Thoughts on Virtual Infrastructure Management

The economy and IT … why is it so technical?

By Rob Strechay

So in trying to figure out what to write for my first Akorriblog, I reflected back on the last six months of meeting notes.  Two notebooks and 100s of meetings worth of comments from IT professionals on what they like, what they are doing, and the challenges they will face in 2009 gave me a lot to think about.  My notes plus the recent comments I have heard from the talking heads on TV about “IT leading us out of the recession” makes me think there might actually be some merit to this.

Why will IT lead us out of the Recession?  So I think since the dot.bomb IT has been the whipping boy of the corporate CFO.  But I would say when the numbers come out after all is said and done this year, IT will not be as hard hit as it had been in past downturns.  The Reason – it has been decimated in the last few years.  Previous to joining Akorri four plus years ago, I ran a portion of a large IT shop in the financial services industry.  The mantra was doing more with less and faster.  Funny, that mantra still holds today and will save us.

IT will lead companies out of the recession through continuing to innovate with less:

  • Less people … you had a requisition open and it is now gone
  • Less Data Center space … you still have more servers and storage coming in but the room is not any bigger

  • Less hardware and software that is not optimized or will not enable less of something else … remember think ROI / TCO

IT folks have long been willing to work many hours and take on many hats.  The “I can figure it out” attitude really is important.  As Tom Joyce said in his blog “the trust relationship is the critical thing” between vendors and IT customers.  Because of this, we have seen customers being more open with their challenges and being appreciative that we are not only listening but taking action to address their needs.

Many of our customers talk about technologies being wrapped with good processes (ITIL v3 type stuff) and automation that will continue to enable “doing more with  less”.  Processes will be used to ensure that as you consolidate and virtualize, your IT organization doesn’t shoot itself in the foot.  Your company will probably end up having two to three types of virtualization; desktop, windows server, and unix server.  How are you going to manage them?  Enter…performance management and capacity planning.  Everything that is old really IS new again.

February 27, 2009 | Filed Under Customer Experiences, Performance | 1 Comment 

Managing Server and Storage Virtualization

By Lisa Crewe

ICI and Akorri are hosting a live webcast next week.  Since many IT budgets have been impacted with the current economic downturn, the focus will be on how you can save money and time with a virtual infrastructure managment tool. You can register here.

February 9, 2009 | Filed Under Education, Virtual infrastructure management | Leave a Comment 

CIO Magazine Publishes Case Study

By Rich Corley

Yesterday CIO magazine published an article showcasing the experience one company had with deploying and managing VMware Virtual Infrastructure.  Featured in the article is Kevin Brown, Infrastructure Manager at Service Corporation International in Houston, TX. 

Like many other companies who deploy virtualization, Kevin needed to find a way to effectively manage his new infrastructure…especially as it continued to grow.  Kevin chose Akorri’s BalancePoint Virtual Infrastructure Management Suite.  BalancePoint gave him the cross-domain, system view and the detailed performance analysis he needed to manage this dynamic environment. 

Please read the article and let me know if you’ve got any questions or comments.

February 6, 2009 | Filed Under Virtual infrastructure management | Leave a Comment