Before making an investment in an Electronic Document Management (EDM) solution, enterprises should estimate the potential impact on business processes with a Return on Investment (ROI) analysis. After making the purchase, enterprises should track the value of the investment with ongoing ROI calculations.

This research note provides:

• Examples of common ROI metrics for EDM.
• Sample templates for key ROI calculations.
• An overview of more complex ROI measures.

After the organization has evaluated potential site locations and determined a shortlist, an extra step in due diligence should be performed. Site visits can help to validate decisions, and identify any potential issues in chosen locations.

This checklist addresses the following:

• External environment where data center may be located environmental and physical hazards).
• Internal site visit checkpoints (clean power, secured areas, and cooling equipment).
• Physical attributes of the building (loading docks, water lines, and power grids).

Achieving full-scale server automation is something of a holy grail for Data Center Managers. A major piece of the automation puzzle is a practice known as "lights-out management" (LOM). This research note investigates LOM's potential by discussing:

• The place of LOM within the overall context of data center automation.
• The hard benefits of LOM and their impact on IT operations.
• The preinstalled LOM features currently shipping on brand-name servers.
• Top-level advice on how to address LOM.