Best Infrastructure Capacity Planning Solutions

There are five basic steps that are crucial to successfully creating a capacity. These steps are: 

1. Take a look at the agreements that you have in place with the vendors who supply you with the devices that make up your infrastructure. This will enable you to gain a better picture of your infrastructure’s current capacity. It will also help you figure out if there are areas where growth is possible.
2. Now analyze your infrastructure’s usage of resources. Use tools to figure how effectively each component of the infrastructure is operating. This will allow you to gauge whether your system is sufficient for your current needs or whether changes are necessary.
3. Next, you should be looking to the future. This will involve taking the information culled in the first two steps and using it to map out every aspect of your organization’s future. You will need to consider more than corporate growth. While this is certainly part of what you are going to think about, it is only a single component of what you need to plan for. Things like how you might upgrade the hardware or software and changing client demands should also be considered at this stage.
4. Consider where you might be able to consolidate resources. If there are tasks that can be reassigned to hardware that is being underused, this is worthy of consideration. Future needs can possibly be reduced and unnecessary costs can be removed. Servers that are inefficient might then be scrapped and resources will be saved.
5. Finally, take the data that has been compiled and actually use it. You will now be in a position to craft your infrastructure capacity strategy. In this final stage, you will lay out steps that your organization can act upon. Now that you have a map of what your future needs will be, you will be able to detail how these needs can be met. This step is an ongoing one. You will want to constantly monitor your capacity and compare it to your future. If you are not on track to meet your needs, you may need to adjust your plan.   

Capacity planning as described above keeps IT infrastructures running in the most efficient manner possible. Using capacity planning, you gain the ability to identify the shortcomings that exist in your IT infrastructure. This is important because it gives you the ability to create a plan of action that will streamline and improve the way that your organization uses its technological resources.

Companies can enjoy the following benefits if they choose to employ infrastructure capacity planning solutions:

• These solutions enable organizations to create long-term plans for the allocation of organizational resources. This can allow organizations to prepare far in advance for potential issues. They can stave off, or at least mitigate, potential system issues. 
• The efficiency of resource usage can be increased many times through the usage of infrastructure capacity planning solutions. These tools map how resources are used and what might be needed over time. This allows for resources to be assigned and used in the most effective manner possible, based on need. This can allow you to create the most cost-effective plan for running your infrastructure.

Features you should look for in infrastructure planning solutions include:

1. Simulation creation and automated analysis.
2. Modeling for real-world, cloud, and cloud-based resources.
3. Modeling for various infrastructure components, such as your organization’s network.
4. Ability to map system constraints based on changes in the workload and infrastructure.
5. Predictive algorithms predict the resources that will be needed based on changes made to the infrastructure.
6. Visual data representation and reporting.
7. Ability to integrate with capacity management and performance data monitoring.
8. Cloud or physical options.