Whack Those Moles: Key Components to Capacity Planning

In the arcade game Whack-a-Mole, the object is to smash multiple mechanical rodents with a large felt mallet as they pop up from their holes. Simple enough, right? That is, until the game progresses and the moles start popping up with alarming frequency, requiring you to exercise cat-like reflexes just to keep up. Similarly, being a data center operator takes constant vigilance in order to avoid unscheduled downtime, obsolescence and other operational moles from popping up.

There’s no doubt data centers have experienced an exponential rise in complexity over the years, thanks to a constantly changing mix of software and hardware designed to meet increasing data demands along with demands for connectivity, data analytics and support for the Internet of Things. As capacity loads increase across the data center, so do operating temperatures, in a seemingly never-ending cycle. Knowing your reserve compute capacity and even where to install the next piece of hardware is critical in maintaining a smooth computational environment, which brings us back to the importance of capacity planning.

In our eye-opening industry brief, “Capacity Planning in the Modern Datacenter,” you’ll get detailed answers to the following capacity planning questions:

• Where do I have power to support the installation of new hardware?
• How do I reduce total power consumption?
• How can I get the most computation for the smallest amount of power?
• How can I be notified when problems arise?
• How can I automate corrective responses when problems do occur?
• Does my data center have enough power to support failover conditions through power path redundancy?
• How do I deal with seasonal utilization surges?
• What are the best software tools for predicting when and where problems will occur?

Start capacity planning in data centers is vital because it ensures there is enough power to accommodate an average workload while providing sufficient headroom to handle peak demands. In the brief, we walk you through this process, including tips on what to put in your plan, learning how to modify it, seeing power as the key, retrofitting an existing facility vs. a new build, and other key lessons.

Want to know more? Let the Power Strategy Experts at Server Technology show you the right way to do capacity planning. Download the industry white paper today and get started on the road to a more powerful, more efficient data center.