficient. Consolidation also
supports compliance mainly
because it takes the human
element out of most IT processes
and helps validate data to ensure
accuracy and completeness.
So, the demand is there.
As per the Strategic Benchmarks
2013: IT infrastructure report from
Forrester (refer) consolidation of
IT infrastructure ranks as the
second priority among
organizations, behind only server
virtualization.
In December of 2010, the U.S.
chief information officer, Vivek
Kundra, released a 25-Point
Implementation Plan to Reform
Federal Information Technology
Management. A key proposal in
this plan included a mandate to
consolidate and close 800 existing
Federal data centers by 2015
(refer).
The number was later increased to
962 and then ultimately to 1,200
data center closures out of 3,133
Federal data centers by 2015.
A leading business school drives efficiencies with
Data Centre Transformation
The business school in the world wanted to build a future ready IT Infrastructure that can support its growing
student base & activities, has a minimum downtime and more so result in predictable cost for better planning.
The business school turned to HCL to manage its complete IT infrastructure through the use of right set of tools
and governance framework. After careful evaluation of the future requirements of the client, HCL delivered a
standard ITIL framework with committed SLAs with end user feedback ratings.

7. Making the Move to
Consolidation Focus on Flexibility and
Efficiency
“
IT infrastructure
consolidation should
aim not only at cost
savings but also at
ensuring consistency of
service
“
Consolidation of IT infrastructure is a complex process as it involves the migration of applications and processes that
are connected with each other. To make the right move to consolidation, organizations need to understand the risks
involved in the process and adopt appropriate mitigation techniques to counter any such risks.
For any organization, IT infrastructure consolidation should aim not only at cost savings but also at ensuring
consistency of service. Multiplicity of data centers brings multiple architectures and multiple operating systems and
introduces different ways of recovering data or ensuring resiliency in the event of a disaster. The impetus for data
center consolidation should focus on improving the efficiency of these elements and optimize the resources to their
maximum capacity.

8. CIOs Role in Building Outcome Based IT Infrastructure
The final credit for the IT
infrastructure innovation goes to
CIOs. Their success is being
measured by how well they
manage the infrastructure to raise
the return on the investment
enabling outcome based IT and
create new avenues for
innovation.
According to Gartner (refer), IT
infrastructure and operations
typically comprise 55 percent or
more of the total enterprise IT
budget. Although CIOs and I&O
leaders have made significant
progress in reducing these costs,
intense budget pressures
continue.
Recently Gartner (refer) revealed
that the challenge of optimizing IT
costs is not just about trying to
reduce the unit cost of IT, but
trying to keep a balance between
lower unit costs and sourcing IT in
a flexible way so that the
organization is able to remove or
add resources/costs in response to
any changes, from both internal
and external factors.
CIOs also have to deal with the
bottlenecks associated with legacy
infrastructure that does not have
the flexibility and agility
demanded by today's businesses.
Standardizing the infrastructure
requires good amount of effort,
yet it has been identified as a key
priority by most organizations.
CIOs have to look at the business
requirements closely before
implementing any new technology
because some interface or IT
management changes may have
an impact on the business if not
done appropriately.
CIOs are also responsible to make
decisions with regard to the
capacity, features and functions
that IT should provide in their
organization. If they are able to
predict, with some degree of
certainty, the demands of IT, they
will be in a position to source IT in
the most optimal way. They should
also identify areas where cost
savings can happen and
collaborate with MSPs to achieve
the desired results.