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

2. Executive SummaryThe 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 cloudcomputing 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, cloudcomputing 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 monthAs 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 datacenters 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 howCIOs are likely to be judged by their ability to expand the business impact of the data centers creating new avenues for innovation and profitabilityA 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 EfficienciesData 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 itstrategically 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 ConsolidationManaged 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 canbring 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 trafficpatterns 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 EfficiencyIT infrastructure consolidation should aim not only at cost savings but also at ensuring consistency of serviceConsolidation 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 shouldalso identify areas where cost savings can happen and collaborate with MSPs to achieve the desired results.