Datacenter resources tend to be constrained by platform. Capacity planning can help you stay in front of demand, but increased utilization can require specific equipment investments. Meanwhile, you have other systems on the floor that are under-utilized. With virtualization technology, you can make storage and computing power a portable commodity in your datacenter. Rather than add equipment, you can borrow resources across platform to meet anticipated – and unexpected – demand.
Capacity planning is an important part of any IT strategy, but it is driven by the resources available. If you are forecasting utilization for a storage environment, for example, you need to anticipate peak utilization and growth rates for the specific platform. Even if other equipment in your datacenter is dark, you may still need to make an additional investment. As a result, you have some infrastructure investments that perform well (in terms of utilization per dollar spent) – and others, simply, that don’t. This inequity can make it difficult to gauge the effectiveness with which you use your IT budget and can lead to expenses that seem unnecessary.