How to get disparate data center equipment to play nice?

The typical data center or server room environment can be a jumble of routers, switches, cables and a whole host of other equipment. On top of that, these disparate pieces would likely have been built by different companies. Thus, under these circumstances, it can be challenging at times to facilitate smooth data transfers among heterogeneous or even homogenous environments. A new solution from Dell, when implemented by iT1 Source, may help solve this problem for many data centers, though.

How much equipment is in a typical data center?

All data centers and server rooms are different, but one commonality among just about all of them is that they probably have a fair amount of hardware. On the high end is Amazon, with over 454,000 servers across all of its data centers. Most locations have far fewer than this, but even small shops probably have more equipment than they absolutely need.

On the server end, around 30 percent of all of them are not doing anything useful. Plus, with around two switches per rack and a few routers for every row, it’s easy to see how IT infrastructure footprints can spiral out of control.

For example, consider one experiment done by researchers at the University of California, San Diego. Their work showed how it was possible to deploy better switches to reduce the number of cables in one data center from over 6,900 to just 96. While this is certainly a huge improvement, close to 100 cables is still quite a lot. Plus, considering that they used commodity hardware, ensuring that everything even in this consolidated environment is able to effectively work with everything else would bring its own set of challenges.

Getting disparate data center equipment on the same page is no easy feat.

What to expect from Dell Storage Center OS 7

Dell understands this challenge within data center environments, which is why the company recently released Storage Center OS 7 and EqualLogic PS 9.0. According to IDG News Service, these new offerings from Dell will make it easier for IT managers to oversee their environments, and they will help improve Quality of Service. Considering the difficulty many teams have in coordinating storage in homogenous IT environments, many organizations will benefit greatly from the additional oversight and management by these new Dell offerings.

“Making storage systems work together can be a headache even if they’re both from the same vendor. Dell is taking some steps to ease that pain,” IDG’s Stephen Lawson wrote.

As a Dell Premier partner certified in storage, servers, virtualization and systems management, iT1 Source has the knowledge and experience needed to help any company both improve its data center environment and get the most out of Dell’s offerings in this space. Plus, iT1 Source is a Compellent Certified Installation Partner with Dell, which means that firms that partner with iT1 Source can rest easy knowing that their chosen Dell hardware and software is put in place correctly the first time. To learn more about Dell solutions and how to streamline any server room setting, be sure to reach out to an iT1 Source representative today.