Posts Tagged ‘datacenter’

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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 »

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Can the Cloud Help You Drive Down Business Costs?

Tuesday, March 29th, 2011

There are two ways to increase your company’s revenue and boost the bottom line. You can excel at winning new clients and make additional sales to increase revenues. Or you can cut costs. Ideally, most businesses will look for a combination of the two. Cloud computing can help to accomplish this.

Cloud computing allows you to take advantage of hardware and software as a service. Rather than buying the equipment and making space for a server room – and, of course, hiring an IT staff dedicated to maintaining that equipment – your company can backup data offsite without sacrificing its availability. With a secure infrastructure, password-protected access, and optimized resources in a managed cloud solution, you can be sure that the data you need is available when you need it.

Similarly, with software as a service, cloud computing makes it easy for your staff to access email, documents, data, and reports on the go – all via a secure, web-based login. Whether traveling for a client meeting, working with a team in another location, or telecommuting, the cloud can ensure that your staff are working as effectively as if they were in the office.

Additionally, this sort of mobile access allows company executives and staff to handle everything from inventory tracking to project management to customer relationship management from the office and on the road. Security can be managed easily, and maintaining the equipment doesn’t require additional space or additional staff.

In other words, when you take your business to the cloud – whether for hardware or software as a service (or a combination of the two) – you will find that you are able to increase the access that your staff have to information that they need – allowing them to excel and drive sales. You’ll also discover that your staffing and equipment needs decrease. As a result, you will find that you are able to:

* Maximize the return on your IT investments
* Increase utilization of your current IT technology
* Enhance the lifespan of existing server equipment
* Integrate data storage and access from a variety of platforms

Increasing your company’s capabilities will allow you to keep pace with your competitors. Decreasing costs will allow you to budget effectively; turning to the cloud allows you to devote resources to product development rather than to maintaining your company’s IT.

By turning to the cloud with the help of a solution provider like IBM, you will be able to ensure that your resources are as efficient as possible, reduce the risks of turning to the cloud by relying on a secure infrastructure, and – ultimately – reduce the costs associated with IT at your organization.

Posted in Uncategorized, virtualization | 60 Comments »

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Five Steps to Better Storage Management

Wednesday, November 17th, 2010

The challenge before most storage system administrators is pretty straightforward: where are you going to put your data? While the answer may seem obvious, think about the trends affecting your storage management environment. The amount of data being created is growing rapidly, and your company’s requirements are poised to skyrocket. Incremental datacenter changes won’t provide a real solution, especially if floor and rack space are already at a premium.

There is no simple solution for handling rapid data growth, but this doesn’t leave you without alternatives. You could use Hitachi Data Systems solutions, for example, to streamline your storage management operations through virtualization and use the five tips below to help you get started on a plan to adapt your datacenter:

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Posted in Archiving & Compliance | No Comments »

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Top Five Business Reasons to Implement Virtualization

Thursday, October 28th, 2010

It isn’t easy to manage a heterogeneous infrastructure. If your datacenter is packed with disparate systems and cross-platform integrations, you need to maintain a variety of skill sets in your IT department – and it could take multiple groups to identify and resolve problems with your infrastructure. It’s easy for even the most easily managed problems to become taxing for your organization. A virtualized infrastructure – using Citrix XenServer, for example – can take the sting out of cross-platform management.

It’s a business decision first, so here are the top five business reasons to move to a virtualized infrastructure:

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What Your Executives Need to Know about Unified Communications

Thursday, October 14th, 2010

Company leaders, especially CFOs, are right to be skeptical about any proposed IT investment. Unless you have roots in the datacenter, it can be tough to understand – and quantify – the benefit of a particular IT solution to the company. The gap in knowledge unfortunately means that CIOs and IT directors hear “no” too often, even if most of the rejections are prudent. Excellent opportunities are missed, and the problem is neither financial nor technical. Rather, it’s an issue of communication: IT leaders need to make their proposals easier to follow, especially when the overall business benefit is substantial.

This is especially true of unified communications solutions.

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Cope with a Leaner IT Budget through Corporate Social Responsibility

Wednesday, September 22nd, 2010

We all know what’s going to happen when the CFO’s office calls … it’s time to trim some “fat” from your budget, even if you don’t have any left to cut. If you’re faced with this challenge for your IT organization, you need to find a way to reduce operating expenses without impairing capabilities, which translates directly to improving operational efficiency.

There are plenty of solutions you can consider, but if you really want to extend the value of your IT investment, look into the streamlining effects of a greener datacenter. Beyond cutting costs without losing capabilities, you’ll contribute to the strength of your company’s brand through corporate social responsibility.

“Going green” and “saving green” go hand-in-hand. By reducing energy consumption, for example, you also can lower your energy costs. The preservation of the environment comes with an attendant preservation of capital. Having fewer servers in your datacenter leads to less waste disposal … and lower waste disposal expenses. Having less means spending less, and it also lowers your carbon footprint.

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Posted in Green IT | No Comments »

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Use Server Virtualization to Capture More Business Opportunities

Monday, September 20th, 2010

Did you know that virtualizing your server infrastructure could help your sales team? It’s no secret that there are some pretty clear business advantages to server virtualization, but it isn’t always easy to trace it directly to sales gains and client management. Think about how your clients interact with your sales force and customer care teams, though, and you’ll realize pretty quickly that the performance and reliability of your servers can affect your brand – which contributes to new and repeat sales.

Existing clients tend to be your best source of new sales. After all, it’s easier to use an established relationship to drive additional purchases than it is to break into a new account. So, “net-new” is extremely valuable and hard to achieve. To bring new business in the door, you’ll have to show that you can provide an excellent client experience, whether they engage your systems directly or indirectly (such as through a call center, with the rep using the systems to support a client transaction). In this regard, the IT department can affect the performance of the business as a whole.

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What You Need to Know about Cloud Computing

Monday, September 13th, 2010

Is cloud computing right for you? Maybe a private cloud? This virtualization-based approached to infrastructure management isn’t short on potential, but many IT professionals could use a bit more insight into how it works before committing to a cloud solution. As with any technology, there are advantages and disadvantages. Let’s take a look at whether cloud computing is right for your company … and what type.

Accountability versus Control
If you need complete control over your environment – but still want the advantages afforded by cloud computing – a private cloud computing environment is probably the most effective approach. It provides the flexibility and agility of a cloud environment, but without requiring that you rely on a third party completely.

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Cut Your IT Equipment Disposal Costs

Thursday, September 2nd, 2010

IT equipment, it seems, never stops hitting your budget. You need to buy it, implement it and maintain it. And, when you replace a server, monitor or workstation, you even need to pay to get rid of it. Take an environmentally friendly approach to managing your datacenter, and you gain the advantage of lower equipment disposal costs. Virtualization is the key: a virtualized infrastructure requires less equipment, which leads to lower costs at the end of a piece’s useful life.

With virtualization, the advantage is pretty straightforward: less is more. Since you can make resources portable across systems in your datacenter, you’re able to avoid the trap of over-provisioning, which has long been seen as a necessary expense to maintain system reliability and performance in the face of uncertain end-user demand and market conditions. The implications of consolidated servers manifest themselves in a number of ways, most of which are recognized on the buy side: datacenter flexibility can be used to reduce purchases. Disposition, on the other hand, tends to be overlooked.

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Compliance, Disaster Recovery and Cost Containment

Monday, August 30th, 2010

This is the three-part goal of any storage management operation. You have to comply with relevant regulations, be prepared to bring our company back to normal following a catastrophe and do it all while spending as little money as possible. This is possible … all of it. You just need to find the opportunities for improving efficiency throughout your storage infrastructure. Storage virtualization can make the difference.

Perhaps the greatest myth bout regulatory compliance in the IT department is that it entails a substantial unavoidable cost. Execute your datacenter compliance measures prudently, in fact, and you could actually realize a cost savings. This is especially true of disaster recovery systems and processes, where reliable and fast solutions that are easy to manage can keep expenses down, if not deliver an actual reduction in TCO.

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