Capacity Management

Resources

An essential feature of Capacity Management is assigning appropriate personnel and hardware and software resources to each service and application.

Correct dimensioning means Capacity Management must have reliable information about:

• Agreed and/or envisaged levels of service.
• Expected levels of performance.
• Impact of the application or service on the customer's business processes.
• Margins of security and availability.
• Associated costs of hardware and other IT resources needed.

It is important that Capacity Management take part in the initial stages of the development of a product or service, or the definition of an SLA, in order to ensure that the necessary capacity will be available to complete the project successfully.

Aspects concerning the correct dimensioning of an application are frequently overlooked as a result of unrealistic expectations of the technology. It is possible to make the mistake of regarding the costs associated with capacity as being no more than those of buying new servers or more storage space, etc., overlooking the fact that more complex systems imply higher maintenance and administration costs, or ignoring the problems these changes can cause.