Archive for the ‘Application Delivery & Optimization’ Category

Simplify Installing a Server Center While Growing Your Business

Thursday, April 28th, 2011

Secure data storage is essential for most businesses – whether the data is related to sales figures, customer information, client records, or something else altogether. While many business owners look for data storage from dedicated server centers, many recognize that there are benefits to maintaining a small – or large – server room of their own.

Setting up a dedicated data center can be challenging. It’s important to think about the racks that will house the server units. Ensuring that every unit has adequate power is crucial – and being certain that the equipment will not overheat is critical as well. Factor in the need for scalability, the importance of having software that’s easy to use that will help you monitor the data center, the amount of system security required, and the need to maximize up-time, and installing servers can seem daunting.

It doesn’t have to be.

Whether you are installing servers, storage devices, and networking equipment for the first time or are expanding your current setup, there is one tool available that can simplify the process. APC’s InfraStruxure will allow you to meet all of the requirements that your IT team has established. You’ll be able to reduce costs, increase efficiency and availability, and reduce the amount of power necessary to keep your equipment running. More than that you will be able to ensure that you have a system that’s scalable – whether you’re just creating a server environment or you’re expanding the storage and availability of an existing data center.

No matter what field your business is in, efficiency and reliability are top priorities when creating a data center. Similarly, regardless of your industry, it seems safe to assume that you’re looking to keep costs low. Knowing that you’re able to scale your data center to meet your needs and easily manage your servers, storage devices, and networking equipment lets you get the most out the system you establish – allowing you to focus on what’s more important: keeping your business running smoothly.

Posted in Application Delivery & Optimization, Uncategorized | 212 Comments »

Tags: , , , ,

Scalable Storage Systems – How and why healthcare organizations are embracing them

Wednesday, February 16th, 2011

When most people think about the need for scalable data storage, they think about traditional manufacturing or cloud computing. But there’s another industry that requires flexible solutions for storing data: the healthcare industry. Hospitals, small and large medical practices, and even healthcare records storage facilities all have an increasing need to access and share data. The challenge is that, until recently, there haven’t been many options available.

Whether for the sake of storing more digital x-rays or MRI results so that they can be easily shared between the radiologist’s facility and other healthcare providers or backing up patient files, data storage is critical. The selected system needs to be reliable. Similarly, the system needs to be able to support a variety of data types, development on and access by a variety of operating systems, and to function within a variety of server environments. Records need to be secure, and both structured and unstructured data must be supported. Finally, in order to keep costs down, IT departments are looking for highly efficient systems to use for data storage that are able to operate with peak of performance without being a power drain.

Healthcare IT needs to be consistently innovative in order to ensure that needs continue to be met. Do away with their existing storage assets or risking downtime in order to upgrade systems is not only wasteful but also creates the potential for system downtime. To prevent this, VAAI – vStorage APIs for Array Integration – is a consideration as it provides a unique interface that takes the complexity out of operating VMware infrastructure.

If you’re looking to improve on a healthcare data storage system, this is one reason to look to the Hitachi VSP – the Hitachi Virtual Storage Platform – which has been certified for VAAI. Combined with the Hitachi Command Suite storage management tool, the VSP is able to leverage an organization’s existing industry standard storage devices. This is one of the three levels of scaling referenced when you read about the platform’s 3-D scaling – the ability to scale deep with multivendor storage. The other two dimensions are “up” – taking advantage of consolidating host servers – and scaling out to increase capacity.

By making it possible to continue using existing data storage environments and improving the way in which data is accessed, it’s possible to improve performance and drastically reduce costs – even in fields like healthcare where needs change frequently.

Posted in Application Delivery & Optimization | No Comments »

Tags: , , , ,

Five Steps to Improved Desktop Management

Friday, January 21st, 2011

Efficient and effective desktop computing management is among the toughest jobs in the IT department. Business users often take liberties with their PCs and laptops. Sometimes, it’s in the name of operational expediency, though there are cases where personal preference is the underlying reason. Good intentions or not, non-standard software and undisciplined internet use can create complex and time-consuming support issues for the desktop team.

Unsurprisingly, desktop management is an easy place to cut IT costs, given that the problems typically encountered are utterly preventable: you just need to take appropriate action. Here are five steps you can follow to improve desktop management operations (particularly through desktop virtualization), reduce risk and lower your IT overhead:

1. Be serious about policy: develop, publicize (internally) and explain your desktop technology policy. Make sure your users understand the risks of deviating, and provide plenty of examples. Be clear that the policy is important and that the implications of desktop problems are far from trivial.

2. Open a dialogue: understand why your end users have ignored past policies. Try to accommodate them going forward: sometimes, IT expediency comes at the expense of legitimate business need. Don’t forget that the business comes first.

3. Centralize your desktops: use a virtual desktop infrastructure, such as Citrix XenDesktop, to bring desktop management into the datacenter. You’ll be able to automate policies, which makes enforcement easier and meaningful.

4. Show results: demonstrate to senior management, with a pilot program, how effective a virtual desktop infrastructure can be in cost reduction and employee productivity support. Bring data that demonstrates how it delivers on business and IT operational efficiency.

5. Communicate: virtualization and IT policy are not front-of-mind for your business users and executives. Take the time to explain how these initiatives will affect them, and make sure you show tem how their needs will be addressed directly.

Posted in Application Delivery & Optimization | No Comments »

Tags:

Four Signs It’s Time for Application Virtualization

Monday, October 25th, 2010

There’s always room to streamline your application management processes. Traditional approaches tend to be cumbersome and time-consuming, and they leave openings for risks such as non-standard software installation and suboptimal access control. Application virtualization solutions such as Citrix XenDesktop and XenApp can be used to remedy many of these problems, and the TCO and ROI cases are well established.

But, when it’s time to present your plan to move to a virtualized application environment to the executive team, you need specifics – it has to be clear that there are direct and tangible benefits to application virtualization that can be realized fairly quickly. Start by looking at your existing operation for indicators that it’s time to virtualize. Here are four to get you started.

(more…)

Posted in Application Delivery & Optimization | No Comments »

Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Virtual Desktops: Get Past the Three Main Barriers

Thursday, September 30th, 2010

There are plenty of reasons to move to a virtual desktop infrastructure, and there’s no shortage of information on the benefits of centralized desktop control and management. It only makes sense that solutions like VMware View can streamline your IT operation, especially when you’re planning a major project, such as a Windows 7 migration.

So, why aren’t more companies doing it? What are the barriers to a virtual desktop infrastructure rollout?

Of course, a major infrastructure change isn’t easy to accomplish – even the decision-making process takes a while. Even though the business case is clear, there are a number of reasons why some organizations are hesitating to move forward with desktop virtualization.

Below are the three main challenges to VDI adoption, as well as ways to overcome them:

(more…)

Posted in Application Delivery & Optimization, virtualization | 8 Comments »

Tags: , , , ,

Bring Expectations in Line with Reality

Thursday, August 19th, 2010

End users and customers sometimes have unrealistic expectations. They expect applications to respond immediately and resource-intensive processes to be completed at the blink of an eye. The real world doesn’t work this way, of course. But, it’s worth asking yourself if there is a place in the middle. Are you leaving some performance opportunities on the table?

The network always gets the blame when end users are forced to click and wait. It’s intuitive for them to think the pipes are the cause, because they stand between the user and the application. The real bottleneck, however, could be further upstream. Before digging into your network to see if there are ways to improve performance, you need to make sure you’re looking in the right place. There’s a chance your applications – not the network – are the real reason for your users’ frustrations.

(more…)

Posted in Application Delivery & Optimization | 12 Comments »

Tags: , , , , , ,

Does Application Performance Put Your Brand at Risk?

Monday, August 2nd, 2010

Fight the initial temptation to think only about customer-facing applications. What happens inside your company can still have an impact on your interaction with the public, making it a contributing factor how your brand is perceived. Slow applications, even those that are only experienced directly by your employees, can result in lost opportunities, substandard customer experiences and a frustration that can drive them to your competitors.

The scenarios are both familiar and predictable. We’ve all spent time on the phone with a customer service rep and heard some version of: “Please bear with me. The computers are just really slow today.” An awkward period follows, consisting either small-talk attempts that fall flat or an uncomfortable silence. For self-service applications, you don’t have to worry about how to keep a customer entertained, but you do risk losing a frustrated customer who has no interest in waiting for a system to respond.

(more…)

Posted in Application Delivery & Optimization | No Comments »

Tags: , , , , , ,

The Real Cost of Slow Applications

Thursday, July 22nd, 2010

Employees complain about application speed. It chews up your time and frustrates you, especially when there is little you can do to fix the situation without making major infrastructure changes. There is a real implication, though, and it can affect your business significantly. Slow applications can impede customer interaction, constrain employee productivity and ultimately lead to missed business opportunities. To add to your top line and widen margins, you need to keep application performance robust.

It all comes down to beating the “waiting game.”

(more…)

Posted in Application Delivery & Optimization | No Comments »

Tags: , , ,