Enjoy Strategic Business Benefits with Advanced Data Center Virtualization

Virtualization technologies are rapidly becoming the foundation of modern data centers as IT managers seek dramatic improvements in resource and operational efficiencies as well as responsiveness to business needs. It is considered a key enabler for consolidation, but it has the potential to play a much larger role in the quest towards Green Information Technology (IT), and has become one of the important data center technologies to emerge in the last decade.

Data center virtualization includes an assortment of virtualization actions intended to create a virtualized computing environment, such as for use in cloud computing, within a data center. The most common implementation of virtualization to date supports business scenarios like consolidation (primary objective), business continuity/disaster recovery, test and development, and security. However, virtualization is much more than simply consolidating physical servers and cutting data-center costs. The technology has far-reaching impacts, from optimum resource utilization at one end to substantial savings in energy, power, and management costs at the other.

Data center virtualization creates more dynamic data centers with frequent configuration changes. Regardless of its specific goals, any organization that employs a Datacenter Server Virtualization Lifecycle Services can achieve dramatic results and benefits like:

Strategic Business Benefits like agility & flexible from

* Automated IT processes

* Available resource pools

* Capacity on-demand

* Datacenter Operational Support

Virtualization encourages efficient power management, thus ensuring a Green Data Center. It also facilitates easy access to data. With data center virtualization, many professionals have extensive mobility in their activity, and they don’t need to travel with many equipments and can access important files without a problem. With data being gathered and available from a central environment, better collaboration between employees, clients and stakeholders is made possible. It also brings about plenty of savings with reduced costs, as it eliminates the licensing for software. With the costs associated with data backups and IT specialists’ expenses, there is a reduction in IT overhead as well.

Due to better use of infrastructure, there is increased operational system efficiency and simplified management. Employees are no longer restricted to work from their desktops, as they can work from any place that has an Internet connection and any web enabled device thereby improving productivity and efficiency levels.

The benefits of virtualization can sound impressive, but lack of adequate planning can present a number of challenges. Partner with a service provider who offer several conventional network consulting services that aid in virtualizing servers, networks, desktops and storage to enjoy optimum benefits.

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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.

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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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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.

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Managed Security Services: Simplifying security operations for global organizations

Today's global organizations are so dependent on technology for their communication, that the IT infrastructure and computer networks form the backbone of its growth. However, with offices and customers spread across geographically distant locations, security of critical data and information becomes a cause of concern while managing such vast networks turns into a herculean task. To overcome such hurdles in the path of growth, organizations thus tend to outsource these functions to experts in the field of network security and management.

With the rise in demands for IT outsourcing and security enterprise and asset management, number of IT organizations have forayed into providing network security. However, the leaders in the field of managed security services provide their clientele significant cost reduction and business benefits through the use of advanced management tools and remote delivery models.

The managed security services offered by the IT giants include cutting edge networking solutions which have been developed through the design-implement-consult-engineering model for optimizing and managing the network, both local area and wide area, besides the unified communications IPT and VoIP. In today's business scenario, when global expansions and technological innovations are the focal point to beat the competition, there is little room for information security of enterprises. The managed security service partners takes of this issue for the global enterprises.

The security services include information security monitoring both on-site and remote. The 24/7 security monitoring services alerts the organization of any security threats that are prevalent in and around the infrastructure environment. Further the security devices installed in the locations includes firewalls, network and host IDS/IPs, VPN, proxy as well as multifactor access controls. The managed end-point security services takes care of virus and malware monitoring and prevention of its outbreak in the network environment. With regular signature updates and compliance management, it uses various tools to provide organizations with fundamental control of security status.

Anti phishing being one of the major threats faced by the modern global organizations, these leading network giants under their managed security services offer anti-phishing services which provides the clients with comprehensive solutions to mitigate the impact of phishing incidents. By monitoring proactive domains and phishing URLs, reporting and forensic analysis, ensures reduction in brand damage and maintains customers trust in the networked channels. The anti-malware services enables website administrators of the organizations a constant vigilance of security breach. The web application malware monitoring along with malicious code sandbox analysis and forensic and malware reporting helps organizations to know beforehand and be prepared before the websites are used for malware attacks.

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Innovative Cloud Computing Services

As the world is preparing for various advancements in computer technology, Josh Butikofer, Adaptive Computing’s Chief Solutions Architect puts forward his views for the development and future of cloud computing for 2012. Some of his predictions include the following:-

● The industry will shift from pilots and POC’s to transformational private clouds 
● There might be shake outs amidst cloud vendors, especially smaller organizations 
● Asia Pacific region would emerge as a successor in cloud implementations 
● Cloud bursting will reappear

Along with datacenter activities such as datacenter consolidation and virtualization, the modern day business scenario has led to other computing trends as well. With the added financial pressures that businesses are witnessing, it is expected that there will be true production roll-outs across major financial services organizations in 2012. Between, 2010-11 there were a number of Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) clouds executed to experiment with the amount of workload that a data center can migrate.

Transformational clouds are set up to shift the entire data center progressively into cloud. This is going to be one of the most pertinent trends that will emerge in 2012. This is more so the case, as organizations are gradually realizing that the time for evaluation is over. Enterprises thus are going to act fast in order to save million dollars per year.

Therefore, major IT players have been acting upon these trends. With Green IT also being one of the prime concerns of 2012 IT companies specializing in cloud computing services are working hard to develop themselves as a cloud computing partner. Services offered by these enterprises help their customers to adopt Cloud by carrying out assessment services on workloads and transferring them to appropriate Cloud environments, such as Private, Public or Hybrid. The cloud computing services portfolio includes the following:-

Strategy
● Cloud Strategy Development 
● Infrastructure & Workload assessment

Assessment
● Risk and compliance assessment 
● Process-IT service assessment 
● Design & System integration of private cloud  
● EPaaS (Platform as a Service) & IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service)

Implementation & Migration
● Application migration services 
● Multi-vendor ITIL process implementation 
● Risk and Compliance control implementation

Monitoring, Management & Support
● Cloud Service Management Platform 
● Monitoring and Management 
● Service catalog, dashboard, reporting

Leading service providers in cloud computing services has a global partner ecosystem that comprises ISV’s, OEM’s and Public cloud vendors. These partnerships enable users to realize the best value and return they make in Cloud investments. Furthermore, this partnership also facilitates Hybrid cloud environments for users making the best use of the present investments. At the same time, it offers effortless management of cloud and legacy infrastructure. 

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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.

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Global sourcing needs of its customers through its Co-Sourcing model

The increase in the dependency levels of the business organizations on the information technology has made organizations ready to face the aggressive competitive markets. However, such increased dependency has moved IT from being a support function to a vital business factor in most industry segments. Further, to maintain their flexibility in IT functions organizations have taken the route of outsourcing most of the functions. The movement from the traditional support structure to the critical component of all business process has made it difficult for organizations to plan out their long-term budget, as one cannot always assess the cost of innovation.

Contemplating the problems arising from such situations, the leaders in the field of IT services have designed methods to fulfil the global sourcing needs of their customers through a process which would benefit both the clients as well as the service provider. Co-sourcing is a business practice wherein the external service provider in collaboration with the members of the client organization performs the service. This process earns an advantage over the outsourcing model in that it minimizes the risks linked with outsourcing, brings in transparency, control and clarity over the process co-sourced.

The Co-sourcing model of IT outsourcing which is based on a partnership between the customer and the service provider, offers the clients the flexibility in choosing the service delivery options ranging from asset light to cloud based services to business ready infrastructure to support SaaS platforms. Further, the co-sourcing partners are also well equipped to provide the clientele with setting up shared or dedicated delivery centers instead of opting for IT infrastructure outsourcing. Co-sourcing model can also include the process of outsourcing part of software development or software maintenance activities to an external organization, while some development in-house.

This would actually give both the organizations a better insight into the process. Based on the fundamental aspects of transparency, flexibility and value addition, the Co-Sourcing model with its striking difference from the traditional IT outsourcing one is today a vital part of the success oriented business strategies. This approach of IT outsourcing provides a number of benefits to the organizations. With an increased coverage and a decreased overhead cost, this process turns a fixed cost model into a variable cost one. Further, in a highly competitive business environment, this model helps customers provide global solutions with flexibility for capacity management and lesser load on employment liability.

Some of the co-sourcing models adapted by business houses are managed security services, Smart Service Desk Solutions, Virtual Support and Project Management Practice.

 

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Network Security Is The Backbone Of Organizational Growth

Global organizations with the help of the Internet and the technological innovations have created a network of enterprises that are geographically separated but closely knit. With computers and technology becoming an integral part of everyday business operations, information and critical data are dependent on technology for its storage and transfer to various locations. However, with this fast method of information sharing comes the fear of data loss.

In a networked organization, the security of data and information is based on its network security. Network security which is complicated has been from historical times been handled by experts who managed network services. With the business expansion, an everyday scenario in most business establishments, new members get wired on everyday. Hence, a clear understanding of the information security services is required for managing the network security.

Wikipedia defines network -as any set of interlinking lines resembling a net, an interconnected system, or a network of alliances. A computer network then can be defined as a system of interconnected computers, wherein the interconnections can be in a number of ways. Networks are subjected to attacks from malicious sources. These attacks can either be passive (intercepted in the network) or active (initiated) to disrupt the networks operations.   When large volume of mission critical data is transferred and communicated through these networks, its security is a matter of grave concern.

Network security being the backbone of organizational growth, the process starts by authenticating the user with a username and a password. Authentication can be based on a single factor or multiple factors.  The password is an example of a single -factor authentication system. The authentication paves way for a firewall to be put in force that states the policies to access the network by the users. Effective for an unauthorized access, these firewalls fail to check the virus such as computer worms and Trojans that enter the network. Under such circumstances, the organizations tend to make use of antivirus software and intrusion preventive systems to detect intrusions. For cases like denial-of-service - a network threat, an anomaly-based intrusion detection system will be effective in monitoring the network. Further, encryption of the communication between tow hosts is done to maintain privacy and safety.

Leaders in network consulting services, also make use of honeypots to decoy the network accessible resources. These managed security services provider offer real-time protection to the organizations and reduces the risks involved in an ever-changing threat environment. A techno centric focus, proactive security posture, a flexible delivery model and a balanced approach, by these security service providers ensures that the enterprises are safe from cyber threats, malware infections, phishing attack and web application attacks besides being regulatory compliant to global standards.

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Service Desk is the Nerve Center for Business IT

The IT service desk is an important limb of your business. A centralized and efficient service desk operation helps in saving costs and provides effective control with an integrated and comprehensive business operation. Ideally the IT service desk furnishes a rich and updated knowledgebase of issues that are faced commonly by the users while trying to find resolutions, creating requests, reporting incidents or reviewing the status of the requests that have already been submitted. This helps your business in identifying the relevant issue and applying the right solutions without wasting time.

The IT service desk is a supportive platform that assists in logging, tracking, resolving, and reporting of help desk incidents and service requests. It helps your business to maintain the quality of service provided to your customers by restoring the operations quickly without any severe damaging consequences. It provides notable service request management capabilities from the acceptance of a service request to prioritization, execution and a suitable conclusion.

The service desk operations also include dedicated services such as accelerated responses to the executive users. With a flawless IT service desk you can deliver awesome performances and gain the confidence of your customers. It helps in leveraging your business prospects and provides an impetus to achieve higher goals. Many businesses are inadequate in enforcing an efficient desktop management environment thereby increasing the costs and risks and rendering poor results.

You need to deploy managed desktop services that help in making your desktop environment cohesive, compact and secure. The managed desktop services provide a globally integrated service desk and include services like client application management, client support and asset management. The services are customized to suit the requirements of your business, and therefore yield productive results. An emphatic system integration between the tools, assets, resources and personnel is initiated which helps in developing a robust, flexible and optimized IT environment.

Nowadays you cannot rely on technologies that cannot provide you with precise and strategic solutions. There is no time to waste and you need tools that can deliver powerful and effective impacts. The managed desktop services help your business overcome all the challenges and aid in establishing a highly proficient and reliable IT environment without compromising on quality.  It strengthens the nerve center of your business by deploying best practices for a highly responsive and responsible service request management process. A prolific service desk operation rewards your business with promising returns and endless opportunities.

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