Replenishment cycles for many IT departments have reduced to three years or less. Quite a few factors look like they're contributing to the trend, not the very least of which is the increasing demands of virtualization and also the adaptation needed for increasing storage demands. This kind of acceleration seems to be stabilizing, but it demands thinking about the way hardware is refreshed for many different organizations.
Effective server life-cycle management for almost any significant organization necessitates that managers bear in mind factors for equipment depreciation schedules and balance them with the effective lifespan of the servers by themselves. The ever increasing pace of evolution for hardware shortens the depreciation timelines, which often encourages faster replenishment cycles.
Virtualization is pushing several data centers to accelerate their replacement timeframes in response to the growing demand which it places on server power and storage capacity. This is especially true for companies which are consolidating several servers through virtualization, requiring a considerable jump in processing power and storage for their new hardware.
Greater software demands are also encouraging more rapid replenishment in server life cycle management. With more media intensive applications and statistics programs running in the cloud, processing power has become a lot more of a challenge for older servers. Storage space needs for large media files are likewise pushing replacement.
The accelerated improvement of technology is another aspect that can encourage managers to upgrade equipment sooner, but it can also delay upgrades. Holding out even a few months for a new model from a vendor might mean significant performance enhancements, which includes doubling memory capacity. Working with a vendor which offers awareness of upcoming updates can certainly help administrators stay on top of all these trends, lowering buyer's remorse.
Ensure that the vendor chosen can put into practice an appropriate strategy for life cycle schedules. There will always be problems which come up in the plan. Accordingly, it is crucial to have contingencies ready to solve these problems. To be able to swiftly adjust and come up with the proper adjustments are essential in any vendor. The vendor also needs to have support readily available for any issues which could come up.
A few vendors have begun providing special programs to aid with the turnover of OEM hardware and equipment. These types of OEM programs aid users to switch to next generation platforms at the rate of their choosing which can be useful to curbing costs. Effectively handling these changes is vital for almost any IT team to make life simpler and get rid of some headaches.
With such quick turnover, a lot of IT managers are forced into a constant re-evaluation of server life-cycle management schedules. New servers are usually designated to mission-critical tasks, by having an ever-shrinking maximum service time, and then demoted to much less essential jobs, such as backup and testing. This typically results in a division of equipment, in which one or more server groups is continually in transition while the rest are on duty. Incremental life-cycle management is typically a better approach, with some luck protecting IT departments from being surprised by abrupt technology shifts or up to date business requirements.
David works with Dell. He writes on subjects related to OEM equipment, enterprise IT services, management strategies and server lifecycle management.