Symantec has announced the findings of its worldwide State of the Data Center Research report, revealing that data center managers are implementing virtualization and server consolidation strategies to manage the growing complexities in today’s data center. Symantec’s report suggests data center managers face onerous and complicated challenges resulting from rapidly rising Service Level Agreements (SLAs), staffing difficulties, increasing expenditures and data center growth.

Research results suggest the primary challenges for data center managers are stringent internal service-level agreements, ongoing data center growth and staffing issues. Budget growth is not keeping pace with data center growth, while stringent SLAs mean data centers must deliver ever-increasing levels of speed, agility and availability. While increased SLAs may indicate the value IT can deliver to the business, if they are unmet the performance of the business may suffer.

The research suggests that ongoing data center challenges such as complexity, heterogeneity and an ongoing skill shortage are driving the difficulty in meeting SLAs. Both qualitative and quantitative research indicate finding qualified IT staff who understand business issues is more problematic than understaffing problems caused by budget constraints. To add to these challenges, data center growth is persistent and expected to continue, driving enormous costs.

Once adjusted for an average rate of 3 percent inflation, data center budget growth has been minimal during the past five years. Findings indicate that organizations are forced to spend larger portions of their limited budget to keep the business up and running, as opposed to innovating and adding value to the business. 

Server virtualization and consolidation are considered top cost containment strategies for the majority of respondents, particularly in the United States. As data center managers increasingly turn to virtualization to contain costs and manage growth, there is a clear need for tools and technologies to manage both physical and virtual environments in a more consistent and comprehensive manner. These solutions can empower data center professionals to master the growing complexity of their data centers, and have greater confidence that they can deliver against the aggressive SLAs that have been set for them.