Posted on August 4th, 2010
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A lot of letters are getting thrown about, as they always do in the IT business, but there are really only three that matter to you: ROI. Unless you can get a return on your IT investment, there isn’t much point to implementing a solution. Well, to get to ROI, a good place to start is with three other letters: UCS. The Cisco Unified Computing System streamlines your datacenter, making it easier for your organization to gain more value from existing staff and equipment.
Cisco UCS makes your infrastructure easier to manage and your team more efficient. Rather than pull together and integrate a variety of “best of breed” solutions – a process that entails a considerable amount of project and operational risk – UCS brings computing, networking, storage access and virtualization into a cohesive system. As a result, you can scale your infrastructure easily without having to add complexity at the same time.
Posted on July 28th, 2010
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There’s always some tension between strategy and leading-edge implementation. You want to take advantage of new systems and technologies that can help your company advance in the marketplace, but at the same time, you don’t want “new” and “exciting” to outpace your core objectives and wind up driving your company at the expense of core business objectives.
Yeah, that’s a mouthful, but it’s incredibly important.
Posted on July 26th, 2010
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When power becomes more expensive, you feel it. For the months when there’s a spike in oil pricing, “green IT” becomes a priority, only to fade when the cost to run your datacenter comes down again. Even if the ups and downs average out to a tolerable price, the fluctuations make IT budgeting a vexing endeavor, leaving you unable to forecast your costs effectively … and ultimately forcing uncomfortable conversations with the executive team.
Implement a virtual infrastructure, and you’ll gain energy cost containment and better budget predictability along with a more agile datacenter.
Posted on July 21st, 2010
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Are you ready to make your datacenter a little easier to manage? For most IT professionals, the answer to that question is pretty obvious. There’s always room for improvement … in ways that cut overhead, make workloads a bit more manageable and increase the quality of service you provide to your end users. Cisco’s Unified Computing System can streamline your datacenter, making your team – and your entire enterprise – more productive at a fraction of the cost.
Posted on July 19th, 2010
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Are you spending too much time managing your infrastructure? It’s not like you have a choice, of course. When you need to tend to your datacenter, you do it, and it’s your other IT initiatives that suffer. A simplified, straightforward approach not only cures the headaches associated with IT management, it frees up your team to focus on the projects that will drive ROI and company growth.
Chances are you’re overspending on your infrastructure. Research from Cisco estimates that infrastructure management ties up 70 percent of your budget. So, that only gives you 30 percent to allocate for the future. Simplifying your infrastructure could tip those scales a bit – making your department far more effective.
Posted on June 14th, 2010
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The problem with “best of breed” platform selections is that you wind up with a heterogeneous infrastructure that can be difficult and costly to manage. When it’s time to add to a particular platform’s footprint, you need to write another check, even if there are under-utilized solutions elsewhere in your environment. Unless you have commensurate equipment available, there’s no choice but to invest more. With server and storage virtualization technologies, you can break out of this rut, and extract more value from investments you’ve already made.
Posted on May 26th, 2010
by Chris Chrobocinski |
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Have you ever had to deviate from your capacity plan to add equipment? When this happens, you have to do more than dip into your budget and get the requisite approvals. You also need to divert resources from your infrastructure team to plan, execute, test and monitor the change to your server environment, which can cause other projects to fall behind. Expenses increase not only for your datacenter team but for all the IT and business areas affected. Your budget assumes a certain amount of predictability, but real life doesn’t always cooperate.
Citrix has announced the availability of XenServer 5.6, which has several new features. This enterprise-ready, cloud-proven virtualization platform delivers the capabilities necessary to create and manage a virtual infrastructure …. at a fraction of the cost of competing solutions. XenServer 5.6 will be available on May 28, 2010.
Last year, Citrix was able to double XenServer’s market share, and it expects to grow it another 18 percent by the end of 2010. XenServer has been selected as the back-end virtual infrastructure for around 40 percent of all Citrix XenDesktop VDI implementations.
Citrix has announced a new NetScaler VPX virtual appliance that will add extensive support for business-critical Microsoft datacenter and infrastructure solutions, including Hyper-V, Microsoft System Center and other applications like SharePoint 2010 and Exchange Server 2010. Since this is a native Windows-based Solution, NetScaler VPX also includes the intuitive capabilities of Citrix AppExpert Policy Manager, offering pre-built and customizable templates designed for popular enterprise applications. You can now get AppExpert templates for Exchange Server 2010 and SharePoint 2010, as well.
How much of your datacenter is dark? At any given time, you have systems that aren’t being used. Oddly, this is often intentional. Your capacity planning exercises are designed to show how much you need under a variety of circumstances, and the need to handle peak usage means there will be occasions when servers and storage are under-utilized. In fact, this will generally be the case – you’ll have dormant systems more often than you have heavily utilized systems. This translates to lost potential. Unlock the potential of under-utilized systems, and you can defer IT investments, gain more value from existing equipment and streamline your IT operation.
Rich Brumpton is an High impact Systems Consultant and Trainer well versed in Citrix, Microsoft, EMC, Cisco, VMware, and other technologies. Interested in helping the customer create the best solutions or their business needs at the lowest TCO. Emphasis on cutting edge solutions based on current and emerging products in areas such as Application Delivery, Information Lifecycle Management, Virtual Desktop Infrastructure, and Virtualization. Enjoys assembling and presenting information to small, medium, and large groups related to highly technical subjects in a easy to understand format. He has presented to CIO's, helpdesk operators, application developers and many other audiences. Recently presented in a series of Windows IT Pro Magazine - Windows Server 2008 roadshows.
Chris Chrobocinski has over 20 Years in the IT service management field. Chris has been with MTM Technologies since 1994, and has held several service leadership positions during his 15 years with the company.
Today Chris is the VP of Managed Services. In his current role he has responsibility for sales, operation and delivery of the managed service portfolio. To contact Chris, email: chrisc@mtm.com or call: 203-321-1700.
Bill Kleyman, MBA, MISM, is an avid technologist with experience in network infrastructure management. His engineering work includes large virtualization deployments as well as business network design and implementation. Currently, he is a Virtualization Solutions Architect working out of the MTM Chicago office.
