Data Center Automation 2008 perspectives

Time to push pause on reviewing the 6 functional areas of the DCAB, just way to many interesting news articles, survey and blog postings to talk about now that everyone is back from the holidays. I’ll pick up on those two rapidly evolving areas that include CMDB & Run Book Automation next week, I’m also in the process of organizing my thoughts and some research around virtualization which should hit the week after that (just to much going on).

Interesting read here that still thinks data center automation will “inch” along this year. I’m struggling to agree with the perspective of “inching” along. I honestly believe 2008 will be a blockbuster year of growth for DCA. There are so many non-mission critical processes that administrators are just bored and tired of doing. Even if software doesn’t work 100%, it will still be a major, major improvement over the “x” people pushing the same buttons over and over today. I do agree that we are years away from “turning over the keys to the data center” if you will. Actually, I’m not sure we ever will, but it could/should be a long range goal to strive for…but the idea of a “lights out data center” is in my opinion for the traditional enterprise 15-20 years away.

Which on that same thought leads to what may be a somewhat controversial article talking about a new book calling for the “Fall of IT.” Pretty bold to some degree but is it really that bold…the argument about electricity makes sense but is to some degree beyond many (including mine) sense of reality as that didn’t happen during my lifetime. If I think about it, telephone service is the same way…automation has reduced quite a bit of manual labor. But even still, in both those spaces we still have innovation taking place, so will it ever “die” - I think not…but their may some points in the book about how it will evolve. Sometimes books like this are fun. They have the ability (like science fiction) to get those creative brain juices flowing toward “what will things look like in 20-30 years.” Needless to say, I think it will be an interesting read as we continue strive towards more automation of not just the data center, but IT as a whole.