You can no longer simply set an alarm on capacity measurements and trust that to keep you clear of capacity problems, especially if you are looking at virtualization and/or cloud computing. Shared resources are a tremendous gain for efficiency, but can be a double-edged sword when it come to managing that shared capacity. It is well worth the extra effort, but you need to know how critical that extra effort is.

You can no longer just know where your capacity is, you have to know how it got there, where it is going, why it is going there, WHEN it is going there, what factors may speed up or slow down that growth rate…I think you get the point. The role of resource/capacity management has just stepped into the spotlight, and you need to adjust your policies and practices to recognize that.

Read more on this topic in the SearchServerVirtualization article “It’s 10p.m. Do you know where your capacity is?“, then come back here to leave your comments. These are big topics, I would love to hear what you think or how you may be adjusting to these changes.