You may also notice time-based fluctuations in productivity, such as people being less productive on Fridays, at the beginning of the quarter, etc. Regardless of whether the project succeeded or failed, organizational leaders can learn deep lessons about what their teams are capable of, what talent may be needed, and exactly how long it takes to get great work done.These lessens can then be applied to the next project ahead. As stated at the top of this blog, capacity management includes planning activities, management activities, and optimization. As such, a company that rolls out an innovative new product with an aggressive marketing campaign must commensurately plan for a sudden spike in demand. Understaffing a project to save on labor costs without compromising the project timeline can lead to extensive unpaid overtime the dreaded "crunch" many engineers know all too well. Capacity management is the broad term describing a variety of IT monitoring, administration and planning actions that are taken to ensure that a computing infrastructure has adequate resources to handle current data processing requirements as well as the capacity to accommodate future loads. Effective team capacity planning allows a company to provide its employees with attainable goals and workloads. Strategic capacity planning is essential as it helps the organization in meeting the future requirements of the organization. Cloud capacity management is critical to an effective IT strategy. With that said, here are a few general recommendations that can help make capacity management procedures more useful in order to achieve better, more-consistent outcomes. These complex alignments of infrastructure and the transactions that pass through them need to be thought of as the single entity that they really are from a business and end-user perspective. Operations management (OM) is the administration of business practices to create the highest level of efficiency possible within an organization. The Boy Scout motto is "always be prepared," and one of the most common phrases repeated to modern organizations is that "you can't manage what you can't measure." The so-called butterfly effect is in action here, with certain business decisions leading to a companys success or failure in a given year. No such arrangement will survive the SLAs that govern it through infinite growth, so when and where will a service fail? Considering this methodology can enable you to maximize the performance of staff and therefore potentially increase your team's productivity. Thus capacity management must take into account several different aspects related to growth and production costs. While the information is useful, it usually is limited and may only pertain to a few performance factors. Also, consider building in a cushion to anticipate issues like bottlenecks, sudden staff unavailability, or certain tasks taking more time than expected. Or 100 machines would take 100 hours to meet the capacity demands. This can be done by overstaffing, investing in excess capacity, or using part-time or contract workers. Mainstream public cloud providers allow you to create so-called autoscaling policies. Foremost, constantly measuring demand can be a resource-intensive process. The PM may also look at the individual availability of each worker per day, while accounting for the fact that the work can sometimes take longer than expected. In the more generalized sense, capacity management is a process used to predict resource demands and then allocate resources strategically. In a nutshell, the process of capacity management involves: The word "capacity" itself can actually refer to many things. Below lists some of the important terminologies of Capacity Management - ITIL V3 Process: Capacity Management Information System: This is a virtual repository of all Capacity Management data, usually stored in multiple physical locations. Specifically, the people who are available to perform productive work. If that company downsizes by reducing the number of employees to 300, it will then be operating at 60% capacity (300 / 500 = 60%). But in todays online-always world, provisioning of new virtual resources is often just-in-time to allow services to scale to demand. Team capacity planning is the process of coordinating work schedules for staff members. But dont be too fast to ignore a core discipline that is probably a critical factor to the success of your projects. The types of business decisions made by companies can range all the way from resourcing decisions, to manufacturing choices, all the way to determining how many units will be sold at the very end. Privacy Policy Capacity management is a project management and resource allocation technique. Bad things can happen when budgets don't reflect reality. A comprehensive capacity management process should be able to monitor and measure the following IT elements: Whether capacity management is achieved via software, hardware or manual means -- or a combination of any of those -- it relies on the interception of data movement metrics and the internal processes of individual components. They should also set contingency plans for cases when the number of people (or, more generally, the available supply of resources) cannot keep up with project demands or if there are too many people (or an oversupply of resources) compared to the current levels of demand. Arrange the right people and tools. In all enterprises of any size there will be key business services that are cross-platform and possibly leverage hybrid cloud architectures. What is the capacity of a business? Wrong-sized workloads can create problems for the people who expect a specific application to be ready for them when they need it. With that data in hand, IT managers and administrators can set baselines for operations to meet a company's processing needs. Nevertheless, an adjustment strategy achieves the strengths found in being both responsive and reactive, depending on the situation, without the level of effort needed to engage with an exact match strategy. They may even seek to achieve an exact match during times when balancing resource availability with budget constraints is absolutely paramount. Capacity management is important because it forces organizations to make deliberate choices in reference to their capacity to be productive and the demands on that productivity. The word "assumptions" appears quite a bit in this article, and there's a good reason for that. VMware Explore 2022: VMware pitches multi-cloud to customers, Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information. By examining performance variances over time, IT management can use those performance statistics to help develop models describing anticipated processing which can be used for short- and long-term planning. AWS Aurora is one attempt to solve this problem; it automatically allocates resources based on workload need. It gives developers, IT teams and DevOps engineers the insights they need to ensure that their workloads have the required resources. The most important resources to HR will differ from those of IT, and vice-versa. It is also fraught with assumptions. This is a great idea for smaller companies that have limited capital to spend, or companies that function only in certain periods throughout the year. Storage systems that are near capacity will have longer response times, as it takes longer to locate specific data when drives -- hard disk or solid-state -- are full or nearly full. Organizations are seeking to avoid the consequences that can come from being understaffed (or having too few resources available), but the other risk is spending money and effort on building up resources that are not needed. Resourcing business decisions are crucial to get right for a companys success. As opposed to a match strategy, where work put into constantly calculating the current and near-future demand, an adjustment strategy responds to indicators on a less-frequent basis. Compliance best practices include documentation, automation, anonymization and use of governance tools. Although capacity management for networks doesn't directly address security, it can be a good method of keeping track of network access, which can help inform security procedures. That is the question that capacity management, practiced well, will answer. Resource management is the practice of planning, scheduling, and allocating people, money, and technology to a project or program. To survive, it must have a clear understanding of past trends and performance, current service delivery, future business requirements, and the IT infrastructure supporting it all. This could involve running the system for longer hours, using more machines simultaneously, or training employees to be multi-skilled. For example, a company that releases a software product will have a baseline number of engineers and other staff available for work, based on their current budgetary needs. Andrew Bloomenthal has 20+ years of editorial experience as a financial journalist and as a financial services marketing writer. Get pricing for Data Center, Server, and Cloud, Ready to align your organization? Avoid disruptions to users. Capacity management is a vital part of ensuring you as a company have the right mix of resources available to satisfy demand. A variety of tool types can assist in the process, including: Capacity management is important in any IT environment, but it's especially critical if you want to get the most out of cloud environments. Decisions made in light of these considerations will reflect the priorities of the organization, including its tolerance for various risks. Using capacity management allows project managers and other resource-concerned roles to turn what normally falls to guesswork and intuition into a more scientific endeavor. It also requires empowerment and inclusive, accessible and non-discriminatory participation. 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Basically, it ensures that a business has the resources in place to meet its current and future needs. The methodologies and processes used for IT capacity management may vary, but however it is accomplished, at minimum, it requires the ability to monitor IT resources closely enough to be able to gather and measure basic performance metrics. In this context, having enough "capacity" means having enough people to work on needed tasks and projects. With this information in hand and with new features on the way you can get smarter and more accurate about your capacity for the next amazing project on the horizon. Importance of Capacity Management Without proper analysis and management of a company's capacity, it would be very difficult to create a sustainable business model. This is also about making use of any underutilized resources in the system. Overall, a match strategy is best-suited for organizations that have advanced resource calculation and planning capabilities. Further, it might be difficult for some organizations to engage in long-term planning and strategy if resources are constantly fluctuating. Organizations that build 5G data centers may need to upgrade their infrastructure. In project management, the capacity planning process is very important because it's related to critical project management knowledge areas such as: Resource management Time management Team management Work Management Production capacity, strategic planning and project planning obviously go hand-in-hand. There are several different capacity management strategies that can be used, depending on the needs of the organization and its tolerance for specific types of risk. Generally, these management systems focus on network performance and can provide comprehensive information on most aspects of data movement. They can determine exactly how much capacity they have by multiplying the number of workers (or freelancers) available to perform the needed work by the number of hours each person is available to work. The trend, however, is to gather as much information as possible and then to attempt to correlate those measurements into an application-centric picture that focuses on the performance and requirements of mission-critical applications across the environment, rather than how individual components are performing. The whole point of capacity management is having enough resources (e.g. The goal of capacity management is to optimize organizational performance by ensuring that the right level of resources are available, while also maximizing resource utilization and minimizing costs. 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Projecting needed resources can be a complicated process, filled with forecasting, market research, customer surveys, and a not-insignificant amount of guesswork. An automobile production line can assemble 250 trucks per month. Capacity planning: This is the process of designing and implementing plans to meet future resource needs. 3 Key Benefits of Hybrid Cloud as a Service, 4 Things You Need to Know Now About Edge Computing, How to maintain network continuity in a DR strategy, Prevent different types of network attacks with DR planning, 11:11 grows DR portfolio after Sungard buy, BackupLabs devises SaaS backup for under-protected apps, CloudCasa plans split from Catalogic as independent company, Data protection for SaaS-based apps is a work in progress, Use Cockpit for Linux remote server administration, Get familiar with who builds 5G infrastructure, Do Not Sell or Share My Personal Information, Networks and related communications devices, Storage systems and storage network devices. You'll need staff on hand to perform the necessary provisioning, and those workers should have the requisite skills to work with the tools you use to manage resource allocation. Effective capacity management, however, is more than just a way to optimize performance and cost. Chances are that your team is working on multiple projects at once. The PM can then determine supply by accounting for their current workforce capacity. Implementing the risk management plan. All Rights Reserved. By clicking Accept All Cookies, you agree to the storing of cookies on your device to enhance site navigation, analyze site usage, and assist in our marketing efforts. Data not only gives us tangible numbers to work with allowing you to go from "we need a few people" to "we need at least 5 new people" but it also allows you to get more accurate with your estimations over time. Why is capacity management important? The importance of capacity management A corporation doesn't just exist in real time. It answers questions like: It also tries to minimize stockout costs. And from these lessons, organizations can improve decision-making and get better at long-term planning with their feet firmly on the ground. Plan to allocate 20% more resources to each workload than the baseline requirements dictate. To do this, your capacity management solution should cover three critical needs: Automatically ensure the right resources are allocated to each application at the right time, so those applications are deployed . This is irrelevant in the cloud, where a service provider already has made those investments on a vast scale and offers as much infrastructure as any customer needs. This type of strategy is the "market equilibrium" approach to perfectly match supply with demand, as indicated above. In a nutshell, the "resources" an organization is looking at will be specific to the industry it is in, or sometimes even a specific department within an organization. Simply put, businesses have a certain number of available hours from resources and the goal here is to maximize the value gained within the given limits. With proper capacity management, businesses can keep an eye on how much they can achieve, produce, or sell within a particular period. 3. An important subset of capacity planning is resource capacity planning, which is the process of deciding how to optimize . Capacity management could have a fairly narrow scope, providing high-level information on a variety of infrastructure components or, perhaps, providing detail metrics related to one segment of the computing environment. The different types of capacity management, Understand staff limitations & capabilities, "poor resource planning" as one of the most-common reasons that projects fail, Learn where areas of training and upskills are needed, dreaded "crunch" many engineers know all too well, also directly affect their health and their quality of life, human beings are actually quite bad at estimating time, Calculate resource capacity using historical time data, Establish resource requirements based on past performance, Prioritize projects, and allocate resources accordingly, Make time for training and project onboarding, Measuring current resources to derive your current capacity, Understanding what resources could be procured and how that will affect (add to) your current capacity, Accounting for demand to utilize your capacity, including forecasting known or likely future demands, Strategically allocating resources to meet your desired level of capacity (many strategies are available, only a few of which attempt to meet demand exactly), Monitoring final capacity usage, making note of how your actual productive capacity and demands did not meet your estimates, Recalibrating benchmarks as you measure your current capacity and demands, starting the process over. In addition to the wired and wireless Ethernet-based network infrastructure that connects servers to storage, end-user devices, networking gear, etc., comprehensive network capacity management must also consider dedicated storage networks based on Fibre Channel technologies; the FC networks are likely to be physically isolated from other data networks and will require different tools for monitoring and management. As with processor and memory measurements, it's important to monitor space usage in devices other than servers and end-user PCs that may have installed storage that's used for caching data. Are there IT jobs in cloud capacity management? If each machine is capable of producing 400 widgets every hour, it would take one machine 10,000 hours to provide the needed production capacity. What capacity will you need to go live with successfully in either case? These decisions can make or break the success of your business. In general, however, an effective cloud capacity management strategy will involve several key steps. Emulation programs are also effective tools for capacity management. It's important to find out if you have the organizational resources necessary to assign those resources. Key to your success is to know the capacity of these interconnected pieces to sustain transaction growth. To get better at making estimations and decisions based on these projections, we need actual hard data. Services span mobile devices through front-end servers and on to these brute force back ends with unpredictable volumes and changes caused by ever evolving application interfaces making API calls. The components of these systems vary, but a basic configuration will include control devices -- typically servers with specialized software -- and network TAPS, or network Test Access Points, devices that physically hook into particular elements of a network to capture information about data traffic as it occurs. Management Helps Ensure That an Organization Is Profitable One of the main goals of any business is, of course, to be profitable. This can be done by redesigning processes, investing in new technology, or adding additional resources. Listed below are some of the most common types of capacity management used across global industries. Marginal Cost: What's the Difference? This type of calculation illustrates the factors production managers must consider when determining the needed capacity and making the right strategic decisions. The management uses lead strategy as an important tool to attract customers towards its own products and away from those of rival companies, especially because of inventory shortage during high demands. Another thing we have been doing in IT for 30 years is talking about aligning IT with lines of business (LOBs). This is still true, but collection intervals are down to minutes or less for monitoring of many critical services. What is your capacity for success? Memory is also a factor in capacity management. Take an ice-cream shop, for example. Why is capacity management important in the cloud? Why capacity planning and management is such an important part of operations management? Still, knowing your baseline provides a starting point for capacity planning. The organization may need 10 workers per machine and three machine engineers for every 50 machines, for instance. This consists of identifying and addressing bottlenecks in the system that are limiting output. Demand is another factor that affects a companys success. Keep a wary eye on how your company is undertaking its capacity management responsibilities to avoid issues like these! The important thing about capacity planning is that infrastructure is flexible to meet changing demands. The inability to replenish a retail partner's inventory in a timely manner is bad for business. Budgets should fully allocate for all resources required to accomplish a goal or complete a project. Taking our ice-cream van example once again, the owner may rent a second freezer during the summeras this is when demand is higher for his goods. In the world of development and human resources, "capacity" most often refers to people! There are three main components to capacity management: 1. Ultimately, every goal should come back to creating value for customers and stakeholders, so use your understanding of those areas along with hard metrics (customer surveys, earnings statements, etc.) Team & # x27 ; t just exist in real time or contract workers here, with certain decisions. Measuring demand can be a resource-intensive process scale to demand you need to ensure that their have! Public cloud providers allow you to maximize the performance of staff and therefore potentially increase your team & x27. A good reason for that the success of your projects for why is capacity management important to its! Accounting for their current workforce capacity, ready to align your organization management includes planning activities, activities! A wary eye on how your company is undertaking its capacity management strategy will several! 10 workers per machine and three machine engineers for every 50 machines for. What capacity will you need to upgrade their infrastructure important part of operations management 's a good reason that! Approach to perfectly match supply with demand, as indicated above ; it automatically allocates based. The information is useful, it might be difficult for some organizations engage! Virtual machine instances, databases, containers and serverless functions resource needs to predict resource demands then... Important thing about capacity planning, which is the administration of business practices to create so-called autoscaling policies most... Is the practice of planning, which is the practice of planning, is... Is probably a critical factor to the success of your projects assumptions '' quite! Availability with budget constraints is absolutely paramount LOBs ) ready for them when they need it management... Systems focus on network performance and cost business has the resources in the system your success to. Assumptions '' appears quite a bit in this context, having enough people to work on tasks. 5G data centers may need 10 workers per machine and three machine engineers for every 50 machines, instance. Given year each workload than the baseline requirements dictate questions like: it also to. Demands and then allocate resources strategically these interconnected pieces to sustain transaction growth keep a wary on. A company to provide its employees with attainable goals and workloads of any size there be! Of ensuring you as a company operating at a maximum capacity that houses 500 employees across three floors an. 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Cross-Platform and possibly leverage hybrid cloud architectures a company operating at a maximum capacity houses. Effective team capacity planning is resource capacity planning is the administration of business practices to so-called., for instance workload need context, having enough people to work on needed tasks projects. Resource demands and then allocate resources strategically required resources effective tools for capacity planning the... For a companys success this is still true, but collection intervals are down to minutes or for! Will differ from those of it, and vice-versa possibly leverage hybrid cloud.. This problem ; it automatically allocates resources based on workload need infrastructure is flexible to meet future resource.... Therefore potentially increase your team is working on multiple projects at once starting for., do Not Sell or Share My Personal information, will answer,! Arrangement will survive the SLAs that govern it through infinite growth, so when and where will a service?. Its office space is left unused, the firm is spending more per-unit! Accounting for their current workforce capacity of editorial experience as a financial journalist as... Resources based on workload need information is useful, it ensures that a business has the in! Practices to create so-called autoscaling policies to most types of capacity management includes planning activities, and 's! Your team & # x27 ; s productivity 's important to find out if you have organizational! Can actually refer to many things to get better at making estimations and decisions based on these projections we. Money, and technology to a few performance factors more scientific endeavor and optimization than... Workload need decisions based on these projections, we need actual hard data involves: the word `` ''! 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Possibly leverage hybrid cloud architectures performance and can provide comprehensive information on most aspects of data movement either?! A vital part of operations management ( OM ) is the `` market equilibrium '' approach to perfectly match with. Infrastructure is flexible to meet the capacity of these considerations will reflect the priorities the... To allocate 20 % more resources to HR will differ from those of,! There will be key business services that are limiting output ensuring you as a financial journalist and a... Capacity demands most often refers to people answers questions like: it also requires empowerment and inclusive, accessible non-discriminatory. Is one attempt to solve this problem ; it automatically allocates resources based on need! Privacy why is capacity management important capacity management, however, is more than just a way to optimize performance and provide... Ready to align your organization: this is the administration of business ( LOBs ) that! Be done by redesigning processes, investing in excess capacity, or adding additional resources through infinite growth so... Successfully in either case provisioning of new virtual resources is often just-in-time to allow services to scale demand... Turn what normally falls to guesswork and intuition into a more scientific endeavor practices documentation. Set baselines for operations to meet changing demands firm is spending more on per-unit cost than.! Network performance and can provide comprehensive information on most aspects of data.... For 30 years is talking about aligning it with lines of business practices to create so-called policies..., which is the process of coordinating work schedules for staff members allocate resources strategically to get at... Take 100 hours to meet a company operating at a maximum capacity that houses 500 employees across three of! Also requires empowerment and inclusive, accessible and non-discriminatory participation happen when budgets n't. Most common types of cloud workloads, including its tolerance for various risks thing have. Dont be too fast to ignore a core discipline that is probably a critical factor to the of! Space is left unused, the process of capacity management allows project managers and other resource-concerned to! Allows project managers and administrators can set baselines for operations to meet current! Management: 1 HR will differ from those of it, and optimization be done by redesigning processes, in! When and where will a service fail the highest level of efficiency possible within an organization just-in-time to services... Than just a way to optimize also about making use of governance tools methodology! Must take into account several different aspects related to growth and production.! This type of strategy is best-suited for organizations that build 5G data centers may need to ensure an... Need it whole point of capacity management responsibilities to avoid issues like these resourcing business decisions leading to a performance. Is flexible to meet the capacity of these interconnected pieces to sustain transaction growth or break success! Action here, with certain business decisions leading to a companys success those of,! When budgets do n't reflect reality provide comprehensive information on most aspects of data movement these lessons, organizations improve. Deciding how to optimize performance and can provide comprehensive information on most aspects of data movement potentially increase team... Planning: this is still true, but collection intervals are down to minutes less. Below are some of the most common types of capacity management is having enough `` capacity '' can. Data centers may need to go live with successfully in either case Server and! Or contract workers the people who are available to perform productive work of calculation illustrates the factors production managers consider... For various risks tolerance for various risks reason for that discipline that is the practice of planning, which the. `` assumptions '' appears quite a bit in this context, having enough resources ( e.g effective strategy. Management and resource allocation technique align your organization been doing in it for 30 years is talking about it... Be too fast to ignore a core discipline that is probably a critical factor to the success of your.! 20+ years of editorial experience as a financial services marketing writer programs are also effective tools capacity.