HP data center consolidation hits application surprise
Knowing how many applications are in the data center is probably a good step toward determining how many you plan to eliminate. That was one of the problems HP dealt with in trying to consolidate 85 data centers scattered across the globe down to six.
According to a Wall Street Journal article today, HP CIO Randy Mott discovered that company employees relied on about 6,000 applications, almost twice as many as he thought. When he found out, it was early 2006 and HP was already months into the project.
“I was blindsided,” Mott told the Journal.
What’s more — and this is no surprise — people were clinging to their applications as if this was a life-or-death matter. That especially became a problem at HP with employees of higher standing than Mott.
In H-P’s case, obstacles surfaced as early as December 2005. At the time, several vice presidents “really dug in” and resisted, says Mr. Mott. Some units said, “‘We’re not going to give you a cost-benefit analysis (for why we use the IT we have). We’re just going to tell you what product we want,’ ” the chief information officer says.
Site editor Matt Stansberry did a story on the HP consolidation back in August 2006, and touched on some of the issues around application identification and consolidation. But at the time, it was still early in the consolidation process. The Journal story gives a good sense of the hiccups HP has had to deal with.
Posted: January 29th, 2008 under Data center physical infrastructure, Data center room design and site selection.
Yes a lot of research and details should be put on paper and discussed long before a company considers data center consolidation. The process is fabulous however if a company ventures down that path ill prepared there can be many negative set backs as evidenced by your words here.
Comment by Johnathan — May 25, 2008 @ 4:50 pm
[…] Bureaucracy will cause the transition to take longer than building replacement housing in New Orleans. Big companies are conservative, and transitions in computing can take years to implement. A good example is the challenge HP faced when trying to consolidate its data center operations. Employees were using over 6,000 applications and many resisted streamlining of any sort. Plus, internal IT managers may fight the outsourcing of their livelihoods to the cloud, using the reasons listed above. […]
Pingback by 10 Reasons Enterprises Aren’t Ready to Trust the Cloud - GigaOM — July 1, 2008 @ 2:00 pm
[…] 10. Bureaucracy will cause the transition to take longer than building replacement housing in New Orleans. Big companies are conservative, and transitions in computing can take years to implement. A good example is the challenge HP faced when trying to consolidate its data center operations. Employees were using over 6,000 applications and many resisted streamlining of any sort. Plus, internal IT managers may fight the outsourcing of their livelihoods to the cloud, using the reasons listed above. […]
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