Ongoing Capacity Management

Many variables affecting services are in constant flux and can affect IT resource allocation, making ongoing capacity management very important.
Performing ongoing capacity management includes these business benefits:

1. Higher utilization rates on IT assets, allowing the data center to do more with less and improving IT service unit cost positions
2. Consistent service delivery, providing uninterrupted service through peak demands
3. More efficient processes and reporting, ensuring consistency across capacity, performance, chargeback and incident reports
4. Continuous runtime improvement of applications and infrastructure resource consumption, improving performance and delaying expensive capacity upgrades
5. Accurate capacity provisioning, allowing timely capacity upgrades and related cost information to the business for more informed decisions
6. More accurate input for total cost of ownership analyses, allowing more informed decisions to be made regarding proposed new IT-related initiatives
7. Bottleneck detection for higher service demand scenarios, allowing enough time to correct problems before services are adversely affected
8. Business and IT alignment, focusing greater attention and resources in business-critical services
9. Agile data center, adapting more quickly to changes in demand or technology

As business forecasts, technology and other factors change over time, those changes must be incorporated into revised capacity plans. Otherwise, firefighting and inefficiencies will prevail.
Adjusting capacity requirements is important to ensuring that risk levels align with business priorities. If a critical service shows substantial growth in demand, capacity plans should be adjusted to reduce the risk of falling short of service-level requirements, allow for unexpected spikes, and ensure uninterrupted quality of service. Services of lesser importance do not require such close attention.