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...

Solution Set

This solution set will provide strategy for building a consolidated server infrastructure that will balance maximum capacity and utilize efficiency while limiting costs.

Template/Policy

The typical trigger for acquiring servers is hardware refresh; however, getting the most value out of server purchases requires a strategic context. This business plan template puts the server acquisition in the context of a server consolidation...

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...

Tool

In four years, the proportion of server buyers looking to blade servers has grown from 9% to 37%. However, rack mount servers remain the majority (57%). Use this tool to decide if your enterprise is a blade candidate.

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...

Exchange is a legitimate candidate for virtualization, but only if the business goals are around availability, flexibility, and recovery. Do not look for a consolidation quick win.

The Citrix Branch Repeater delivers traditional WAN optimization as well as accelerated virtual application (XenApp) performance, and a Windows Server in a single box. Medium to large enterprises with a number of distributed locations should...

As part of IT cost management efforts, healthcare industry shops focus on three IT service areas ? discretionary and IT administrative spending, application development, and server and storage. Info-Tech's research suggests three key strategies...

As part of IT cost management efforts, professional services industry shops focus on three IT service areas ? servers and storage, application development, and discretionary spending. Info-Tech's research suggests three key strategies to...

As part of IT cost management efforts, manufacturing industry shops focus on three IT service areas ? network and telephony, servers and storage, and discretionary and IT administrative spending. Info-Tech's research suggests three key...

As part of IT cost management efforts, financial services industry shops focus on three IT service areas: servers and storage, application development, and workstations. Info-Tech's research suggests three key strategies to prioritize in-house...

As part of IT cost management efforts, wholesale and retail industry shops focus on three IT service areas - network and telephony, servers and storage, and end-user support. Info-Tech's research suggests three key strategies to prioritize...

In order to make sense of the increasing amount of hype surrounding green IT, small enterprises need to understand what initiatives exist and which are most appropriate for adoption. It doesn't take a tree-hugger to be green. Find out what other...

Any small enterprise that wishes to create an agile, highly optimized server infrastructure can do so using the hardware and tools currently available. The utility infrastructure will continue to evolve and improve as more server rooms migrate...

Small enterprises will find that moving to a utility infrastructure will not happen overnight. It will require a long-term, phased approach with significant challenges along the way.

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...

Note

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...

Info-Tech is seeing a wave of corporate server centralization as companies gain greater control over IT infrastructure and simplify management. While there are compelling reasons to consider centralization, many companies overlook the increased...

Virtualization of x86/x64 architecture is not a strategy; it is a tactical measure that addresses a specific impediment to achieve strategic goals in server consolidation. Virtual machine isolation enables more applications to run on fewer...