Note

VMware continues to dominate the server virtualization landscape; however, challengers such as Microsoft, Citrix, and Red Hat are providing competitive features for consolidation and virtual infrastructure management.

Solution Set

VMware continues to dominate the server virtualization landscape; however, challengers such as Microsoft, Citrix, and Red Hat are providing competitive features for consolidation and virtual infrastructure management.

Tool

This tool allows enterprises to generate a customized shortlist of vendors based on required capabilities and future requirements around server consolidation, virtual infrastructure management, and the internal cloud.

Solution Set

Exploding volumes of data are driving the search for faster and more reliable backup, but data value and restore speed are also critical considerations. Designing a best-fit architecture requires these elements be evaluated alongside total cost...

(22-Oct-10) Servers are the bedrock of a professional data center, so it’s vital that IT hardware buyers know what to look for and how to make wise purchasing decisions. The primary role of the server in a consolidated infrastructure is to...

(29-Jun-10) Alan Bourassa, CIO of EmpireCLS, a limousine service in Secaucus, N.J., is a man on a tight schedule. He has tied his company's 64 server blades to a three-year replacement cycle, a fast-paced strategy that he feels has become...

Solution Set

Many organizations are abandoning their original Novell GroupWise and Lotus Notes email platforms and are faced with email migration for the first time in their history.

Video

Blades make effective building blocks for a consolidated utility infrastructure. They are increasingly turned to for server consolidation, particularly where space, power consumption, and management resources are at a premium. This video answers...

Template/Policy

Whether the SQL Server upgrade project requires one weekend or many to complete, it is important to collect and document all issues, resolutions, and changes experienced throughout the process to learn from and improve upon in future projects....

Solution Set

Be sure that blades are really appropriate for enterprise server goals. Then decide which blade is best and which vendor's approach to consolidation and management is optimal.

Tool

For organizations that have issued a formal Request for Proposal (RFP) to evaluate Blade Server vendors, gathering and scoring the various responses can be difficult and time consuming. This tool enables enterprises to evaluate and compare the...

Template/Policy

Organizations embarking on the selection process for a blade server vendor may elect to issue a Request for Proposal (RFP) after determining their final selection criteria.

Template/Policy

In many cases, the engagement to acquire server blades is not with the original equipment manufacturer but with a sales channel partner. This script will give you questions to explore with a reseller to clarify the specific value add that the...

Note

When replacing end of life servers and/or adding new servers there are a range of tactical choices to be made. What is the most cost effective configuration? Are blades the future or will traditional rack mount do? How many processors/cores and...

Tool

In server acquisition the overall goal is to balance the most server capacity (for workload consolidation) with the lowest total cost of ownership (TCO) for over the life of the servers. This tool enables a TCO measurement and TCO comparison...

Sentilla, one of several vendors in a growing category of off-the-shelf data center energy measurement solutions, recently announced the release of Sentilla Energy Manager 3.0. This release introduces several features and enables energy...

(14-Apr-10) The chief executive of technology reseller Softchoice Corp. is seeing a strong rebound in corporate spending on computers and servers, a trend consistent with chip maker Intel's results as the economy recovers. "We are seeing...

Note

Most enterprises have already seen success in virtualizing the low-hanging fruit in the data center. As the percentage of the data center that is virtualized increases, IT must focus on building an internal cloud that leverages virtualization...

Video

Lead Analyst John Sloan and Info-Tech client George Neill of Organic Valley Family of Farms talk about the strategic and practical implications of building an internal cloud.

Intel's Xeon 5500 processors have been a boon to two areas of server management: power savings and virtualization. The recession in 2009 meant a slow start for the new technology, but deployment will start gaining speed.

(26-Feb-10) These days, there aren’t many companies where email is not considered mission-critical. So it takes a great deal of mettle to rock the boat. Possibly even more so than other functions, it’s important to know what you’re getting into...

(19-Feb-10) In a move that perhaps seemed inevitable as the one-time strong partners began to butt competitive heads more and more in the data centre, Cisco Systems (NASDAQ: CSCO) and Hewlett-Packard (NYSE: HPQ) have ended the last vestiges of...

(19-Feb-10) Three months after Hewlett Packard Development Company LP announced a friendly merger agreement with 3Com Corp. and a year after Cisco Systems Inc. entered the server space, Cisco said it will not renew HP’s systems integrator...

Solution Set

E-Mail vendors release significant platform upgrades more often than organizations need to upgrade, creating pressure to upgrade twice as frequently as upgrades are really warranted.

(14-Jan-10) Demands for IT capacity are unrelenting and often unpredictable, making it difficult for CIOs in mid-market businesses to keep up with the pace of change. Growth from mergers, acquisitions and geographic expansion have resulted in...

(26-Nov-09) Buying server operating system software is in some ways similar to buying a car. Maybe you feel pressured by the salesperson to buy an SUV when you want a smart car. Maybe you can’t really afford that Ferrari. Or maybe you buy a...

Video

Have you optimized the price you pay per server? In this videocast, we will show you how to save up to $600 per box by choosing the right vendor. We will also explain how to bank savings in warranties, refresh cycles, and procurement standards.

Lights-out management (LOM) provides the benefit of remotely managing and monitoring enterprise servers. Since most brand-name servers are sold with built-in LOM features, IT departments should determine where and how LOM can reduce IT costs and...

(9-Nov-09) Microsoft has announced the Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 is now available worldwide, and the software giant believes that despite the economy, forces are promoting significant customer adoption, in much the same way that they...

(9-Oct-09) People in general may have an innate fear of the dark, but for IT managers, this impulse can reach sheer frenzy in a matter of minutes. Very few enterprises are comfortable with the idea of sitting in the dark with all operations...