iQuate - inventory, innovation, insight

Network Scan Minimizes Risk During Major Data Center Consolidation

The Problem

One of our clients, a major UK Bank, was planning to consolidate 20 data centers into one. This initiative represented a key pillar of the bank’s overall IT strategy and was aimed at underpinning business competitiveness in a toughening market climate.

At the planning stage senior IT staff realised that there were gaps in the information regarding the diverse array of  hardware and software functioning across the existing data centers.  This was considered to represent a significant project risk.  In particular, managers were concerned about the prospect of key business applications unexpectedly going off line during the consolidation process.

The Solution

Using iQSonar the bank mapped critical applications to pre- and post- consolidation infrastructures, identifying key applications and where they were running.

The Results

The scan effectively changed the pre-consolidation inventory substantially, so plans for the new consolidated data center needed to be changed accordingly.  In particular a host of machines were identified as redundant, while others were earmarked for reuse.

During implementation iQSonar provided managers with a real time picture of the bank’s changing data center infrastructure, tracking progress and pinpointing any issues in terms of security, compliance etc.

The bank’s consolidation drive was to be accompanied by a refresh of infrastructure, including hardware and software upgrades and a significant virtualization drive.  iQSonar’s detailed inventory, including hardware specs, serial numbers, capacity, etc. was of crucial importance to this initiative.

Furthermore, iQSonar’s scan of the networks in the 20 data centers identified hundreds of devices (routers, switches, PCs and servers) that were previously unaccounted for.

The Benefits

Unexpected downtime of key applications was avoided, therefore permitting the full benefits of the consolidation exercise to be both realized and recognized.

iQSonar is still used to monitor the consolidated data centre in real time, providing managers with full visibility and control of all software and hardware and helping to prevent future issues arising from inaccurate or incomplete inventory.