Thursday, July 26, 2012

Features of Security Enterprise Asset Management Solutions

Security enterprise asset management is an organizational method and in most cases is available as a software application. Most companies provide this software utilizing a database structure. This application can work in cooperation with other operating systems as well. It shares data on a mixed platform, such as Linux, Sun Solaris, Windows 98/NT/2000 and many others.

Security enterprise asset management solutions are efficient and can function smoothly without affecting the flow of your daily activities. Under this a company manages its physical assets by evaluating the causes of their possible failures. Using this solution you can review methodically all the failures, their effects and causes and set up security measures and other important maintenance guidelines. Most IT service providers make of this solution as it can conduct automatic inventories of the companies assets and sets up a dynamic audit. Furthermore, it recognizes the actual location of assets, even if they are remotely placed in other organization networks.

Recently, eminent IT brands specializing in managed security services have come up with security enterprise asset management solutions. It involves all the activities linked with end-to-end tracking and management of assets that are:-

· Asset Discovery (Physical and Logical)
· Configuration Management
· Retire & Disposal Management
· Interface with Enterprise Asset Management Systems and Processes
· Enterprise security posture assessment
· Request & Approval Process
· Compliance to Regulatory Laws if applicable
· Procurement Management
· Create & Maintain Definitive Hardware Store
· Supplier/Vendor Management
· Re-Deployment and Movement
· Interface with complimenting, dependant ITSM Processes and Functions
· Physical Asset Tracking
· Assessment on ISO 27001 and PCI controls.
· Software License Management
· Contract Management (Support/Maintenance/ Renewals /Enterprise License Agreement)
· Create & Maintain Definitive Software Library

Service providers of enterprise security and asset management offer their users with accurate and complete data about the condition of their assets by sending regular updates. Users can quickly run and record associated searches and reports concerning their assets. It helps them and their agents to detect problems easily and pace up the remediation process. Furthermore, the solution helps to calculate the rollouts and enhancement costs. It can also manage the daily operation of logistical units, enabling the users to get involved in freight forwarding and transport unit repairs. It helps to come up with custom reports on the usage and sets up estimations on what might possibly occur. This allows the users to anticipate the requirements and expenses and remediate for problems that might arise.

 
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Thursday, July 19, 2012

Reduce Costs and Improve Productivity with Managed Print Services

Until recently, copiers, printers, faxes and scanners collectively known as the output equipments fleets or hardcopy device fleets were the most over looked assets in almost all enterprises.

Until recently, copiers, printers, faxes and scanners collectively known as the output equipments fleets or hardcopy device fleets were the most over looked assets in almost all enterprises. Though the population of output fleets in the office environment has grown substantially there has been no marked improvement in its management. It continued to be the most over looked under utilized and under managed assets languishing in the poor print rooms of the companies and organizations. This coupled with lack of proper asset management and page volume tracking led to costs spiraling out of control.

Gartner Group in its survey found out that most businesses spend between 1 and 3% of their total annual revenue in generating documents. However, enterprises do not have a proper system in place to find out the total print expenses and their actual print requirements. This negligent attitude of the companies and organizations towards the output fleets started to change with the advent of economic recession. Companies looking for ways to cut costs stumbled upon the opportunity for cost savings from output fleets. A comprehensive and strategic approach was required to turn the office print land scape from being unproductive and costly to productive and cost effective. That is what 
Managed Print Services (MPS) is all about. It is the process of assessing, designing, optimizing and managing the output fleets in a uniform fashion. It is an outsourcing service where the service provider takes the full responsibility of managing the company's output fleets.
The core features of MPS are

* Proactive maintenance of the output devices fleets
* Information management with consolidated billing
* Ongoing optimization of devices, services and supplies throughout the contract life

The several service providers that engage in Managed Print Services (MPS) comprise of original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), systems integrators, managed service providers (IT and copier resellers) and supplies based providers. MPS providers make use of four main software applications when providing MPS namely

·
Print Management Software

This software not only manages the nature and volume of print but also authenticate users.

·
Discovery and Design Software

This software helps in analyzing and planning the changes that are required for implementing MPS.

·
Device Management Software

This software monitors and manages the output fleets in an environment.

·
Scan Routing Software

This software helps to route scans to fax servers, network folders, email, workflows and so on.

With Managed Print Services, enterprises can benefit from 30% cost savings, secure printing, proactive monitoring and reduced total cost of ownership.


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Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Need to develop Green Datacenters

With the growing expenses of power and an increased uncertainty in power accessibility, energy conversion today is a major issue for data centers. With the increase in computing power demand to satisfy crucial mission application as well as the advent of virtualization created drastic impacts on server density, making the requirement for an efficient energy management plan even more essential today.  When there is an in-depth knowledge of energy consumption attained through real-time monitoring within the data center, administrators feel safer of being able to make improved and energy conscious decisions. All these facts, had led to the need for Green Datacenters today.

Several companies hosting digital marketplaces and social networks present at the Green Grid Forum 2012 shared their initiatives for establishing green datacenters. The datacenters today consume more than 2 percent of the total electricity. It has been estimated that almost half of US’s electricity is generated by burning coal. The increasing datacenter energy usage will contribute to an ever increasing percentage of greenhouse has emissions unless we are able to decouple the expansion of data storage and processing from fossil fuel pollution.

Leading information security brands today have come up with a phased methodology to offer Green Datacenter solutions that are cost efficient in nature. This apart, they offer sustainability to business operations and guarantees a healthy bottom-line for an organization. 

The phases that are put to use are:-

·         Assessment Phase
This phase helps in setting up baseline of energy usage and carbon footprint of the present environment using an assessment framework which is also utilized to audit the present environment. This process is followed by Gap analysis and Feasibility study for identifying transformational initiatives, assess expense structure and conduct impact analysis.

·         Planning and Design Phase
This phase assists in setting up a detailed route map for certain Green IT initiatives like DC optimization, procurement, financial, recycling and resource planning.

·         Implementation Phase
This phase works towards selecting and implementing certain technologies data center transformation initiatives such as datacenter consolidation, virtualization, power and cooling management and IT infrastructure management. This phase also helps an organization to attain LEED certificate.

The amount of data the world processes and stores will go on expanding fast. EMC, an esteemed information infrastructure solutions enterprise predicts that the amount of global data will expand to approximately 35 zetta bytes by 2020. If there is no focus given on datacenter efficiency and renewable power usage, then the climatic impact of datacenters will also expand exponentially. To aid this situation, eminent IT solution providers are offering Green Datacenters methods to their clients and end users.


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Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Network Support Services Empowers the Corporate Network

The globally bound business organizations aim for newer markets and higher revenues. However, globalization with its benefits also offer these organization challenges of maintaining a vastly spread out organization. Nevertheless, technology has brought in a number of innovations that has facilitated the widely located offices of these enterprises to remain connected through the corporate network.
Corporate network is a  network service which as per Wikipedia definition is a service hosted on a computer network on a defined service protocol to provide functionality for end users of the network.  The client computers or end-users share the resources with the help of servers.  Further  technological  advancement led to increased demands for a stronger IT infrastructure  with more focus on the networked environment. Maintaining network security was another  challenging factor for the new age organizations. However, to ensure secure data transfers, the  network services were configured as local networks and wide area networks with a valid internet protocol address for every user accounts.
The aggressively competitive business environment led to network  services becoming the backbone of the global organization. However, the continuous increase in  IT infrastructure and applications  has  made the  network a complex environment. Business houses and corporate sector in need for an end-to-end   networked systems looked towards  organization which would provide them with seamless and highly managed network services Further, good support services are also essential in managing the networked environment. Outsourcing the management and network support services to experts will facilitate the global enterprises to focus on core issues.
The leading service providers with years of experience and team of experts   help the global  organizations with optimum and cost-effective network services. The  entire suite of  managed  services include conceptualization, implementation and delivery of LAN and WAN management, unified communication systems, management of the network operations center and IT security consulting for the networked environment.
However, for a network support service to be truly effective , requires the services to be open to the clientele 24/7. The expert teams  from the leading service provider are available at all times to provide solutions to problems faced in network system integration , implementation services, VoIP, WLAN management or network virtualization. A good network support service provider is one that ensures  integrated performance and end-to-end visibility across  the infrastructure landscape with   faster and timely communications through an online service desk and this forms an important part of customer relationships.
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