Tag Archives: Enterprise Management Associates

About 1663 days ago Servers and Routers

Has the Greening of IT Gone Too Far?

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Everyone seems to be jumping on the green bandwagon, which is great for our environment, but how do we know when buying green is overkill? “Green IT is an oxymoron,” says Simon Mingay, an analyst with Gartner Research. “There’s no such thing, but with more efficient tools available, you will more than pay back any incremental costs.” Studies show that businesses want to be energy efficient and that when it’s time to replace old equipment, whether it is a server or a desktop, IT managers make their replacement the energy efficient choice. However, most businesses do not replace a good system even if it is not energy efficient or if it still has many years left in its life cycle. Mingay agrees that you’re better off hanging on to the old equipment if it is reliable, and he says when it’s time to replace hardware “then making energy efficiency part of the buying criteria is absolutely critical.” Businesses need to look at achieving energy efficiency in both their desktop and data center environments without compromising budgets and shrinking their return on investment. Greening of the data centers In the data center, many companies choose a virtualization solution, which may include integrating a software solution like VMWare with existing servers or may require buying larger servers to give power to the virtual machines. Energy efficiency can be achieved depending on how many servers there are. Consolidating servers is another green solution which reduces loads and ultimately saves costs. BDNA Corporation in Mountain View, Calif., helps companies save energy by using their GreenScan technology to run a server inventory. When the scan is complete it reveals how much power each server consumes, which determines the new server configuration. If new servers are necessary, then the scan takes into account the company’s current footprint and monitors the migration of the new location’s future equipment purchase. Companies can deploy thin clients and use CPU power throttling for their high-end servers, where the servers throttle down during low use time and don’t waste power. Data center solutions do require purchasing additional hardware and they do require more time to implement. Steve Brasen, analyst at Enterprise Management Associates recently conducted a green IT study which revealed that some data centers can’t reduce their power consumption since they need to be up and running 24/7. In reference to virtualization and hardware upgrades, Brasen says, “You should upgrade hardware because it’s time for more efficient computing, and not for just having an energy efficient solution. Choosing virtualization in order to go more green shouldn’t be the primary reason for deployment.” Greening of the desktop area In the desktop area, using power management tools such as turning off the machines at night, using spin down drives or hibernation tools lowers costs so companies don’t need to purchase new equipment. Brasen in the same green IT study found that when power management techniques were implemented in the desktop area, there was an average of 19 percent reduction in power. He also found that using laptops cost $23.26 in power consumption per year, versus desktops costing $149.10 per year. “So for 10,000 deployed desktops, which would consume 1.5 million in energy costs, and laptops, which cost $232,600, you could save $1.3 million annually,” he concludes. ”Going green is the great umbrella of social responsibility and reducing company cost,” Avanish Sahai, vice president of BDNA marketing says. To achieve energy efficiency in the desktop area, “There’s simple stuff that can be done with dramatic effect. Get a policy with automated power management to turn off your computers and monitors and see a savings of 22 percent in IT costs.” Sahai adds that companies also need to educate their employees on how to use Windows’s hibernation controls and then set a policy and monitor it. Mingay suggests companies check out Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool at EPEAT.net to find out which monitors, desktops, and notebooks are the best green choice as rated by the Energy Star 4.0 rating system. Obstacles to green IT The largest obstacle to implementing a green IT initiative is the budget and responsibility split between the facilities department, which handles the power budgets and the IT department. Sometimes a good green policy gets stuck waiting for the right data and implementation to make it happen. Ultimately, the CEO needs to provide the overall vision of green IT by implementing green governance, or corporate social responsibility bodies to oversee multiple projects across departments. Mark L. Cavaliero, CEO of SyTec Business Solutions in Raleigh, N.C., a network integrations firm, says he makes his green IT decisions by listening to his vendors, his clients, and his team of engineers. He also considers his budget. “We don’t like to waste anything and there’s also an economic incentive to help clients save money and to make our employees more productive,” Cavaliero says. Regarding green IT, “It seems that the economic and benefits to society have lined up.” Where green IT is headed Brasen predicts virtualization will be the number one data center solution to achieve green IT over the next year and he also emphasized that the 19 percent average saved in the desktop area could be even greater. He states that opportunities do exist in both the data center and desktop area and that more companies will realize that you can reduce power consumption and produce ROI. Implementing a green IT policy is no different from any other networking or security implementation. Both involve a thorough inventory of all hardware and software assets and both require the CEO to communicate policy and goals by example and leadership. Companies shouldn’t rush to buy green equipment without first checking the equipment’s agility first just as they shouldn’t implement an ad hoc green policy that doesn’t reach all areas of their organization. But by adopting power management strategies and replacing equipment nearing the end of its lifecycle with a more energy efficient models, companies can reap the benefits of sustainability, social responsibility and cost savings.  

About 1694 days ago Business Software

Negotiating Virtualization Software Use

Negotiating software licenses for physical machines can be a cumbersome process, but figuring out how to negotiate virtual software licenses is downright confusing. Virtualization software uses a physical host to enable companies to run more programs on fewer machines and move assets quickly while reducing capital and operating expenses. With this new technology, software vendors offer a variety of pricing models ranging from licensing software on a per CPU (VMWare), to a per server (KACE and Acronis), to a per instance basis (Microsoft). Having these options available adds greater complexity to the licensing conversation and changes old paradigms regarding value and usage. Not only are there now more virtual machines than physical servers to control, these virtual machines must be administered just like a physical machine, to include updates, software deployment, and operating system management. Licensing for virtualization technologies is slippery because virtual machines can be created and destroyed in an instant — making their inventories and systems hard to track. As the virtual machines grow or shrink, IT departments need to pay attention to what software has been deployed, so they can figure out how many licenses they need. Rob Meinhardt, CEO and co-founder of KACE, a Mountain View, Calif. company which specializes in IT asset management solutions, says, “It’s the whack-a-mole problem of software that’s spun up and spun down. You press a button and have a new instance of a machine. You come into questions of licensing, and have to ask what’s an acceptable way to license software in a virtual world, depending on how many hours my company has used this software.” Meinhardt adds that KACE is moving towards licensing on a per instance basis, but for now they charge per server or per node, which he says offers more flexibility than charging per CPU. CPUs and virtual software value On one physical host or server, there can be multiple CPUs, with multiple cores, which can power up several virtual machines. VMWare, the leader in virtualization environments prices their licenses on a 2-CPU basis, which makes it easy for IT departments to assess use. But, depending on how many virtual machines a company owns, multiple license fees based on CPUs may price smaller companies out of the virtual market if they have to buy four licenses for four dual CPUs. Another virtual licensing pricing issue arises regarding multi-core CPUs (of two, four, or eight chips) and how to isolate one aspect of the machine since not all of its capacity is used. Many customers feel that virtualized servers should cost less because they are using less space than physical servers. Andi Mann, research director at  Enterprise Management Associates says, “Customers want to pay for what they use, but it gets tricky when you’re not using all of the CPUs. The best vendors are the ones who are flexible with their licenses and are able to deal with what their customers are doing.” For example, a server is running eight virtual machines with a 25 percent load on each duel-core CPU. How much should a customer pay for only using an isolated part of the host server? Because of the intricacy involved with these multi-core CPUs and figuring out costs, many vendors, like KACE, have turned to other pricing models to better serve their customers. Cameron Haight, research vice president with Gartner says, “There’s no standard for this [virtualization], but hopefully over time we’ll see some movements of allocations to different pricing models. It’s very much a work in progress.” Different pricing allows flexibility Acronis, a Burlington, Mass. provider of disaster and recovery software allows companies to backup and restore five or more virtual machines on a single server for one price with their True Image Virtual Edition software. Stephen Lawton, senior director of strategic marketing, says, “It’s very easy to confuse your customers with complex pricing models. If I’m in development and I deal with virtual machines on a regular basis, should a company charge every time I create or destroy a virtual machine?” For these reasons, he says the license for True Image will accommodate future virtual machines, as long as they remain on the same server. Microsoft recently announced a per running instance license for their management servers, allowing companies to build extra virtual machines, but not be charged when they are not in use. The best thing for companies to do when navigating this complex virtual world is partnering with a vendor who is flexible and understands what their customers want. Then, companies need to negotiate with these vendors for the best deal to ensure compliancy and budget control. Along with covering compliancy, IT departments are much more able to handle the budgeting for license fees if they know the number of virtual instances from the outset.

About 2425 days ago Business Software

Is Linux Right for Your Business?

When clients call Secure-24, in Southfield, Mich., seeking advice and technology to meet secure hosting needs, CEO Matthais Horch points out to them three critical factors to consider: functionality, cost and support. More and more, Horch says, an open source solution offers a competitive combination of those elements for small and mid-size businesses compared to the alternatives. Following the rapid growth and enterprise success of Linux and other open source applications, many businesses are considering a switch. A survey last year of 500 North American companies by investment banker SG Cowen & Co. found that Linux use was reported in 53 percent of companies. Small businesses and fast-growing companies are seeing Linux as a chance to deploy advanced technologies that they could only access in the past by buying costly proprietary technologies. But how do you know whether Linux is right for your business? Low cost attracts interest The biggest attraction of Linux remains its low cost. In many cases, a company can acquire and run software without incurring any licensing expenses for software and services. A recent study of 200 Linux enterprises by Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) conducted for Levanta, maker of open source management software and appliances, noted, among other findings, “Linux acquisition costs can be almost $60,000 less per server than Windows in software costs alone.” While acquisition and licensing fees for open source tend to be far lower, some studies by Microsoft and analysts in the past pegged open source with a higher total cost of ownership than Windows, mainly due to higher management costs. But the Enterprise Management Associates study found that reliability was higher for Linux than Windows systems, problems tended to be diagnosed and repaired in 30 minutes and management tended to spend less time managing Linux. Stability and security advantages No amount of cost savings can offset troublesome machines prone to breakdown. A Microsoft-sponsored study by Security Innovation, an application security firm that provides risk analysis and mitigation services, a Windows-based solution more reliable than one based on Linux as business needs grew over one year. The study found Linux administrators were about 70 percent slower than Windows counterparts to fulfill business objectives and experienced more system failure and needed more patches than the Windows team. But the EMA study found different results. It noted that respondents that used Linux-based systems reported 99 percent up time with 17 percent saying they had no downtime at all. Scott Crenshaw, senior director of product management and marketing at Red Hat, a leading open source software and service provider, says that Linux provides advantages when it comes to security. “We measured the time it took to fix and deliver critical security bugs in the operating system,” he says. “In Windows, people have gotten used to waiting for three, six, nine, 12 months.” But Red Hat delivered fixes within 24 hours 100 percent of the time, he says. Making the switch Many small and mid-size businesses simply stay with Windows because they rely on Microsoft Office. They reason that mixing up the computing environment on the backend with Linux while the front office needs Word or Excel will just increase support and integration costs. Crenshaw, however, argues that open source’s time has come on the PC desktop as well. Open Office is a multi-platform office productivity suite that has been developed through the OpenOffice.org, an open source project. The software includes the key desktop applications, such as a word processor, spreadsheet, presentation manager, and drawing program, with a user interface and feature set similar to other office suites. Crenshaw says it has “a very rich set of productivity tool that meet the needs of 90 percent of users.” Any change to the IT environment can cause major headaches and generate significant costs. But certain environmental events in the business can make managing the switch to open source a little easier. Those include increasing server or database capacity and adding new business services when buying new hardware. “Any of those events are a good time to trigger a migration decision,” Crenshaw says. Increasing commitments from large hardware companies such as Dell and IBM, the availability of professional open source support and the growing ranks of qualified open source technical support staff make the option to move to open source easier than ever.  “The only caveat, my only warning,” says Horch, of Secure-24, “is have some sort of support.”