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Forrester is citing a disturbing trend in capacity planning among IT decision-makers. A recent survey revealed that more than a third of survey respondents didn't have capacity utilization targets and more than a third don’t know their actual server utilization.

Capacity planning allows users to accurately forecast future resource requirements to ensure business units are able to execute their strategies. It is the key to a well-oiled, smooth-running data center, helping IT organizations to:

• Accurately and efficiently provision new applications
• Reduce, delay and sometimes completely avoid costs
• Justify upgrades with objective analyses
• Optimally configure systems to accommodate forecasted changes in business
• Migrate systems to take advantage of new technology
• Consolidate servers to simplify management and gain economies of scale
• Mitigate service delivery risk by playing out potential scenarios in advance, and then preparing for them

Capacity planning vs. performance management
Terms like "capacity planning" and "performance management" can mean drastically different things to different people. To help clear the air and reduce the confusion, we offer these definitions from bitpipe.com:

Capacity planning is the process of specifying resource service levels that best meet current and future business workloads. Performance management is the ability to control any application to ensure that the availability, performance and other aspects of the end user experience of the system are acceptable.

In other words, performance management is concerned with delivering services to the end user. Capacity planning is concerned with determining the optimal resources required to deliver those services.

A variety of capacity planning techniques includes:

• Trending
• Linear trend analysis
• Short term analysis
• Simulation modeling
• Analytic modeling

Preparing for July 4th
Let’s take a look at a grocery store manager gearing up for July 4th weekend. This person wants to ensure customers are able to get what they want and check out as soon as possible.

Capacity planning, in this loosely translated analogy, would predict when and where resources are needed most at specific locations. Let's say typical customers will visit the meat department, bakery, deli and the checkout .

A grocery store manager without the proper tools may want to add more resources at the checkout counter believing that’s where the problem or bottleneck lies. In actuality, the bottleneck may be at the meat counter with everyone buying brats, burgers and steaks for their cookouts.

As customers wait in line, their transaction time increases which in turn may lead to reduced transaction amounts and lower sales.

The grocery store manager who modeled the July 4th weekend would realize that more resources are needed at the meat department. This would result in quicker transactions and higher sales.

By taking into account when spikes may occur throughout the day – using capacity planning tools – the manager would save money and increase customer satisfaction by efficiently managing the workloads when these spikes are expected to occur.

Demystify capacity planning
Let’s look at some of the common myths associated with capacity planning:

• Very difficult
• Labor and resource intensive
• Purchasing bigger system solves the problem
• Modeling software is the same

The difficulty can lie in organizations that are too involved in agreeing on the accuracy. TeamQuest modeling tools can predict within five percent accuracy.

The process doesn’t have to be time consuming. Following a set of processes can give you the proper direction without the hassle of using unnecessary employee resources for mundane tasks.

Organizations that properly use capacity planning efforts usually are more proactive and are better prepared for business unit promotions and goals. These same organizations are also able to peer further into the future than companies that only use performance management.

Click here or more information on capacity planning techniques and how it can help your IT organization better align itself with business unit goals.