Comments on: Teenage mindset in the Data Centre http://www.thehotaisle.com/2009/05/30/teenage-mindset-in-the-data-centre/ Fresh Thinking on IT Operations Mon, 06 Feb 2012 16:02:00 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3.1 By: Teenage Mindset in the Data Centre « Enterprise Strategy Group http://www.thehotaisle.com/2009/05/30/teenage-mindset-in-the-data-centre/comment-page-1/#comment-7186 Teenage Mindset in the Data Centre « Enterprise Strategy Group Mon, 28 Dec 2009 20:34:19 +0000 http://www.thehotaisle.com/?p=1377#comment-7186 [...] Read the entire blog entry here >> All views and opinions expressed in ESG blog posts are intended to be those of the post's author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Enterprise Strategy Group, Inc., or its clients. ESG bloggers do not and will not engage in any form of paid-for blogging. Click to see our complete Disclosure Policy. For important information about using this content, please review our Terms & Conditions Tags: blade servers, economizer, IT Operations, Servers, Steve Duplessie, Storage [...] [...] Read the entire blog entry here >> All views and opinions expressed in ESG blog posts are intended to be those of the post's author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Enterprise Strategy Group, Inc., or its clients. ESG bloggers do not and will not engage in any form of paid-for blogging. Click to see our complete Disclosure Policy. For important information about using this content, please review our Terms & Conditions Tags: blade servers, economizer, IT Operations, Servers, Steve Duplessie, Storage [...]

]]> By: thehotaisle http://www.thehotaisle.com/2009/05/30/teenage-mindset-in-the-data-centre/comment-page-1/#comment-1541 thehotaisle Mon, 01 Jun 2009 09:46:55 +0000 http://www.thehotaisle.com/?p=1377#comment-1541 Hi Sjoerd,<br><br>Thanks for your comments.<br><br>Here is a radical thought for you! What about thinking that just going faster is not the only issue that Operations professionals have to contend with?<br><br>What about thinking about maintenance and support? Keeping this simple, standard and supportable often has a better business outcome that just investing the the latest go-faster stuff. That is really the message I was trying to get across.<br><br>Steve Hi Sjoerd,

Thanks for your comments.

Here is a radical thought for you! What about thinking that just going faster is not the only issue that Operations professionals have to contend with?

What about thinking about maintenance and support? Keeping this simple, standard and supportable often has a better business outcome that just investing the the latest go-faster stuff. That is really the message I was trying to get across.

Steve

]]> By: thehotaisle http://www.thehotaisle.com/2009/05/30/teenage-mindset-in-the-data-centre/comment-page-1/#comment-1540 thehotaisle Mon, 01 Jun 2009 09:42:52 +0000 http://www.thehotaisle.com/?p=1377#comment-1540 Tim,<br><br>I think you are right, this is Enterprise Architecture - however there are a number of critically important problems with how we do Enterprise Architecture today. The first is that it is often done in a vacuum without involvement of the business and customers. As a result the output is flimsy and badly supported. Architectural decisions become overturned for short term expediency reasons and this causes enormous hidden structural costs further downstream. Secondly Architectures are often built as if changes never happen but actually IT systems are in a constant state of flux and change.<br><br>Modern Enterprise Architectures must be flexible and have change built in structurally, being able to absorb the latest technology and thinking without throwing away the old stuff.<br><br>I sense we are some way away from that thinking being widely accepted.<br><br>Steve Tim,

I think you are right, this is Enterprise Architecture – however there are a number of critically important problems with how we do Enterprise Architecture today. The first is that it is often done in a vacuum without involvement of the business and customers. As a result the output is flimsy and badly supported. Architectural decisions become overturned for short term expediency reasons and this causes enormous hidden structural costs further downstream. Secondly Architectures are often built as if changes never happen but actually IT systems are in a constant state of flux and change.

Modern Enterprise Architectures must be flexible and have change built in structurally, being able to absorb the latest technology and thinking without throwing away the old stuff.

I sense we are some way away from that thinking being widely accepted.

Steve

]]> By: Sjoerd van Groning http://www.thehotaisle.com/2009/05/30/teenage-mindset-in-the-data-centre/comment-page-1/#comment-1539 Sjoerd van Groning Sun, 31 May 2009 10:44:16 +0000 http://www.thehotaisle.com/?p=1377#comment-1539 Replacing the exhaust might not fix the whole car. But if you have a sports car with wooden 18th century tires, putting some good racing tires on it might actually help.<br><br>I think key to performance improvement is profiling the whole path from user to data. And as we have allways done, add cache when needed. cpu cache, L1, L2, L3, cache data in memory, disk cache. This actually does help. Disk io is for a long while a bottleneck in performance of servers, especially database servers. I think the hype is partly correct, though it doesn't fix global warming for mass storage. <br><br>Haven't done any math on it, but a 2TB rotating disk might be more efficient energywise at the moment. But if you are io-bound, use SSD if that reduces the number of servers. replacing a 40 disk raid with 1 SSD disk might acyually help. Do I think SSD is really helping but to the math, measure it and invest wisely.<br><br>Now let's find the next bottleneck. Replacing the exhaust might not fix the whole car. But if you have a sports car with wooden 18th century tires, putting some good racing tires on it might actually help.

I think key to performance improvement is profiling the whole path from user to data. And as we have allways done, add cache when needed. cpu cache, L1, L2, L3, cache data in memory, disk cache. This actually does help. Disk io is for a long while a bottleneck in performance of servers, especially database servers. I think the hype is partly correct, though it doesn't fix global warming for mass storage.

Haven't done any math on it, but a 2TB rotating disk might be more efficient energywise at the moment. But if you are io-bound, use SSD if that reduces the number of servers. replacing a 40 disk raid with 1 SSD disk might acyually help. Do I think SSD is really helping but to the math, measure it and invest wisely.

Now let's find the next bottleneck.

]]> By: Tim Coote http://www.thehotaisle.com/2009/05/30/teenage-mindset-in-the-data-centre/comment-page-1/#comment-8986 Tim Coote Sat, 30 May 2009 21:03:00 +0000 http://www.thehotaisle.com/?p=1377#comment-8986 Hi Steve I think what you're talking about is what I'd call an Enterprise Architecture. The scope not only includes the technical architecture, but also the lifecycle of the tech arch and how you make it happen (sustainably recovering costs from the business owners, stopping the dev projects going off at a tangent and leaving excessive operational costs, articulating and getting agreement on functional. non-functional and service levels, not overinvesting in Enterprise Architecture :-) etc. etc. Tim Hi Steve
I think what you’re talking about is what I’d call an Enterprise Architecture. The scope not only includes the technical architecture, but also the lifecycle of the tech arch and how you make it happen (sustainably recovering costs from the business owners, stopping the dev projects going off at a tangent and leaving excessive operational costs, articulating and getting agreement on functional. non-functional and service levels, not overinvesting in Enterprise Architecture :-) etc. etc.

Tim

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