Entries tagged with infrastructure optimization - TechNet Edge

How System Center Helps Reduce IT Costs

Dave Morehouse — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 02:05:00 GMT

In this video, Jeff Wettlaufer begins to ramp up what will be happening at the Microsoft Management Summit this year in a chat with Brad Anderson, GM of the Management Services Division. They talk about System Center's role in reducing IT infrastructure costs and touch on desktop and server optimization, referring to some key documents that can be found on the Microsoft Core Infrastructure Optimization Web site (check it out!).

IT Manager Podcast #25 - Transforming your Organization

Rick Claus — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 08:01:00 GMT

In this episode of the IT Manager Podcast - I talk with the VP of Business Information Systems at the Canadian Chartered Accountants Association. Gabriel Vitus has taken his department through a strategic review and has transformed it into an equal partner with the other business units.

Gabriel talks about what his environment was like when the IT department was viewed as a black box and new project requests were single line descriptions. After the transformation, business leaders for all departments work together with the project management office to create a synchronized business project plan that is evaluated and prioritized by the leadership council. Gabriel closes with some important insight and recommendations for how you can start your own transformation within your organization.

More information about the IT Manager Podcast series can be found on the IT Manager Podcast web page.

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Identifying Opportunities to Reduce TCO with Cost Savings Analysis and Optimization Self-Assessment Tools

yung — Wed, 31 Dec 2008 18:39:00 GMT

Current economic downturn confronts us with a tremendous impact and unfavorable trend on worldwide IT budget and spending as shown on the chart and discussed in Simple Savvy Savings - 9 ideas to make anyone a Cost Cutting Hero by Tom Pisello, CEO, Alinean, Inc. More than ever companies are now looking for every opportunity to further cut costs and maintain competitiveness during these times of global economic instability. Nevertheless, the adversity also presents a very opportunity for us to accelerate and transform IT into a more mature, better managed, and highly optimized settings. Optimization is more than just delivering more with less. It is about managing complexities. It's about capabilities, responsiveness, and enablement. Defined optimization models and recommendations, and findings of average annual IT labor costs per PC, per year substantiate the claim of transforming IT from a cost-center burden into a strategic asset. (Reference: pages 8, 11, and 17 of this report, Taking the Lead: Gaining a Competitive Advantage Through Infrastructure and Platform Optimization) And in addition to the methodology and case studies, there are tools are to help us get started the transformation.

This cost savings analysis tool examines IT infrastructure and platform to identify cost savings opportunities focusing on:

Virtualization
Database Consolidation
Systems Management
Desktop Management /Standardization
Unified Communications
Collaboration

The tool generates a report with specific project recommendations that can be implemented to generate high-impact costs savings with minimal investment.The results can be refined to match specific details of the IT environment and local currency. The calculation is based on research by IDC, Forrester, WiPro and Alinean and the results include recommendations to projects which can be implemented to generate high-impact cost savings with minimal investment.

The Optimization Self-Assessment Tool on the other hand derives optimization score, peer comparison, and value assessment for your organization on core infrastructure, business productivity infrastructure, and application platform. The tool generates a comprehensive report that can serve as an actionable roadmap and incentive for optimizing your IT infrastructure and platform.

The passage is clear. Identify your goal, find out where you stand, make an informed decision, and thrive on the challenges. Above all, the time to start the process is now.

Realizing the ROI of Microsoft Virtualization Solutions and How to Start

yung — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 08:01:00 GMT

Ref: Microsoft virtualization cost saving whitepaper, the ROI tool and training

The referenced whitepaper presents case studies of Microsoft customers including:

	Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center	Costco Wholesale Corp
	Saint Raphael Healthcare System	Slough Borough Council
	Saxo Bank	WorleyParsons
	TALX	AspenTech
	HotSchedules	Banverket ICT
	Slough Borough Council	Maxol
	MaximumASP	Mantrac
	Kentucky Department of Education	Hostbasket
	Banque de Luxembourg	The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
	California State University	Jackson Energy Authority
	Kent School District	Bouygues Construction
	Volusia County Schools	Mamut

and examines how virtualization technology simplifies their IT infrastructure, streamlines IT processes, and ultimately reduces the total cost of ownership. Also included is information based on Microsoft's experience as below:

In my view, strategies in general to relatively quickly reduce IT infrastructure and support costs with virtualization solutions are, not in a particular order, to:

To transition existing IT into a hybrid environment mixed with physical and virtualized computing resources, server virtualization (i.e. server consolidation) often is where it starts. Running multiple instances in a single physical machine is not a new concept and many of us have already experienced with some host virtualization solutions like Virtual PC and Virtual Server.

To realize what your organization can benefit from Microsoft virtualization solutions,

Download the Microsoft Assessment and Planning Solution Accelerator to identify your best candidates for server consolidation.
Determine the reductions you can achieve in kilowatts, money and CO2 emissions with the Microsoft HyperGreen Tool.
Use the Microsoft Integrated Virtualization ROI Calculator to estimate your return on investment in Microsoft virtualization tools.

Essentially, first identify your best candidates for server consolidation with this free downloadable tool, Microsoft Assessment and Planning (MAP) Solution Accelerator. With its agent-less inventory, performance data gathering, and auto-generated proposal and report generation capabilities, MAP lets you conduct network-wide readiness assessments so you can quickly and efficiently determine the right servers to target for Hyper-V. After determined how many servers to consolidate, you can use the free Microsoft HyperGreen Tool to figure out how much energy you’ll save and the environmental impact of those savings. Simply plug in the number of servers you are going to consolidate, and HyperGreen generates a report detailing your reductions in kilowatts, money and CO2 emissions. And use the Microsoft Integrated Virtualization ROI Tool to estimate your return on investment in Microsoft virtualization solutions, including server, desktop and management. As our customers have shown, the results can be transformational.

Active Directory Group Policy Object (GPO) Delegation and Approval Workflow With AGPM 3.0 in MDOP 2008 R2

yung — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 08:01:00 GMT

In the TechNet Webcast: Microsoft Solutions for Windows Vista Management (Level 300), I will demo a number of capabilities includnig Microsoft Advanced Group Policy Management (AGPM) 3.0 for managing Vista desktops and Windows environment in general. AGPM 3.0 is one of the 5 components in Microsoft Desktop Optimization Pack for Software Assurance (MDOP) 2008 R2. AGPM enables the change-approval workflow of Group Policy Objects (GPOs) and is something I thought worth a special introduction here. Meanwhile I am also developing a screencast and will publish it here soon.

AGPM is to help customers better manage GPOs, particularly those with complex information technology (IT) environments. A robust delegation model, role-based administration, and change-request approval provide granular administrative control as described in the overview whitepaper and shown below.

For example, you can delegate Reviewer, Editor, and Approver roles to other administrators — even administrators who do not have access to production GPOs. The Editor role can edit GPOs but not deploy them; the Approver role can deploy GPO changes. AGPM also helps reduce the risk of widespread failures. You can use AGPM to edit GPOs offline, outside of the production environment, and then audit changes and easily find differences between GPO versions. In addition, AGPM supports effective change control by providing version tracking, history capture, and quick rollback of deployed GPO changes. It also supports a management workflow by allowing you to create GPO template libraries and send GPO change e-mail notifications. Step-by-Step and Operations Guides of AGM 3.0 are also readily available.

For those who are interested in finding more, MDOP 2008 R2 was RTM in September of 2008. Here are demos, more demos, and FAQ. Subscribers can download MDOP 2008 R2 from the TechNet and MSDN subscription sites. The availability of the components is as follows through Microsoft Volume Licensing Service (MVLS):

The official MDOP blog is the channel to get the latest.