August 14, 2017
IT departments often operate on tight budgets that don’t have much room for unexpected expenses. Yet, this exact situation happens more often than anyone would like. Whether it is a server failure, new equipment necessary for new applications, or even just a spike in business exceeding capacity, these issues throw a wrench in the budget. In the case of our client, a global manufacturing organization, the same problem continued to occur. They contact Mindsight in search of a solution.
The Problem
The root of the problem for our client was a lack of visibility into their network. On multiple occasions, the client would suddenly realize they were running out of storage and request additional funds from the CFO to expand the storage array. Each time, the CFO would need to rearrange budgets to secure enough funding to purchase new storage equipment, and each time it proved to be a major disruption.
The Solution
Mindsight’s recommendation was to deploy VMware Operations Center in an attempt to increase network visibility and prevent storage shortages from creeping up on the IT department. One of the key benefits of Operations Center is that it provides predictive analytics. Operations Center provides an estimated date that the environment will exceed storage capacity based on current usage trends.
While this function of Operations Center at least allowed the IT department to prepare for when the environment would exceed storage capacity, it didn’t solve the problem. The environment was still growing at too rapid a pace to keep up with their new equipment acquisitions. Operations Center was able to analyze their VMs in the environment and generate a report of their efficiency and usage. With this report in hand, our client was able to identify overprovisioned, under provisioned, or inactive VMs and reclaim them.
The Results
After the analysis from Operations Center, the client was able to reclaim a significant amount of their data as well as establish a working estimate for when the environment will exceed its normal limits. This resulted in 450 gigs of RAM memory reclaimed and 8TB of storage out of a total environment of 30TB. That’s over a quarter of their entire array. Now, the IT department will not only have more data to work with, but they can provide their CFO with fair warning of their current and future needs.
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About Mindsight
Mindsight, a Chicago IT services provider, is an extension of your team. Our culture is built on transparency and trust, and our team is made up of extraordinary people – the kinds of people you would hire. We have one of the largest expert-level engineering teams delivering the full spectrum of IT services and solutions, from cloud to infrastructure, collaboration to contact center. Our highly-certified engineers and process-oriented excellence have certainly been key to our success. But what really sets us apart is our straightforward and honest approach to every conversation, whether it is for an emerging business or global enterprise. Our customers rely on our thought leadership, responsiveness, and dedication to solving their toughest technology challenges.
Contact us at GoMindsight.com.
For Further Reading
Case Study: Managed Network Services for Centrifuge Manufacturer