The Data Center’s Dirty Little Secret

Most companies have thousands of physical servers spread between multiple data centers and have simply lost track of what’s actually supporting the business. Many IT executives acknowledge that they don’t even have an accurate physical device count – let alone a clear understanding of the applications that run on those resources. It’s the data center’s dirty little secret. You can’t manage what you can’t measure and you can’t measure what you can’t see!

Tideway’s Foundation automates data center discovery to provide a complete, accurate inventory of all servers, software and applications, as well as crucial inter-system dependencies and relationships.

• Identify targets for virtualization
• Identify obsolete or redundant infrastructure
• Identify servers for consolidation
• De-risk data center moves
• Get accurate inventory of licensed software
• Understand relationships between configuration items

This 360-degree view of applications and infrastructure helps you take the cost and risk out of any critical data center project, so you deliver on time and on budget.

Measure What You Manage

The Infrastructure Baseline provides the most accurate view of your environment available today. Tideway can automatically audit your infrastructure and dependencies and provide a high-quality and actionable baseline in days – not weeks or months like other alternatives. Your data will be refreshed on a daily basis and any changes to the infrastructure highlighted as they happen. In just 7-14 days, you can have complete visibility to:

• All IP facing devices, the type of device (printer, server, switch etc.), IP Address, DNS name, and Operating System type
• Server attributes such as CPU, RAM, Model/Make, serial number, OS version/kernel, NIC card configuration, patch list, attached disks
• Software running, Software installed
• Dependencies derived from network communications

Tideway’s Infrastructure Baseline service is a fast and easy alternative to manual audits – which are time-intensive and often inaccurate. Manually baselining even 1,000 servers can take from 65-250 person-days of effort and introduces risk because a manual inventory isn’t likely to provide the level of granularity and data quality you need. And since change is a constant, the resulting data will be out-of-date before your manual baseline is even complete!

Start Saving TODAY!

Tideway’s Infrastructure Baseline makes it easy to identify immediate cost savings opportunities. Eliminate redundant infrastructure. Identify targets for consolidation or virtualization to slash hardware costs and improve server utilization. De-risk data center moves. The service offers:

• Low risk – minimal disruption to your network, hosts and staff
• Less complexity – the project is fully managed by Tideway to a proven set of best practices and gives you a single point of contact from ‘kick off’ to ‘sign off’
• Fixed cost – as a turnkey service, you’re guaranteed results for a low, fixed cost – a fraction of the cost of manual audits
• Fast time to value – get your initial baseline in just 7-14 days.

We’ll deliver results in 7-14 days, and provides access to the data through Tideway Foundation’s reporting and visualization capability for 90 days.
Download the datasheet now to find out more, or contact us now!

In Brief

• Problem: You need an accurate inventory of your IT environment – before you can start your data center project
• Solution: Establish a baseline that gives you a 360-degree view of your applications and infrastructure
• Value: Results in 7-14 days
• Benefit: Slash costs, reduce risks and deliver your project on time and on budget
• What you get: complete inventory of all configuration items (CIs), including:
  • Servers, virtual hosts, software and applications
  • CI relationships
• Fixed Cost: Starting at $25,000

Free Whitepaper

Tideway Infrastructure Baseline Service
If you’re looking for a fast and accurate way to audit your data center – Tideway’s baseline service may be the answer.

ITIL: What is a Baseline?

According to ITIL v3, a baseline is a snapshot of the state of a Configuration Item (CI) or set of CIs frozen at a point in time for a particular purpose. A baseline will often be recorded to ensure that the infrastructure can be restored to a trusted state should a Change fail or the CI need to be re-built. A baseline will also be established for the roll out of new CIs and for use in a disaster recovery situation.

The Buzz

“Relocating a datacentre is a very resource-intensive exercise, with the co-ordination of the logistics behind it being the trickiest part. Upfront work in identifying equipment within the site, as well as communicating what has been moved, was essential.”
John Bratkovics, global head of networks, voice and collaboration technologies and head of infrastructure, Americas, Dresdner Kleinwort

“We thought we had already removed a lot of the wastage and unused systems. Quite late in the project we employed Tideway’s dependency mapping software, and on its initial scan of 3,000 servers we found another 90 redundant machines.”
Jim Houghton, former head of utility product management, Wachovia