Blade Watch

Computer Weekly

The reduction in demand for IT products and services as businesses cut spending is constricting supplier innovation and reducing choice for IT project leaders.

Research by BT Global Services indicates that 80% of UK managers are preparing to sweat their IT assets. While 75% acknowledge IT has helped to fight the recession, only 10% plan to invest in new technologies to achieve business growth in the next year.

This reduced spending is limiting the ability of IT companies, particularly smaller ones, to meet end-user demands for new technology to cut costs and improve efficiency. This has a knock-on effect for businesses because they are heavily reliant on off-the-shelf products and development services from suppliers.

Sweating your assets can be a good thing in some respects in terms of value, however you need to balance that with the operating costs both in terms of power and support. The older the device, the more prone to failure it will be either as a result of the operating system or the hardware, it will typically be less efficient in terms of performance per watt, I also wonder if ’sweating’ your assets doesn’t do more damage in the enterprise by:

• Encouraging the status quo – why move of Windows 2000, that’s what we have.

• Provides the excuses – we can’t upgrade the operating system, the code, the server doesn’t support it, the memory/disk is too expensive, the server is too slow – when in fact we need to identify network, storage, application, operating system and hardware bottlenecks.

• Allows developers and business units to get ‘tied’ to their systems, hard coded ip addresses/host names, shares and data, resulting feeds up and downstream, the concept that we can’t possibly upgrade or replace the server, it’s just “too much…”

• Discourages platform innovation and is in danger of feeding that concept of – we can’t do that, that’s not what we do here, which can be a real barrier to delivery and innovation.

• Running older servers, switches and storage creates operational risks, increases your support costs (hardware support and platform/application support), as older systems can easily inherit issues or be less agreeable to changes or unexpected events.
  

There is of course what I refer to as the bell shaped server support curve, initially the server might be a bit high maintenance as it’s integrated, as the shares, the application code ’settles’ in it’s new environment, you then typically have a year or two where the costs/delivery is kind of the same. As the server gets older though, the operating system, the layered components need updated, your support costs start to raise, you might get a disk or hardware failure, and it ‘becomes high maintenance’, as you might need to apply a new operating system service pack, upgrade the firmware/drivers (including your Emulex/Q-Logic cards). The increase in costs arises as the system needs more regular maintenance both of the operating system (disk space, patches/configuration changes), and from service organizations that charge more for older servers. Don’t get me wrong, those olden days DEC Alpha servers will last for the next three thousand years, your Compaq Proliant 2500R file server might still be fine, but long term whether it’s an unexpected outage resulting from hardware failure, or from your hardware/software support contract. An interesting article, do check it out.

Related posts:

1. If IT is core to your business – run it like a business then Finextra Inflexible IT systems and bottlenecks in technology development are...
2. HP continues to respond to business needs http://www.hp.com/hpinfo/newsroom/press/2009/091104xa.html HP today announced new products, solutions and services that...
3. How old is my Compaq/HP server – what should be virtualized? http://www.bladewatch.com/2009/09/04/how-old-is-my-server/ I’ve published the file which is in the previous...
4. Invest now whilst it’s cheaper Ereleases PRINCETON, N.J., July 22, 2009 — In the latest...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.