Data Center Virtualization- A cost-effective business proposition

Globalization and technological innovation have led to the growth of IT infrastructures in every business environment. With such apparent infrastrucutre growth, the  corporate houses as well as small and medium business enterprises are faced by the challenges of increased energy and power cost as well  operational overheads. Organization in an attempt to meet these challenges has turned to use data centers. The extensive use of data centers today demands that these organizations reduce their carbon footprints and global warming.

Data centers which came into existence to meet the growing need for information storage and faster retrieval across the  locations, were dense with computer systems, networking and telecommunication equipment. Further, with demands for a customized software and applications in all walks of the product life cycle, critical business data had to be made available to the IT outsourcing teams. This called the need for strong information security methods. Virtualization of the data centers were aimed  towards making  efficient use of available hardware and software resources. However, with the eco-friendly requirement integrated into the business systems,  the IT giants worked on developing datacenter virtualization models which would help in reduction of energy consumption by nearly 80-90%. 

With green computing becoming the buzz word today, organizations tend to use environmentally bio-degradable materials and sustainable resources rather than hazardous materials as components for the data center infrastructure.  Further, data center virtualization allows organizations to reduce the number of hardware installed which brings in cost savings in sizable forms. However, adopting virtualization was easy without the requirement of  any large investments.

The growing demands for datacenter virtualization paved way for leaders in the IT industry  to extend their experience in  IT operations and management to both small and medium business organizations as well as the as large corporate giants.  These IT service providers offer the client organizations virtualization-as-a- service, besides the traditional virtualization methods across applications, networks and systems.

The data center virtualization offered by the leaders in the industry segment  can be enumerated as a 5-phase  lifecycle process. This includes -

*        Assessment and analysis of the performance statistics of the existing infrastructure, applications, its related business requirement.

*        Defining the requirements for environmental changes and bring about architectural changes through  operational design

*        Implementation and integration of virtual infrastructure with application and network

*        Facility Management and

*        Transformation

The client organizations benefits with facilities of virtualization without any upfront investment. Correct implementation of virtualization will establish valuable efficiencies like agility, flexibility, better network capacity besides reducing costs.

Other Links

Identity and access management

Network consulting services

Green Datacenters, a Healthy Bottom Line for Enterprises

As years pass by, data centers are getting more common and essential. Data centers are indispensable for the smooth functioning of business processes, information management, and communications functions.

As years pass by, data centers are getting more common and essential. Data centers are indispensable for the smooth functioning of business processes, information management, and communications functions. Hence, today every sector of the economy use and operate data centers. Several factors are responsible for the rapid increase in the use of data centers. Let's look at some of these factors.

* Accelerated growth in the use of the Internet

* Increased use of electronic transactions

* Shift from paper-based information to digital based

* Government regulations requiring digital records retention

* High performance scientific computing

The growth in the number of data centers led to increased use of energy. The result of which is

* Increase in the emission of greenhouse gases especially from electricity generation

* Increase in the demand for electricity which the existing power grids are finding difficult to meet

* Increase in the energy costs for both business and government

* Increase in capital costs as a result of expansion of data center capacity and building of new data centers

This led to increased interest in developing solutions for energy efficiency in the data center sector. As part of it, Congress passed public law 109-431 in 2006 entrusting Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to carry out a study through its Energy Star program to "analyze the rapid growth and energy consumption of computer data centers by the Federal Government and private enterprise." The result was startling and predicted a bleak future in this sector. This accelerated the concept of green datacenters.

A green datacenter is "a repository for the storage, management, and dissemination of data in which the mechanical, lighting, electrical and computer systems are designed for maximum energy efficiency and minimum environmental impact." Building a green data center is quite expensive, as it requires low-emission building materials, carpets and paints, installation of catalytic converters on backup generators, alternative energy technologies such as photovoltaics, heat pumps, and evaporative cooling, and so on. However, cost savings do come in the form of energy savings, reduced carbon footprint, datacenter virtualization, lower operating and maintenance costs, and reduced environmental impact.

With several service providers offering effective green datacenter solutions, enterprises can now easily realize their objective of a healthy bottom line and a healthy environment. These service providers follow different methodologies to provide companies with solutions that are cost effective and sustainable.

Other Links

Information security

Application management service

Making Data Center Virtualization Work for Your Business

Virtualization technology is rapidly becoming the foundation of modern data centers. Not long ago, virtualization was all about server consolidation. Virtualization today is enabling businesses with greater agility. Before considering a virtualization project for your data center, it is important to first confirm if your facility can even handle the transition.

With data center virtualization, there is a direct impact is on the expenses and on wasted processing power and leans towards creating a green datacenter. There is no need to create a huge datacenter, just install powerful virtualized servers or running a huge number of servers can make a difference. Virtualization is an ideal tool for data center improvement. But if not designed and built correctly, newly virtualized systems can cost the company time and resources, creating confusion among departments. That is why it is important to take the time during the planning stage to look critically at your IT environment.

When implemented correctly, data center virtualization establishes valuable efficiencies and that can help contain costs. In a virtual IT environment, it helps businesses to increase utilization of their existing hardware by running virtual servers on fewer, highly scalable enterprise-class servers. Use of a virtualized datacenter tackles major space constraint in many organizations. Control costs, increase utilization, more responsive IT green initiatives. While the benefits of virtualization can sound impressive, getting there may present challenges without adequate planning. Many datacenter virtualization solutions ensure competency in hardware requirements, by enabling an organization to utilize lesser hardware to perform the same jobs.

To ensure that datacenter virtualization in your business is a success, ensuring security is critical. As with any implementation, the virtualized environment should follow the same stringent security controls as a physical one.  A good virtualization plan is tied to a good storage plan. Backup is highly essential.  Virtualization is growing because it can provide business continuity capabilities. Any Virtualization solution should provide a flexible architecture and the tools needed to help you manage capacity and include load balancing to ensure performance and fast response times and redundancy.  With datacenter virtualization, it is possible for enterprises to centralize IT management, outsource IT management and reduce the size of IT departments.

Datacenter virtualization empowers the IT department with tools for resource scheduling, data protection, and disaster recovery. It can help enhance your infrastructure performance. Team up with the best service provider with a service desk support who can combine security and reliability to accomplish an enabled enterprise.

Other Links
Managed security services
Network consulting services

Identity Access Management Critical in Today’s Unstable Business Environment

Today’s business environment is highly competitive, complex, and volatile. This has put tremendous pressure on organizations to increase their accessibility to customers, partners, vendors, suppliers, and employees. Hence, enterprises are deploying an ever-increasing number of applications with multiple, often mutually incompatible, proprietary identity systems, or security models, inconsistent management of identities and different auditing mechanisms. However, in their haste to enhance their accessibility they forget to look at the security aspects, which leads to inefficiencies, increased risk of identity theft and unauthorized access, and failure to meet regulatory compliance.

In today's work environment, passwords and password resets are one of the most widely used measures to ensure information security. A recent research showed that on an average each employee accesses around 16 applications and systems. And as part of the security measure, each employee has to remember five or more passwords, which the employee has to change five or more times per year. It results in multiple repositories of identity information, multiple user IDs and multiple passwords. 

However, the fact of the matter is most employees finding it impossible to manage multiple identities. This is proved by the number of password related calls that help desk receives. Moreover, juggling multiple identities lead to chaos and confusion, which is put to good use by the criminals. This calls for a comprehensive and focused approach that would enhance efficiency, achieve compliance, and improve the security of the organizations. That is what identity and access management offers to do.

Identity and access management helps organizations to manage access to scattered information and applications within the organization without compromising security or exposing sensitive information. Hence, identity and access management can be defined as a set of policies, processes, and technologies for the creation, management, and use of digital identities. The objective of identity access management is to provide right access to the right people at the right time. It comprises of four important aspects namely

●        Authentication

It is the process of verifying and proving the claims of an identity for gaining access to an application system or resource.

●        Authorization

It is the determination whether to allow an identity to perform an action or access a system or resource.

●        User Management

It refers to the process of creating, propagating, and maintaining user identity and privileges. An important component of user management is user lifecycle management, which refers to the lifecycle of a digital identity from creation to termination.

●        Enterprise Directory

It is the repository for securely storing and organizing the digital identities and its credentials and attributes.

In today’s unstable business environment, identity access management is important to secure the organization and to protect confidential and personal data and thereby achieve compliance, business growth, operational efficiency, and cost savings.

Other Links

Datacenter virtualization

Service desk

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.

 

Other Links

Green datacenter

Datacenter virtualization

Making Green Datacenters for Future

Today majority of enterprises are executing green strategies by recycling archaic IT products known as e-waste and by bringing down energy consumption. As more and more organizations are willing to put in green constituents for technology services and goods, IT vendors today need to stay updated about energy conservation tactics to procure more business. Businesses that already have a systematic Green IT strategy in place have a greater chance to consider green initiatives into the IT vendor selection process than others.

Recent trend updates reveal that Green IT initiatives will continue to become a priority for global enterprises as more companies are rising up to the cause of having a better and greener working environment.

The concept of Green Datacenters

In line with Green IT initiatives, at the Green Grid Forum held in March 2012 various enterprises hosting social networks and digital marketplaces highlighted their attempts in establishing green datacenters. Datacenters today use more than 2 percent of the overall electricity. In U.S approximately half the electricity is produced by burning coal. The increasing usage of datacenter energy will lead to an increase in greenhouse gas emissions till the time we can match the processing data storage growth from fossil fuel pollution.

Market research estimates that the data stored and processed will keep on expanding and that too quickly. The number is predicted to expand by 35 zettabytes by 2020. Hence, it is an imperative today to focus on data center efficiency and renewable power usage.

Green Data Center Solutions

Eminent IT service providers have come up with efficient Green Datacenter solutions that follow a phased methodology. These solutions are cost-effective and offer sustainability to business operations and guarantee a positive bottom-line for an organization. The phases are as follows:-

● Assessment Phase

This phase sets up a baseline of energy usage and carbon footprint of the existing environment using an assessment framework which is used to audit the environment. After this there is a Gap analysis and Feasibility study done for recognizing transformational initiatives, performing impact analysis and assessing the cost structure.

● Planning and Design Phase

This phase helps in setting up an elaborate roadmap for certain Green IT initiatives such as DC optimization, procurement, recycling, financial and resource planning.

● Implementation Phase

This phase chooses and executes specific technologies for Datacenter Virtualization, virtualization, IT infrastructure management, power and cooling management and many more.

However, when it comes to Green IT initiatives and developing Green Datacenters a lot depends upon people’s attitude and their changing mindset. It is also the individual enterprise choice whether or not to make their operations and working environment green that counts.

Other Links

Managed security services

IT help desk

Efficient IT Service Management Practices on the Cloud

The latest trend in the IT environment is cloud computing. The employment of advanced technologies to expedite efficiencies and leverage performances has been an expensive decision. The current environment is very competitive and you have to show profound capabilities by increasing productivity without increasing the costs. Now this is a very rough terrain and you will encounter risks and challenges often that can derail your operation. The only way to tame these challenges and make enriching gains is by employing the cloud computing services.

The cloud computing technology helps you deliver services faster and securely helping in meeting the customer expectations and increasing the satisfaction levels. It provides you with prompt and real-time updates thus facilitating you to take critical business decisions. The cloud model deploys strategies that increase the visibility of the processes and grants you improved controls to maximize the revenue earning potentials. It also provides integration capabilities that increase collaboration and optimization of the processes. All the services are delivered on a secure network and wasteful processes are eliminated which helps in curbing the costs.

It is advisable to seek assistance from professionals that offer the cloud computing services as they have the expertise and knowledge to employ best practices that will bear effective results. The professionals help in deploying an automatic and streamlined application hosting and management process that leverages efficiency. The processes can be customized to meet the requirements of your business.

The cloud computing service providers extend complete support with 24/7 server monitoring service without any interruptions. All network latency issues are resolved effectively to ensure consistent connectivity. The processes that are deployed are as per the ITIL standards and you are furnished with comprehensive, integrated and intelligent IT service management operations. The processes are simplified and easy to use which provides you with an enriching experience. The helpdesk service facilitates you to login, create requests, reports incidents, resolve issues, track your request and review the status easily. The cloud provides you with quick responses that saves your time and costs.

The online environment consistently feeds you with information about the latest changes in the market.  You have to be alert and ensure that you absorb the relevant information for making modifications in your processes to enjoy better yields. The IT platform must be uncomplicated and flexible so that the people, processes and technology can be merged into a collaborative unit for earning more profits.

Other Links

Datacenter virtualization

Green datacenter

 

Maintaining the Conjugal Alliance between IT and Business with Business Service Management

The IT landscape is no longer a quick fix technological patch for rectifying defects. Its foray into the business world has revealed its significance. The business persona has undergone vivid transformations ever since IT has been at the helm. Today IT has to be aligned with your business rather than be a mere technological setup to add values to your business operations and provide powerful support in every aspect. You need tools that help nurture the marriage between IT and your business.

You need IT tools that serve as business service management tools for critical assessment of the tools of your business, the people and processes involved, aligning the business processes and deploying them as service-oriented tools. The process helps in prioritization of IT projects with high business values and provides solutions that help in achieving the business goals. It provides opportunities for optimization of IT data and processes for leveraged business performances. It ensures that the critical applications are restored without any wastage of time.

The adoption of the BSM process helps in enhanced revenues, reduced costs and risks. You can improve the performance of your business with the BSM tools by analyzing the customer experiences and the efficiency of the business processes. The tools help you to manage your complex business transactions easily. It increases visibility and makes you aware of the progress. The BSM tools provide comprehensive and integrated and secure monitoring, analytical and configuration solutions that deliver high quality performances.

The BSM methodology provides proactive insights which helps in averting any unexpected emergencies and huge losses. It has the capability to render large and impressive impacts on your business. It delivers productive infrastructure management processes through efficiently managed network services. Since the business management processes are deployed on the cloud it provides you an opportunity to benefit from the remote infrastructure management facilities. The services are quick and simple to deploy which helps in reducing costs.

Efficient managed security services are imposed that help in managing the risks effectively. The deployment of a proficient identity and access management process ensures that all unauthorized entries are identified and dealt with severity.

The business service management model ensures a high rate of predictability so that your business does not encounter unpleasant experiences and suffer losses. It provides a platform for an integrated and collaborative management of your IT applications. It supports your business with best practices that help in achieving the objectives without any disruptions. The business service management tools provide a conducive platform for an effective collaboration between IT and your business.

Other Links

System Integration

Datacenter virtualization

 

Tips for a Successful Data Center Virtualization

Virtualization brings the potential to deliver dramatic savings in terms of server count, footprint, power consumption and cooling requirements for data centers. Data center virtualization encompasses a range of virtualization activities aimed at creating a virtualized computing environment, such as for use in cloud computing, within a data center. Here are some tips to ensure a successful data center virtualization

Leverage your existing investment

Most enterprises think that the implementation of a virtualization infrastructure will be expensive or very difficult to achieve. A virtualization platform can be simple to put into place. Find out the servers you already have to actually centralize and virtualize in your Data Center, so that server virtualization can be increased.  

• Consider the cost

Analyze the current and future costs.  The biggest cost in many data centers is the power to actually run the data center. By means of virtualization technologies, it is possible to cut your Data Center operating costs reducing the number of servers in operation. You can enable power management features, replace old disk and tape technologies with new equipment that increases capacity and saves power. 

• Ascertain what can to be virtualized

Although many packaged applications support Virtualization, there are few that don’t. Carefully examine which of your software and hardware platforms are supported and which might require upgrading before rolling out Virtualization.

• Plan and prepare for growth

Take care to ensure your Virtualization solution accommodates your long-term capacity and performance needs, as there is always the possibility of your requirements growing over time. Performance requirements are bound to increase along with the increase in capacity. The solution you choose must scale non-disruptively so as not to cause downtime and user disruption and also keep management costs down.

• Analyze management plans and instruct staff.

It is important to determine whether your staff has the skills to support Virtualization. Ensure that your consolidation solution accommodates increasing complexity without requiring a larger staff to manage it.

• Tackle Security

IT pros must secure virtual machines as they do physical machines and take extra steps to ensure the virtual environment is locked down. "Technology and disciplines for discovery, configuration, change management and more become critical to detecting virtual malware.

• A good storage plan is vital

A good virtualization plan is tied to a god storage plan. Backup is highly essential.  Virtualization is growing is because it can provide business continuity capabilities. Any Virtualization solution should provide a flexible architecture and the tools needed to help you manage capacity and include load balancing to ensure performance and fast response times and redundancy.  

The major benefit in datacenter virtualization is that it has almost direct impact is on the expenses and on wasted processing power and leans towards creating a green datacenter. With datacenter virtualization there is no need for additional physical consolidation and replicated storage of source data. It becomes quicker to build and lower the cost to operate when compared to data-warehouse-only system integration approaches.

 Other Links

Server monitoring service

Green IT