Datacenter Consolidation and Data Center Planning: Meeting the Web Tier Challenge. It would be an understatement to say that Bill Pilarski and Ken Pepple know a thing or two about data center consolidation. As data center practice manager at Sun, Pilarski manages a team of technical and sales development resources that provide data center optimization and consolidation solutions to Sun customers. Pepple co-authored a book on consolidation, Consolidation in the Data Center: Simplifying IT Environments to Reduce Total Cost of Ownership.

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Meeting the Web Tier Challenge. It would be an understatement to say that Bill Pilarski and Ken Pepple know a thing or two about data center consolidation.

As data center practice manager at Sun, Pilarski manages a team of technical and sales development resources that provide data center optimization and consolidation solutions to Sun customers. Pepple co-authored a book on consolidation, Consolidation in the Data Center: Simplifying IT Environments to Reduce Total Cost of Ownership.

Pilarski and Pepple sat down with Sun Inner Circle to discuss the factors driving Web tier expansion, the challenges it creates, and how to realize the benefits of consolidation.

IC: What is causing the expansion of the Web tier infrastructure at most companies?

BILL: The Web tier is not simply limited to the components that drive the interface, but also those that support the infrastructure for providing a service on the Web. And there are several factors driving the expansion of the Web tier. First and foremost is the growth of Web services, as well as the need to support those services — especially because the services are being deployed in rapid fashion due to the competitive nature of the marketplace. Plus, in today's environments, Web services are often deployed on commodity-type infrastructure components. So, companies are witnessing the rapid expansion of the underlying infrastructure that supports Web services. Essentially, the desire to compete more aggressively tends to balloon the Web services infrastructure at most companies.

KEN: Exactly. Just because the Web boom ended in 2000, people didn't stop going to the Internet. Nor did it curtail the applications written for the Internet. As long as more companies and people depend on the Internet, there are going to be more Web applications. And that means a larger Web tier presence, especially for companies that are deploying a separate set of Web tier servers for each application. Also, some expansion in the Web tier is due to the increasing importance of security. Today there is the more frequent use of SSL, which results in more servers because of the increased processing load. And both of those factors are only going to increase going forward.

IC: How is Web tier expansion affecting IT organizations?