With pressure increasing on IT to “be green” it can be difficult to identify which strategies are mature and ripe for adoption. This Trends & Predictions research note cuts through the hype to clearly map what enterprises are really doing to green their IT operations.

With its recently updated System z, IBM continues to extend the mainframe capabilities to better support applications not normally associated with mainframes. The System z may be a consolidation option for mid-sized enterprises with Java, Linux, and transaction processing applications.

Info-Tech’s Green Index looks at how concerned IT leaders are about energy efficiency and environmental responsibility, as well as the current level of “green” in enterprise IT. The 2007 index highlights a large gap between what enterprises are thinking about green IT and what they are actually doing.

Recent revenue declines in some IBM server platforms and its licensing of rights to Lenovo to manufacture and resell certain x-Series servers has led to speculation that IBM is leaving the server hardware space. Info-Tech believes that off-loading the low-end market is a good move, allowing IBM to focus where it has traditionally done best – larger enterprises.

The Info-Tech Global Green IT Attitude & Action survey measures sentiment towards climate change, Green IT, and how IT is reacting. Everyone agrees that climate change is a major issue, but business and IT reactions to this issue are mixed, with North American companies demonstrating less action than their Asian and European counterparts.

Most small and mid-sized enterprises (SMEs) can benefit from the combined features and functions of Application Front-Ends (AFEs). By integrating multiple devices into a single appliance with unified management, the installation, configuration, and ongoing maintenance for the data center infrastructure can be greatly reduced.

Aligning IT processes with business processes is key to improving efficiencies for IT and reducing costs for the business, but enterprises must first adopt and implement a governance framework. Compare and assess the various frameworks to find which one is best for the enterprise.

Enterprise-class servers now come equipped with a service processor that allows IT staff to access, monitor, and control the server regardless of the state of the primary CPU and OS. Understand and make best use of this critical data center component.

Blade server technology has changed the physical structure of servers in the data center. For most management functions, blade servers are handled like their rack-mount brethren. However, built-in management modules provide local control of server blades and I/O modules. With a single point of control for a group of processor blades, management operations can be simplified.

Microsoft’s licensing programs are complex and come with a variety of options, restrictions, and conditions. This note will help familiarize managers with licensing terminology, reduce complexity, outline the different options available, and highlight key differences crucial to making the right licensing decisions. Enterprises that take the time to learn licensing basics will be in a better...

As the number of servers grows within an enterprise, the time and effort needed to manage those servers grows even more rapidly. Server management tools provide automated capabilities to ease the pain of day-to-day provisioning, patching, and operational support. Understanding the functions offered by server management tools allows the IT staff to select the right tool for the job.

Becoming familiar with Microsoft server licensing is no simple task. Companies must take the time to navigate the complex array of Microsoft licensing policies, options, and client access requirements. Get a better understanding of Microsoft server licensing with this primer in order to optimize software spend and maintain license compliance.

Any enterprise that wishes to create an agile, highly optimized data center can do so using the hardware and tools currently available. The utility infrastructure will continue to evolve and improve as more data centers migrate away from the one-server, one-application environment.

Data center automation is a potent method for achieving the intelligent automation of IT tasks, such as configuration and asset management, policy management, and process automation. In order to capitalize on its benefits, approach data center automation as both a process and a technology.

Most IT decision makers are struggling to optimize IT performance measurement, delivery, management, and reporting. Broadly defined, these activities can be grouped together and defined as “IT service management.” Understand where the enterprise stands in terms of IT service maturity and forge a path forward towards better processes and procedures.

Learn to build a Green IT Action Plan by setting realistic goals and choosing projects that IT can perform autonomously. The resulting environmental benefits and cost savings help prove that more extensive projects are both feasible and necessary. Use this knowledge to promote cross-enterprise collaboration on leading green initiatives.

Utility infrastructure creates business value in three ways – it improves reliability, increases agility, and helps optimize IT assets. However, selling a utility infrastructure model to business leaders is not always a straightforward exercise. Create a business case for moving to utility computing and explore the value drivers behind this initiative.

Making solid licensing decisions will help minimize costs, simplify management, and achieve compliance. This research note is essential reading before moving ahead with any Microsoft licensing decisions. Discover the steps involved in optimizing license purchases and use a proven approach to tackle licensing projects with confidence.

If an internal control cannot be measured, it cannot be managed. Enterprises must adopt and use automated controls that tighten security around financial reporting, conform to best practices, and can be monitored for performance. This research note is intended to assist enterprises in turning control terminology into tactical, practical steps for compliance and improved business processes.

HP’s System Insight Manager provides comprehensive capabilities to monitor and control servers both locally and remotely. The Insight Control Environment for BladeSystem integrates the functions needed to manage the blade servers into a complete package. For shops using HP servers, the combined System Insight Manager and Insight Control packages provide a highly capable management toolset.

The consolidation of servers within the data center provides well defined savings for the enterprise. By creating and implementing a clearly defined migration strategy for existing servers, the effectiveness and efficiency of any consolidation strategy can be further enhanced.

Utility infrastructure – the abstraction of processors and storage from the underlying hardware to enable dynamic provisioning of these resources to applications – will improve capacity utilization and increase IT agility. Making this a reality within the enterprise will require new approaches to IT asset planning and control.

Microsoft licensing comes with a variety of options. For enterprises with 250 or more PCs, a critical decision is whether or not to sign an Enterprise Agreement. Before making this heavy commitment, be sure to understand the cost implications and consider the alternatives.

Cut through licensing complexity and quickly select the Microsoft Volume Licensing program that best meets the enterprise’s particular needs. Use this Excel-based tool to determine the enterprise’s licensing personality, compare different Volume Licensing programs, evaluate Software Assurance (SA) benefits, and evaluate pricing for certain products.

Microsoft Volume Licensing can be complex. This research note helps reduce complexity and provides enterprises with the knowledge necessary to tailor a program to suit their needs. Once enterprises have gained a broad overview of Microsoft’s Volume Licensing programs and are comfortable with the terminology, the next step is to assess the organization’s own specific licensing situation.

This assessment tool provides a high-level view of the current infrastructure in the context of technical, business, and operational readiness. Use this tool to decide which servers are ideal candidates for virtualization as well as which servers should await further planning and development.

Business and operational assessments are as critical for virtual server implementation as is the technical assessment that identifies virtualization candidates. People and process issues are more likely to be an impediment to implementation than technical limitations. Identify and resolve these issues through assessments that establish baselines business and operational measures for...

Planning for the implementation of a systems management solution with data center automation capabilities requires close attention to integration issues. Conduct a gap analysis early in the project planning phase to prioritize efforts and return the maximum bottom line benefit.

Data center automation initiatives are complex. Plan the enterprise’s automation project carefully to minimize disruption to business units.

Enterprises are jumping on the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) bandwagon in an effort to increase efficiency, decrease costs, and align business and IT needs. However, ITIL is a costly and time-consuming proposition. Conduct a needs assessment before moving ahead with ITIL plans.

Enterprises are jumping on the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL) bandwagon in an effort to increase efficiency, decrease costs, and align business and IT needs. However, ITIL is an overwhelming proposition. Conduct this readiness assessment before moving ahead with ITIL plans.

The best approach to virtual server implementation combines planning for a foundational virtual infrastructure with careful, incremental adoption. While planning is critical, don’t let external involvement bog down or stall initial implementation efforts. Use a business and operational assessment to define the trigger point for the larger planning effort.

Technical assessment of current server infrastructure is one of three critical assessments necessary for an effective virtual server implementation. The other important assessments are a business assessment and an IT operational assessment. The important results of the technical assessment will be a list of virtualization candidate servers, and baseline utilization data for capacity planning of...

After a thorough technical assessment of virtualization candidates, the next step in implementing virtual server infrastructure is to assess the physical server resources needed to support an optimum virtual infrastructure. Use capacity planning, server sizing, and virtualization benchmarking tools to gauge the required hardware investment.

Info-Tech sees the best approach to large scale virtual server implementation as one that combines planning for a foundational virtual infrastructure with careful and incremental adoption. Having employed the ITA Premium “Virtualization Scope Analysis” worksheet to consider who and what will be impacted by virtualization, use this template to develop a long-term project definition for...

The most often cited challenges to virtualization are related to people and processes, not technology. Take some time to think about all the people and processes that would be impacted by virtualization. Use this downloadable worksheet to identify goals, dependencies, opportunities, and potential barriers to virtual machine adoption.

In a typical scenario, a modest 100-server shop will not be moved to server virtualization by a strategic imperative. Rather, the trigger will be the acquisition of partitionable x86 servers as part of a regular hardware refresh. Planning can make the difference between this implementation being a one-off effort with limited return on investment or the beginning of a new way of managing...

The rising costs of electricity, rolling brownouts, and the ugly possibility of power surcharges from service providers all mean that enterprises will eventually be at risk of becoming “energy poor.” Target the power infrastructure of the data center as an area for cost savings.

Environmentally preferable purchasing (EPP) attempts to minimize negative ecological effects by procuring products and services with the least environmental impact. Many enterprises have added an EPP policy to their procurement process. Understand EPP, incorporate its principles into the procurement process, and follow Info-Tech’s recommendations to implement a successful EPP program in IT.

As energy costs begin to compete with the cost of maintaining the underlying hardware, IT decision makers no longer have the luxury of being complacent towards issues of power consumption and energy management. Any data center can be improved in regards to energy efficiency, cost efficiency, and environmental responsibility.

Air conditioning and cooling account for half the energy gobbled up by the typical data center. Focus on efficient air distribution and airflow management to lower operating costs, increase the density capacity of the data center, and reduce heat-related malfunctions.

Green opportunities to save money go beyond server energy efficiency. Stop taking a chip-shot approach to green data center initiatives and develop a complete end-to-end strategy that incorporates cost-effective and environmental best practices throughout the lifecycle of all IT assets.

Many enterprises sign onto Microsoft Software Assurance (SA) contracts without ever using the many valuable benefits associated with this type of agreement. The return on features that go unused is zero. Improve the ROI of SA contracts through better management and administration of SA benefits.

VMware’s High Availability (HA) feature provides almost instant virtual machine failover from one physical machine to another. However, failing over an entire site from one location to another has not been automatic. VMware’s Site Recovery Manager not only enables this capability, it also provides a means for testing automated site recovery in Disaster Recovery Planning (DRP).

Microsoft Software Assurance (SA) contracts contain numerous valuable benefits that many enterprises are not utilizing to the fullest degree. Use this ITA Premium SA ROI calculator to help execute a thorough ROI analysis that will allow the enterprise to see if the value of the SA subscription can be improved.

With Storage VMotion, it is now possible to non-disruptively move storage volumes used by VMware virtual machines from one storage device to another. VMware users should take a careful and planned approach to using this technology to non-disruptively optimize storage in their virtual infrastructures.

(Sample) End users display a diverse range of IT skills. Use this assessment tool to identify end-user skill levels and determine if they have the knowledge to act as resident experts.

(Sample) Reduce training and IT support costs and improve desktop productivity by developing a Resident Expert Support (REXS) system within business units. Resident Experts (REs) are power users that employ their advanced knowledge of desktop systems to help train and support fellow employees on desktop applications, thus reducing the burden on IT.