Utility infrastructure shifts the enterprise from a one server per application model to a commoditized, centralized utility with high processor and storage utilization. Understand how this affects IT and business strategy, as well as financial accounting for IT resources and the income statement, and learn to implement utility infrastructure successfully.
Understanding Utility Infrastructure
Traditionally, enterprises have centered on a one server per application infrastructure, based on widespread, single-purpose x86 servers. This approach scatters physical servers and storage throughout business units and creates a bloated infrastructure, featuring many servers that rarely reach their processing or storage limits. In some cases, even multiple instances of identical applications run on separate departmental servers. Info-Tech estimates that the distributed fashion of apps and servers leads to typical processor utilization rates of around 15% to 35%.
