The Server Population Explosion
Increased server count is a reality for organizations of all sizes and the trend is likely to accelerate. The proliferation of servers is driven by a number of factors, including:

• Mission-critical IT applications: As more IT applications become mission critical to a business, more servers are needed for redundancy and for testbed and pilot systems used to ensure that upgrades can be safely and seamlessly put into production. Organizations that demand 100% uptime for vital applications have no realistic alternative but to utilize fault-tolerant solutions that require multiple servers and utilize server clustering and server load balancing.
• More applications, more servers: Companies are seeing quick return on investment from leveraging existing IT network infrastructure by deploying new classes of server applications that increase collaboration, information sharing, and productivity through automated work flow. Strategic applications such as Microsoft SQL Server, Microsoft Exchange, and Microsoft Dynamics CRM, should be run on dedicated servers.
• Segmentation and isolation of applications: Many organizations, including relatively small businesses, have learned through experience that hosting multiple applications on a single server is prone to problems, including reduced application stability, unforeseen software incompatibilities, and security patches or bug fixes for one application adversely affecting other applications. IT administration and management is made more difficult when normal maintenance functions on one application can’t be performed during regular business hours because of the potential impact on other applications running on the same server.
• Mixed platform environments: More organizations are embracing a mixed platform strategy with open source applications that often run only under Linux, and thus can’t be hosted on existing Windows server infrastructure.

• Capital costs for more servers: There are significant capital costs for acquiring new servers, along with the building out of the physical infrastructure to house, power, and cool extra equipment. The addition of a single server can trigger the need for a major upgrade to a data center or computer room to accommodate increased capacity. This can cost thousands, if not tens of thousands, of dollars.
• Setup costs for servers: Costs for setting up and configuring each server must be factored in on top of the capital outlay for equipment.
• Linear increase in IT management costs: Unless innovative approaches are utilized in setting up and managing more servers, each new server comes with significant ongoing IT management overhead leading to a linear increase in monthly IT support costs. Even mundane IT tasks such as installing patching can become problematic if the work can’t be accomplished during available maintenance windows.
• Inability to standardize server platforms: The rapid evolution of server hardware makes it practically impossible to standardize on any particular brand and model of server platform. Equipment may be bought over a 2-3 year timeframe, but individual models quickly become obsolete and unavailable for purchase. The usual result is a hodgepodge of equipment that precludes the use of any efficient server replication techniques such as template operating system installations. Consequently, most servers end up being configured from scratch using time-consuming manual methods. Many facets of IT management also become more complex when working with advanced configurations such as clustering or redundant servers when servers tied to specific applications are not interchangeable components.
• Server upgrades become daunting: As existing server hardware reaches its end of useful lifetime, the task of upgrading servers becomes a labor-intensive and technically risky endeavor. In most cases the existing operating system configurations can’t be moved directly to new hardware, and the environments must be re-created from scratch. Long forgotten configuration details can easily be lost over time, creating instability and user problems for systems that were once stable. The threat of such problems often prompt organizations simply to put off timely upgrades until systems reach a crisis.
• Asset management headaches: IT asset management becomes more time consuming for tasks such as documenting and maintaining service agreements in environments where servers are deployed at different times with different contract expiration dates.