VMware remains the server virtualization leader, but competitors have emerged with attractive alternatives, especially for server consolidation and virtual infrastructure management. Focus first on business requirements so that current and future virtualization requirements can be met now and for years to come by the vendor that you choose. However, don’t automatically go with the vendor with the most market share, as many competitors have compelling offerings that may be good enough, especially if the internal cloud is not in your immediate plans.
Use this research to:
•Understand current capabilities of server virtualization vendors.
•Evaluate offerings of VMware, Microsoft, Citrix, Red Hat & Oracle for best fit.
•Use scenario analysis and case studies to shortlist vendors.
•Assess implementation recommendations and pitfalls.
Make best-fit server virtualization decisions to balance the best server virtualization capabilities with lowest TCO.
This is an updated talk on Cloud Computing and the Citrix Cloud Center.
From time to time the Citrix CTO Office is asked to give presentations at these and other events. I'm interested in any/all feedback from the Citrix and Cloud communities.
Citrix Synergy 2014 - Syn229 What's new in Citrix Cloud Portal Business ManagerCitrix
Citrix CloudPortal Business Manager is a cloud management platform that provides self-service provisioning, metering, billing, and chargeback capabilities. The latest version 2.2 adds enhanced integration with Citrix CloudPlatform and CloudPortal Services Manager for provisioning hosted applications, desktops, and Exchange services. It allows configuration of custom workflows, reports, and integration with billing systems. The presentation demonstrated the key capabilities and user interfaces of CloudPortal Business Manager.
IBM SmartCloud Entry 3.1 is cloud management software that enhances platform management for STG systems. It provides simplified deployment and customization of virtual images for end users, dramatically increasing IT efficiency through standardization and lower operations costs. SmartCloud Entry is the first tier in IBM's three-tier SmartCloud portfolio and is based on the Common Cloud Stack foundation, facilitating migration to more advanced solutions.
2011.10.19 - Cloud Partner Day - Reseller BreakoutClub Alliances
This document summarizes IBM's cloud computing offerings for business partners. It provides an overview of IBM SmartCloud products like Entry, Provisioning, and Enterprise that offer infrastructure, platform and software as a service. It highlights new solutions in areas like social business, commerce, analytics and industry applications that partners can sell. The document also discusses services, training and incentives IBM offers partners to help them build cloud practices and drive new business.
Citrix Synergy 2014 - Syn228 What's new in Citrix CloudPlatformCitrix
The document discusses Citrix CloudPlatform and how it enables enterprises and service providers to deliver desktops, applications, and infrastructure as cloud services. It outlines the challenges of current approaches around complexity, unpredictability, and costs. CloudPlatform provides a cloud management platform that automates provisioning and allows self-service access while optimizing resource usage and costs. Examples are given of how CloudPlatform supports hybrid cloud models and integrates with solutions like XenDesktop for desktop virtualization in the cloud.
The document discusses the business case for virtualization using an HP and VMware solution. It outlines how virtualization can help reduce capital costs through server hardware consolidation and savings on storage, network hardware, and data center space. Virtualization also provides operational cost savings through reduced power and cooling costs, lower management costs from faster server provisioning, and reduced costs associated with disaster recovery and unplanned downtime. The document provides an example scenario showing how a company could realize over 60% savings over 3 years by consolidating 100 physical servers onto 13 physical servers using virtualization.
Enterprise data centres have traditionally used servers and storage that typically scale only to a few nodes. Even small capacity or performance scales required large installation increments or worse, required replicating the existing IT infrastructure, which is prohibitive in terms of cost and space. An important impediment was that as storage capacity increased, system performance and efficiency suffered. In addition, IT budgets came under pressure and created high entry barriers to scale for enterprise class data centres. However, virtualization and cloud platforms are changing that. IT departments can now linearly scale to several server and storage nodes rapidly, for capacity and performance without compromising on efficiency and to keep costs under control. This helps save space via hardware consolidation, improves productivity, and derives a competitive advantage through increased availability, lean administration, and fast deployment times.
Server Virtualization and Cloud Computing: Four Hidden Impacts on ...webhostingguy
Virtualization and cloud computing introduce new risks to uptime and availability due to single points of failure, I/O and scalability limitations, and challenges with failover and fault isolation. Using fault-tolerant server hardware can help address these issues by eliminating single points of failure, improving I/O performance, and simplifying deployment. Fault-tolerant servers are well-suited for high-performance, high-density, or mission-critical environments that require five-nines uptime.
This is an updated talk on Cloud Computing and the Citrix Cloud Center.
From time to time the Citrix CTO Office is asked to give presentations at these and other events. I'm interested in any/all feedback from the Citrix and Cloud communities.
Citrix Synergy 2014 - Syn229 What's new in Citrix Cloud Portal Business ManagerCitrix
Citrix CloudPortal Business Manager is a cloud management platform that provides self-service provisioning, metering, billing, and chargeback capabilities. The latest version 2.2 adds enhanced integration with Citrix CloudPlatform and CloudPortal Services Manager for provisioning hosted applications, desktops, and Exchange services. It allows configuration of custom workflows, reports, and integration with billing systems. The presentation demonstrated the key capabilities and user interfaces of CloudPortal Business Manager.
IBM SmartCloud Entry 3.1 is cloud management software that enhances platform management for STG systems. It provides simplified deployment and customization of virtual images for end users, dramatically increasing IT efficiency through standardization and lower operations costs. SmartCloud Entry is the first tier in IBM's three-tier SmartCloud portfolio and is based on the Common Cloud Stack foundation, facilitating migration to more advanced solutions.
2011.10.19 - Cloud Partner Day - Reseller BreakoutClub Alliances
This document summarizes IBM's cloud computing offerings for business partners. It provides an overview of IBM SmartCloud products like Entry, Provisioning, and Enterprise that offer infrastructure, platform and software as a service. It highlights new solutions in areas like social business, commerce, analytics and industry applications that partners can sell. The document also discusses services, training and incentives IBM offers partners to help them build cloud practices and drive new business.
Citrix Synergy 2014 - Syn228 What's new in Citrix CloudPlatformCitrix
The document discusses Citrix CloudPlatform and how it enables enterprises and service providers to deliver desktops, applications, and infrastructure as cloud services. It outlines the challenges of current approaches around complexity, unpredictability, and costs. CloudPlatform provides a cloud management platform that automates provisioning and allows self-service access while optimizing resource usage and costs. Examples are given of how CloudPlatform supports hybrid cloud models and integrates with solutions like XenDesktop for desktop virtualization in the cloud.
The document discusses the business case for virtualization using an HP and VMware solution. It outlines how virtualization can help reduce capital costs through server hardware consolidation and savings on storage, network hardware, and data center space. Virtualization also provides operational cost savings through reduced power and cooling costs, lower management costs from faster server provisioning, and reduced costs associated with disaster recovery and unplanned downtime. The document provides an example scenario showing how a company could realize over 60% savings over 3 years by consolidating 100 physical servers onto 13 physical servers using virtualization.
Enterprise data centres have traditionally used servers and storage that typically scale only to a few nodes. Even small capacity or performance scales required large installation increments or worse, required replicating the existing IT infrastructure, which is prohibitive in terms of cost and space. An important impediment was that as storage capacity increased, system performance and efficiency suffered. In addition, IT budgets came under pressure and created high entry barriers to scale for enterprise class data centres. However, virtualization and cloud platforms are changing that. IT departments can now linearly scale to several server and storage nodes rapidly, for capacity and performance without compromising on efficiency and to keep costs under control. This helps save space via hardware consolidation, improves productivity, and derives a competitive advantage through increased availability, lean administration, and fast deployment times.
Server Virtualization and Cloud Computing: Four Hidden Impacts on ...webhostingguy
Virtualization and cloud computing introduce new risks to uptime and availability due to single points of failure, I/O and scalability limitations, and challenges with failover and fault isolation. Using fault-tolerant server hardware can help address these issues by eliminating single points of failure, improving I/O performance, and simplifying deployment. Fault-tolerant servers are well-suited for high-performance, high-density, or mission-critical environments that require five-nines uptime.
ITG-Nov15-MgmtBrief-Cost-Benefit-Comparison-IBM-VMwareMichael Martin
This document compares the costs of using IBM Spectrum Virtualize and Control versus VMware storage tools over five years for three mid-sized companies. It finds that using IBM solutions reduces total costs of ownership by an average of 35% compared to VMware tools, with personnel costs reduced by 56% on average due to lower administrative overhead requirements for IBM solutions. IBM solutions also enable higher storage utilization rates and reduced reliance on more expensive tier 1 storage capacities over time. While VMware tools offer some similar capabilities, IBM solutions provide a more stable, integrated and automated approach optimized for storage administration.
The document discusses how server virtualization can provide significant cost savings and operational efficiencies for organizations. It provides an example of a regional utility that virtualized 1,000 servers over 1.5 years, reducing costs by over $8 million through lower hardware, power, cooling, and real estate needs. Additional case studies show how virtualization helped a bank reduce provisioning time from weeks to hours and a community college improve disaster recovery and flexibility with limited budgets.
This short paper discusses technical and financial advantages of server virtualization. The concepts in the paper are illustrated by two case studies which analyze the net present value of virtualization projects based on potential power savings.
Cloud portal business manager product overviewNuno Alves
CloudPortal Business Manager is a cloud services delivery platform that allows organizations to aggregate, simplify the delivery of, and provide self-service access to internal, external, and third party cloud and IT services through a centralized catalog. It automates and streamlines provisioning, billing, user management and other operational aspects of managing cloud services. Key benefits include empowering users with self-service access, delivering any type of cloud service, and helping organizations and service providers transition to and manage an IT-as-a-Service model.
Modular blade server architectures address many challenges facing modern data centers by consolidating computing components into smaller, modular form factors that share resources to lower costs and complexity. Blades can satisfy computing needs for servers, desktops, networking and storage. They provide world-class solutions by delivering high performance, reliability, efficiency and scalability without disruption. Proper planning is required, but blade servers are highly efficient platforms for consolidating distributed servers into a common data center through their small size and ability to maximize resource utilization through virtualization.
The document discusses IBM's Cloud Service Provider Platform which aims to help communications service providers (CSPs) transition to becoming cloud service providers and capitalize on the cloud services market opportunity. The platform provides an integrated service management solution to help CSPs create, deliver, manage and assure cloud services. It also discusses solutions to help CSPs accelerate time to market, infuse innovation, energize cloud sales and monetize their cloud investments.
The IBM BladeCenter Foundation for Cloud is a preconfigured, virtualized server, storage and networking solution that comes preloaded with management software. It offers improved density, performance and efficiency for mid-sized enterprises compared to traditional data centers. The solution provides virtualized compute, storage and networking resources in a single BladeCenter cabinet starting at $180,000. It aims to offer a simple, cost-effective private cloud infrastructure that can scale as needs grow.
The document discusses a customer's needs around managing their private and public clouds with a single solution, having over a dozen management tools from various vendors that do not integrate well, and wanting predictable spending on datacenter management; it then discusses how a solution can provide a single view of private and public clouds, consolidate management tools into a common solution, and provide predictable spending on datacenter management.
VMware Cost Savings Through Virtualizationhypknight
This document discusses how virtualization with VMware can help organizations reduce IT costs and improve efficiency during an economic downtime. It outlines the challenges facing CIOs with decreasing budgets while still needing to do more. Survey results are presented showing virtualization is a top priority and VMware is gaining share of IT spending. The document then provides examples of how VMware has helped customers consolidate servers, reduce data center costs, improve operational efficiency through features like automated patching and migration. It estimates the tangible savings customers have achieved in areas like infrastructure, support staff, energy usage and avoided downtime through high availability and disaster recovery. Overall it aims to demonstrate how VMware delivers the highest ROI and lowest TCO among virtualization solutions.
IBM CloudBurst is a private cloud platform that is pre-integrated, pre-configured, and delivered as a single product to ease the headaches of traditional infrastructure management. It provides a self-service portal, automation, virtualization, single installation and support to help customers reduce costs and improve service. The document outlines the key features and benefits of IBM CloudBurst, including its modular and scalable design, hands-free operations, and ability to improve time to market for applications.
VMware provides several technology extensions for ISVs to extend their product capabilities in virtual and cloud environments. These include vSphere client plugins, SRM SRA adapters, VAAI plugins, and vCO plugins. These integration points allow ISVs to integrate their solutions into the VMware ecosystem to deliver value to customers through increased efficiency, reduced costs, improved performance, and ensuring SLAs are met.
EMC XtremIO and Citrix XenDesktop provide an optimized virtual desktop infrastructure solution. XtremIO's all-flash storage delivers high performance, scalability, and predictable low latency required for large VDI deployments. Its agile copy services and data reduction features help reduce storage costs. Joint demonstrations showed XtremIO supporting thousands of desktops with sub-millisecond response times during boot storms and login storms. A unique plug-in streamlines the automated deployment and management of large XenDesktop environments using XtremIO's advanced capabilities.
Virtualization allows operating systems and applications to run in virtual machines across physical hardware. This document discusses Microsoft's virtualization products from the datacenter to the desktop, including server, presentation, application, and desktop virtualization. It highlights benefits like accelerated provisioning, reduced costs, increased availability, and improved agility. It also provides examples of how organizations have benefited and reduced costs through server consolidation and eliminating application conflicts using virtualization.
Companies in today\'s challenging economy need to do more with less...see how the combination of Cisco, NetApp and VMWare can help you in your data center.
The document discusses IBM's BladeCenter Foundation for Cloud offering which provides a turnkey virtualization platform. It includes pre-loaded IBM BladeCenter servers, networking, storage, and management software. The solution allows customers to rapidly deploy a virtualized environment with improved efficiency and scalability. It also serves as a foundation for customers to evolve their infrastructure to cloud computing models over time.
1) Cloud computing holds promise for enterprises but also challenges in adoption. IBM's System z platform can be an ideal operational platform for cloud computing workloads, especially private clouds.
2) IBM offers private cloud solutions using System z to help customers realize cloud benefits while addressing challenges like security, availability and customization.
3) Using System z for cloud computing can improve efficiency through virtualization, standardization and automation while providing security, scalability and availability advantages over other platforms.
Fujitsu Siemens Computers provides dynamic infrastructures that are flexible and tailored to customers' needs. They offer infrastructure products and services, infrastructure solutions, managed infrastructure, and infrastructure-as-a-service. Their portfolio includes servers, storage, clients, and data center and office solutions. They help customers optimize their IT infrastructure through evaluation, integration, and outsourcing of management. Fujitsu Siemens Computers will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Fujitsu, allowing them to better serve customers through expanded offerings and synergies within the Fujitsu Group.
BluePi has done numerous migrations for large enterprises and SMBs alike. Based on this experience we have documented the considerations an organization needs to make before embarking on their journey to the cloud. Feel free to download - http://bluepiit.com/white-paper/
ITG-Nov15-MgmtBrief-Cost-Benefit-Comparison-IBM-VMwareMichael Martin
This document compares the costs of using IBM Spectrum Virtualize and Control versus VMware storage tools over five years for three mid-sized companies. It finds that using IBM solutions reduces total costs of ownership by an average of 35% compared to VMware tools, with personnel costs reduced by 56% on average due to lower administrative overhead requirements for IBM solutions. IBM solutions also enable higher storage utilization rates and reduced reliance on more expensive tier 1 storage capacities over time. While VMware tools offer some similar capabilities, IBM solutions provide a more stable, integrated and automated approach optimized for storage administration.
The document discusses how server virtualization can provide significant cost savings and operational efficiencies for organizations. It provides an example of a regional utility that virtualized 1,000 servers over 1.5 years, reducing costs by over $8 million through lower hardware, power, cooling, and real estate needs. Additional case studies show how virtualization helped a bank reduce provisioning time from weeks to hours and a community college improve disaster recovery and flexibility with limited budgets.
This short paper discusses technical and financial advantages of server virtualization. The concepts in the paper are illustrated by two case studies which analyze the net present value of virtualization projects based on potential power savings.
Cloud portal business manager product overviewNuno Alves
CloudPortal Business Manager is a cloud services delivery platform that allows organizations to aggregate, simplify the delivery of, and provide self-service access to internal, external, and third party cloud and IT services through a centralized catalog. It automates and streamlines provisioning, billing, user management and other operational aspects of managing cloud services. Key benefits include empowering users with self-service access, delivering any type of cloud service, and helping organizations and service providers transition to and manage an IT-as-a-Service model.
Modular blade server architectures address many challenges facing modern data centers by consolidating computing components into smaller, modular form factors that share resources to lower costs and complexity. Blades can satisfy computing needs for servers, desktops, networking and storage. They provide world-class solutions by delivering high performance, reliability, efficiency and scalability without disruption. Proper planning is required, but blade servers are highly efficient platforms for consolidating distributed servers into a common data center through their small size and ability to maximize resource utilization through virtualization.
The document discusses IBM's Cloud Service Provider Platform which aims to help communications service providers (CSPs) transition to becoming cloud service providers and capitalize on the cloud services market opportunity. The platform provides an integrated service management solution to help CSPs create, deliver, manage and assure cloud services. It also discusses solutions to help CSPs accelerate time to market, infuse innovation, energize cloud sales and monetize their cloud investments.
The IBM BladeCenter Foundation for Cloud is a preconfigured, virtualized server, storage and networking solution that comes preloaded with management software. It offers improved density, performance and efficiency for mid-sized enterprises compared to traditional data centers. The solution provides virtualized compute, storage and networking resources in a single BladeCenter cabinet starting at $180,000. It aims to offer a simple, cost-effective private cloud infrastructure that can scale as needs grow.
The document discusses a customer's needs around managing their private and public clouds with a single solution, having over a dozen management tools from various vendors that do not integrate well, and wanting predictable spending on datacenter management; it then discusses how a solution can provide a single view of private and public clouds, consolidate management tools into a common solution, and provide predictable spending on datacenter management.
VMware Cost Savings Through Virtualizationhypknight
This document discusses how virtualization with VMware can help organizations reduce IT costs and improve efficiency during an economic downtime. It outlines the challenges facing CIOs with decreasing budgets while still needing to do more. Survey results are presented showing virtualization is a top priority and VMware is gaining share of IT spending. The document then provides examples of how VMware has helped customers consolidate servers, reduce data center costs, improve operational efficiency through features like automated patching and migration. It estimates the tangible savings customers have achieved in areas like infrastructure, support staff, energy usage and avoided downtime through high availability and disaster recovery. Overall it aims to demonstrate how VMware delivers the highest ROI and lowest TCO among virtualization solutions.
IBM CloudBurst is a private cloud platform that is pre-integrated, pre-configured, and delivered as a single product to ease the headaches of traditional infrastructure management. It provides a self-service portal, automation, virtualization, single installation and support to help customers reduce costs and improve service. The document outlines the key features and benefits of IBM CloudBurst, including its modular and scalable design, hands-free operations, and ability to improve time to market for applications.
VMware provides several technology extensions for ISVs to extend their product capabilities in virtual and cloud environments. These include vSphere client plugins, SRM SRA adapters, VAAI plugins, and vCO plugins. These integration points allow ISVs to integrate their solutions into the VMware ecosystem to deliver value to customers through increased efficiency, reduced costs, improved performance, and ensuring SLAs are met.
EMC XtremIO and Citrix XenDesktop provide an optimized virtual desktop infrastructure solution. XtremIO's all-flash storage delivers high performance, scalability, and predictable low latency required for large VDI deployments. Its agile copy services and data reduction features help reduce storage costs. Joint demonstrations showed XtremIO supporting thousands of desktops with sub-millisecond response times during boot storms and login storms. A unique plug-in streamlines the automated deployment and management of large XenDesktop environments using XtremIO's advanced capabilities.
Virtualization allows operating systems and applications to run in virtual machines across physical hardware. This document discusses Microsoft's virtualization products from the datacenter to the desktop, including server, presentation, application, and desktop virtualization. It highlights benefits like accelerated provisioning, reduced costs, increased availability, and improved agility. It also provides examples of how organizations have benefited and reduced costs through server consolidation and eliminating application conflicts using virtualization.
Companies in today\'s challenging economy need to do more with less...see how the combination of Cisco, NetApp and VMWare can help you in your data center.
The document discusses IBM's BladeCenter Foundation for Cloud offering which provides a turnkey virtualization platform. It includes pre-loaded IBM BladeCenter servers, networking, storage, and management software. The solution allows customers to rapidly deploy a virtualized environment with improved efficiency and scalability. It also serves as a foundation for customers to evolve their infrastructure to cloud computing models over time.
1) Cloud computing holds promise for enterprises but also challenges in adoption. IBM's System z platform can be an ideal operational platform for cloud computing workloads, especially private clouds.
2) IBM offers private cloud solutions using System z to help customers realize cloud benefits while addressing challenges like security, availability and customization.
3) Using System z for cloud computing can improve efficiency through virtualization, standardization and automation while providing security, scalability and availability advantages over other platforms.
Fujitsu Siemens Computers provides dynamic infrastructures that are flexible and tailored to customers' needs. They offer infrastructure products and services, infrastructure solutions, managed infrastructure, and infrastructure-as-a-service. Their portfolio includes servers, storage, clients, and data center and office solutions. They help customers optimize their IT infrastructure through evaluation, integration, and outsourcing of management. Fujitsu Siemens Computers will become a wholly owned subsidiary of Fujitsu, allowing them to better serve customers through expanded offerings and synergies within the Fujitsu Group.
BluePi has done numerous migrations for large enterprises and SMBs alike. Based on this experience we have documented the considerations an organization needs to make before embarking on their journey to the cloud. Feel free to download - http://bluepiit.com/white-paper/
Este documento es un tutorial sobre JavaServer Faces. Explica los conceptos básicos de JSF como el modelo de vista-controlador, las características principales, los beneficios y una aplicación sencilla de ejemplo. Luego cubre temas como la instalación, entornos de desarrollo, etiquetas básicas, managed beans, navegación y etiquetas estándares de JSF. El tutorial contiene 5 capítulos y proporciona información detallada sobre cómo crear aplicaciones web dinámicas con JSF.
El documento describe los orígenes y principios de la programación orientada a objetos. Explica que surgió en la década de 1970 para resolver problemas como altos costos y tiempos de desarrollo de software. Señala que lenguajes pioneros como SIMULA67 y Smalltalk introdujeron conceptos clave como clases, objetos e herencia. Finalmente, define los principales conceptos de la POO como clases, objetos, herencia y comunicación mediante mensajes.
El presente documento busca Identificar las TICs para promover el trabajo colaborativo en el proceso de enseñanza y aprendizaje, diseñando artículos en Weblogs para el desarrollo de grupos de investigación. Incluye los siguientes contenidos: Marco general del sílabo,TIC para promover el y trabajo colaborativo.
• Weblogs para el desarrollo de grupos de investigación.
This newsletter article describes using the gentleMACS Dissociator to generate tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte (TIL) cultures from melanoma tumors for adoptive cell therapy. The gentleMACS Dissociator mechanically dissociates tumor tissue in a closed, automated system, providing a simpler and more standardized alternative to traditional enzyme-based dissociation methods. Experiments optimized variables like program settings, enzymes, incubation times and sample size. The results identified a standard operating procedure using the gentleMACS Dissociator that yields high cell yields and viability in a reproducible manner for generating TIL cultures from clinical tumor samples.
Este documento describe varias fuentes y formas de financiamiento a corto plazo. Explica que el crédito comercial, los préstamos bancarios y los documentos comerciales son las tres principales fuentes de fondos a corto plazo. Luego proporciona detalles sobre cada una de estas fuentes, incluidas sus características, ventajas y desventajas. También cubre otras formas de financiamiento a corto plazo como la financiación por cuentas por cobrar e inventarios.
Oil industry managed print sevices - (NIS case study) - Canon CEECanon Business CEE
The implemented Canon uniFLOW Enterprise print and scan management solution features one central server and 16 remote print servers. The solution also includes following modules: Secure Printing, Statistics, Desktop Accounting (for monitoring consumption and calculation of costs) and File Format Conversion (for converting various
office files into PDF format).
Alcantara Stone ha suministrado su piedra Alcantara Black® en diferentes acabados y formatos para la fachada de un edificio de viviendas en León, España. Se utilizó Alcantara Black® en acabados mate, llameado y corte de disco para la fachada, terraza y escalera. El material proporcionó elegancia y distinción a la fachada exterior del edificio.
Este documento presenta un manual sobre las nuevas características de CSS3. Explica que CSS3 trae mejoras para dar más control sobre el diseño web, como bordes redondeados y sombras. Luego describe algunas de las nuevas propiedades como bordes, fondos, colores, texto e interfaces. Finalmente, los autores del manual son varios expertos en desarrollo web.
Lauton & Foxton Capital Partners provides various direct lending programs including commercial real estate financing, corporate expansion and M&A financing, receivables/purchase order financing, energy project financing, and oil/gas/mining financing. They have an in-house fund that offers first round funding for existing companies in services, oil/gas, energy, or technology. They pride themselves on working hard for clients and conducting business with integrity.
East India Securities Limited (EISL) provides corporate finance services including debt raising, rating advisory, factoring services, and structured products to MSME clients. EISL helps clients reduce costs, access government incentives, and obtain the most appropriate credit rating. EISL understands client needs holistically and finds the most cost-effective and timely solutions. The company places clients' interests first and has strong bank relationships to help clients access funding.
El documento habla sobre varios deportes urbanos como el skateboard, BMX, patinaje agresivo y parapentismo. Resalta la importancia de estos deportes para los jóvenes y la necesidad de apoyarlos y proporcionar espacios seguros para su práctica. También describe brevemente algunos trucos típicos de estos deportes y su historia y evolución a través de los años.
An overview on docker and container technology behind it. Lastly, we discuss few tools that might come handy when dealing with large number of containers management.
Este documento describe los detalles de un premio para reconocer el trabajo en el campo de la interculturalidad. El premio reconocerá investigaciones e innovaciones en cuatro áreas: educación inclusiva, plurilingüismo, turismo ético y sostenibilidad, y atención a la diversidad. Se otorgarán premios a los mejores trabajos en cada categoría. Los trabajos deben presentarse antes del 2 de diciembre de 2013.
InnerBuilders ofrece programas de desarrollo personal y profesional mediante actividades con caballos. Los programas se enfocan en el autoconocimiento y mejora de habilidades como el liderazgo, comunicación y trabajo en equipo. InnerBuilders provee feedback a los participantes para que puedan continuar mejorando por su cuenta después del programa.
Hypervisor economics a framework to identify, measure and reduce the cost o...Hitachi Vantara
Hypervisor Economics white paper examines IT economics and virtual machine total cost of ownership definitions and provides a framework to identify, measure and reduce cost of VMs.
Many IT organizations have more servers than needed, leading to high costs. Server virtualization allows multiple virtual servers to run on single physical servers, reducing costs and increasing flexibility. However, traditional system management tools may not account for this dynamic virtual environment. IT organizations must adapt tools and processes to fully benefit from virtualization.
Server virtualization allows a single physical server to run multiple virtual servers by separating the hardware layer from the application layer. This improves server utilization rates, reduces power consumption and costs, and enhances business continuity. Virtualization provides benefits like more flexible resource allocation, simplified management, and decreased capital expenditures. It can help businesses improve processes and save money.
The document presents IBM's framework of four priorities for organizations to enhance their virtualized infrastructure and maximize business value:
1) Consolidate resources by virtualizing servers to increase utilization and reduce costs.
2) Manage workloads with centralized tools to track status, perform tasks, and ensure service level agreements are met.
3) Automate processes like provisioning and disaster recovery to improve efficiency, speed, and consistency of responses.
4) Optimize service delivery by enabling business users to directly create new services over the web using virtual infrastructure like cloud computing.
VMware is a leading provider of virtualization software and cloud computing solutions. It has over 250,000 customers including all of the Fortune 100 companies. VMware aims to accelerate IT and businesses by reducing complexity, lowering costs, and enabling flexible IT service delivery through virtualization and cloud computing. VMware's strategy involves building private and hybrid clouds by transforming on-premise datacenters into pools of automated, elastic infrastructure. It also focuses on modernizing application development with cloud platforms and rethinking end-user computing to provide users access to all applications on any device securely.
Cloud Computing Models: Private, Public and Hybrid Evilázaro Alves
Analysts project that SaaS applications will significantly outpace traditional software product delivery in the near future. As ISVs facing this ever-changing cloud landscape, you need to make critical decisions about your application lifecycle and hosting models. Evaluate some of those considerations, and learn how the platform you choose can support the model you determine.
VMworld 2013: Architecting the Software-Defined Data Center VMworld
VMworld 2013
Aidan Dalgleish, VMware
David Hill, VMware
Kamau Wanguhu, VMware
Learn more about VMworld and register at http://www.vmworld.com/index.jspa?src=socmed-vmworld-slideshare
VMworld 2013: Exploring Technology Trends within Financial Services VMworld
VMworld 2013
Scott Key, VMware
Brian Martinez, VMware
Learn more about VMworld and register at http://www.vmworld.com/index.jspa?src=socmed-vmworld-slideshare
The document discusses VMware virtualization solutions for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). It outlines the key challenges SMBs face in maintaining IT systems with limited budgets. Virtualization allows SMBs to consolidate servers, improving hardware utilization and reducing costs. It also enables high availability of applications and faster disaster recovery. Specific VMware products discussed include vSphere, VMotion, and the VMware vSphere Storage Appliance (VSA). Pricing and feature details are provided for the vSphere 5 product line.
Cloud Technology and Virtualization
"Project Deliverable 4: Cloud Technology and Virtualization"
Christopher Nevels
Dr. Darcel Ford
CIS 590
11-24-13
Cloud Technology and Virtualization
There are many reasons companies and organizations are investing in server virtualization. Some of the reasons are financially motivated, while others address technical concerns. Server virtualization conserves space through consolidation. It's common practice to dedicate each server to a single application. If several applications only use a small amount of processing power, the network administrator can consolidate several machines into one server running multiple virtual environments. For companies that have hundreds or thousands of servers, the need for physical space can decrease significantly. Server virtualization provides a way for companies to practice redundancy without purchasing additional hardware. Redundancy refers to running the same application on multiple servers. It's a safety measure -- if a server fails for any reason, another server running the same application can take its place. This minimizes any interruption in service. It wouldn't make sense to build two virtual servers performing the same application on the same physical server. If the physical server were to crash, both virtual servers would also fail. In most cases, network administrators will create redundant virtual servers on different physical machines. Virtual servers offer programmers isolated, independent systems in which they can test new applications or operating systems. Rather than buying a dedicated physical machine, the network administrator can create a virtual server on an existing machine. Because each virtual server is independent in relation to all the other servers, programmers can run software without worrying about affecting other applications (Strickland 2013).
Cloud computing is ideal for small companies, as it’s cost-effective, saves time and energy, and it allows for a high level of customization. According to Forbes, a 2009 study found that cloud computing could save up to 67% of the lifecycle cost for server deployment on a large scale. Another study found that using cloud solutions generally results in higher investment returns (when compared to an on-site system). There are further cost saving benefits, such as less need for expensive hardware and software, and no need for physical networks or IT maintenance. Also, cloud systems are usually ‘pay-as-you-go’, so you only pay for what you use. There are no upfront investments, and IT requirements can be easily budgeted for. Also, various cloud services can either be added or scaled back, depending on where your business is, and how much growth is taking place. The cloud is also highly customizable: you can select what platform you want, which payroll software to use, and what email marketing tools you require – all from different vendors, and all individually configurable (K2 SEO 2013).
The c.
This document discusses serverless computing as an evolution of cloud computing that provides significant benefits for businesses. With serverless architectures, companies can develop applications without having to manage underlying infrastructure. This reduces costs and speeds development and deployment. However, serverless computing also presents some risks like loss of control over infrastructure and potential vendor lock-in. Overall, the document argues that serverless computing offers compelling opportunities for today's digital enterprises to focus on their core business.
This document provides a framework for identifying, measuring, and reducing the costs of virtual machines (VMs). It outlines 24 types of costs associated with VMs and recommends focusing on 8-10 key costs. The framework involves 3 steps: 1) Identifying VM costs, 2) Measuring costs using metrics like total cost per VM per year, and 3) Reducing costs through levers like hypervisor selection, storage configuration, and operational process changes. The goal is to establish baselines and continuously track VM costs to evaluate savings from optimization efforts over time.
This document discusses challenges and opportunities related to virtualization and cloud computing in 2011. It begins by stating that server virtualization is very popular but also has some issues related to quality of service, monitoring, and capacity planning. Desktop virtualization is emerging but has challenges around cost and maturity. The document advocates a hybrid cloud approach and emphasizes the importance of standardization and well-defined processes.
VMworld 2013: Create a Key Metrics-based Actionable Roadmap to Deliver IT as ...VMworld
VMworld Europe 2013
Enrico Boverino, VMware
Rodolfo Rotondo, VMware
Learn more about VMworld and register at http://www.vmworld.com/index.jspa?src=socmed-vmworld-slideshare
The document discusses CSC's Agility Platform and how it helps customers accelerate their journey to hybrid cloud. The platform provides tools to consolidate workloads, improve efficiency, accelerate development cycles, and optimize IT service management. Case studies are presented showing how the platform helped a bank reduce costs by $100M/year, an insurance company save $15M over 3 years, and a government agency reduce build times by 83%. The platform provides capabilities for application release automation, cloud governance, and consuming cloud services through the software development lifecycle.
The Evolution Of Server Virtualization By Hitendra MolletiHitendra Molleti
This document discusses the benefits of server virtualization for businesses. It begins by outlining top business challenges such as reacting quickly to market changes and containing costs. It then discusses what businesses demand from IT, including flexibility, cost control, simplicity, continuity, and security. Server virtualization can help meet these demands. The document provides a brief history of virtualization and explains how the virtualization approach abstracts physical hardware and allows for more efficient utilization of servers than the traditional one application, one server model. Key benefits of server virtualization include more efficient utilization rates, reduced power consumption and costs, decreased capital expenditures, enhanced business continuity, more flexible resource allocation, simplified management, and acting as the first step towards cloud computing. The
VMware Cloud Management Platform (CMP) provides tools to manage private, public and hybrid clouds. It enables IT organizations to act as brokers of IT services through a software-defined data center that provides automation, operations management and business insights. CMP includes vRealize Automation for automated provisioning and lifecycle management, vRealize Operations for visibility and optimization, and integrates with NSX and vSphere for network and security virtualization. This allows organizations to more efficiently deliver IT services, plan capacity, and provide transparency into costs.
Similar to Server virtualization vendor landscape (20)
Your Challenge
As the market evolves, capabilities that were once cutting edge become default and new functionality becomes differentiating.
Vendors use a lot of marketing jargon, buzzwords, and statistics to sell their solutions, making objective evaluation rather difficult.
The endpoint protection (EPP) market is overcrowded and fragmented, resulting in information overload and consequently, a difficult vendor assessment.
Disparate product solutions are being bundled into one-off solutions or suites, often resulting in less efficient solutions than the more niche players.
Imminent obsolescence is an issue. Previous EPP solutions have not adapted with the rapidly evolving threat landscape and are no longer relevant, resulting in breaches or vulnerabilities.
Critical Insight
Don’t let vendors and market reports define your endpoint protection needs. Identify the use cases and corresponding feature sets that best align with your risk profile before evaluating the vendor marketspace.
Your security controls are diminishing in value (if they haven’t already). Develop a strategy that accounts for the rapid evolution and imminent obsolescence of your endpoint controls. Plan for future needs when making purchasing decisions today.
Endpoint protection is a matter of defense in depth and risk modelling, there is no silver bullet protection and mitigation solution. As end-client-technology providers release regular product/software updates, security tools will become outdated. Multiyear endpoint protection commitments will leave you playing a constant game of catch up.
Impact and Result
The solution is a holistic internal security assessment that not only identifies, but satisfies, your desired endpoint protection feature set with the corresponding endpoint protection suite and a comprehensive implementation strategy.
Use this blueprint to walk through the steps of selecting and implementing an endpoint protection solution that best aligns with your organizational needs.
Your Challenge
Companies understand the importance of business process improvement (BPI) and recognize the touted benefits: cost savings, waste elimination, and process efficiency.
With this said, 70% of companies that embark on process improvement initiatives fail.
The high probability of failure is attributed to a number of factors, including lack of continuous improvement and failing to define measurable outcomes.
Our Advice
Adopt a forward-facing outlook. Don’t focus solely on the current state, set improvement targets upfront to drive the initiative.
Break problems down into root-cause variables. Don’t look at the symptom, dive deeper and alleviate the root cause.
Empower business analysts. Create a practical process improvement methodology that your analysts can follow.
Impact and Result
Kick off process improvement by identifying the goals and defining the improvement targets.
Start by referring to the operating model and identifying level 1, 2, and 3 processes. Once the team understands the relationship between processes, they can begin to map a level 3 process using a standard mapping notation.
Use qualitative and quantitative techniques for analyzing the root cause rather than the symptoms.
Ensure the design is aligned with the initial improvement targets. Focus on value-added activities.
Consistently monitor the process and assess the root-cause variables to gauge the success of the process improvements.
Your Challenge
Internal stakeholders usually have different – and often conflicting – needs and expectations that require careful facilitation and management.
Vendors have well-honed negotiating strategies. Without understanding your own position and leverage points, it’s difficult to withstand their persuasive – and sometimes pushy – tactics.
Software – and software licensing – is constantly changing, making it difficult to acquire and retain subject matter expertise.
Our Advice
Critical Insight
Conservatively, it’s possible to save 5% of the overall IT budget through comprehensive software contract review.
Focus on the terms and conditions, not just the price.
Learning to negotiate is crucial.
Impact and Result
Look at your contract holistically to find cost savings.
Guide communication between vendors and your organization for the duration of contract negotiations.
Redline the terms and conditions of your software contract.
Prioritize crucial terms and conditions to negotiate.
This document discusses Info-Tech Research Group and change management. It provides an overview of Info-Tech as a global leader in IT research and advice. It then discusses the importance of balancing risk and efficiency in change management processes. Having too onerous of a process can lead to changes being implemented without proper review, while not having any process can increase risk. The document emphasizes having a right-sized change management process that incorporates adequate review and approval without being overly burdensome. It also stresses the importance of staff buy-in, tools to track changes, and management support for effective change management.
Your Challenge
Infrastructure, by focusing on the reliability, availability, and serviceability of existing platforms, is perceived as a cost center rather than a business enabler.
Business stakeholders look to external vendors, rather than Infrastructure, to exploit emerging technologies. This leads to duplication of effort, inconsistent standards, and ineffective IT governance.
Infrastructure directors are unable to draw a line showing how their activities directly support the overall business goals.
Our Advice
Critical Insight
Think of the roadmap as a service, not a product. Its value is inversely proportional to the time since its last update.
Alignment perception issues can be addressed by having the infrastructure practice formally engage and communicate with business stakeholders.
Shadow IT can provide business-ready initiatives that need only to be tweaked to align with Infrastructure’s internal goals.
Impact and Result
This blueprint will help you build:
A formal channel and way of communicating value bottom-up and top-down between IT and the executive team.
A methodology to prioritize and create projects that generate business value.
A tool that can produce multiple outputs of value for different audiences using the same data.
An ongoing roadmap process, rather than a static document, that is able to adjust and react to evolving business circumstances.
Your Challenge
Risk is an unavoidable part of IT. And what you don't know, can hurt you. The question is, do you tackle risk head-on or leave it to chance?
Get a handle on risk management quickly using Info-Tech's methodology and reduce unfortunate IT surprises.
Our Advice
Critical Insight
1. IT risk is business risk.
Every IT risk has business implications. Create an IT risk management program that shares risk accountability with the business.
2. Risk is money.
It’s impossible to make intelligent decisions about risks without knowing what they’re worth.
3. You don’t know what you don’t know.
And what you don’t know can hurt you – so find out. To find hidden risks, you need a structured approach.
Impact and Result
Stop leaving IT risk to chance. Transform your ad hoc IT risk management processes into a formalized, ongoing program and increase risk management success by 53%.
Take a proactive stance against IT threats and vulnerabilities by identifying and assessing IT’s greatest risks before they happen.
Involve key stakeholders including the business senior management team to gain buy-in and to focus on IT risks that matter most to the organization.
Share accountability for IT risk with business stakeholders and have them weigh-in on prioritizing investments in risk response activities.
Your Challenge
Service desk managers with immature service desk processes struggle with:
Low business satisfaction.
High cost to resolve incidents and implement requests.
Confused and unhappy end users.
High ticket volumes and a lack of root-cause analysis to reduce recurring issues.
Wasted IT time and wages resolving the same issues time and again.
Ineffective demand planning.
Our Advice
Critical Insight
Don’t be fooled by a tool that’s new. A new service desk tool alone won’t solve the problem. Service desk maturity improvements depend on putting in place the right people and processes to support the technology.
Service desk improvement is an exercise in organizational change. Engage specialists across the IT organization in building the solution, and emphasize how everyone stands to benefit from the initiative.
Organizations are sometimes tempted to track their work under a single ticket type. Unfortunately, the practice obscures the fact that incidents, requests, and projects require radically different amounts of time and resources, and can create the impression that IT is underperforming. Distinguish between incidents, requests, and projects, and design specific processes to support and track the performance of each activity.
Remember, the value of any IT service management (ITSM) tool is a function of the processes it supports and the adoption of those processes. The ITSM tool with the best functionality is worth little if you do not build the right processes, configure the tool to support them, and work to improve tool adoption in your organization.
Impact and Result
Increase business satisfaction.
Reduce recurring issues and ticket volumes.
Reduce average incident resolution time and average request implementation time.
Increase efficiency and lower operating costs.
Enhance demand planning.
Your Challenge
Companies are approving more projects than they can deliver. Most organizations say they have too many projects on the go and an unmanageable and ever-growing backlog of things to get to.
While organizations want to achieve a high throughput of approved projects, many are unable or unwilling to allocate an appropriate level of IT resourcing to adequately match the number of approved initiatives.
Portfolio management practices must find a way to accommodate stakeholder needs without sacrificing the portfolio to low-value initiatives that do not align with business goals.
Our Advice
Critical Insight
Failure to align projects with strategic goals and resource capacity are the most common causes of portfolio waste across organizations. Intake, approval, and prioritization represent the best opportunities to ensure this alignment.
More time spent with stakeholders during the ideation phase to help set realistic expectations for stakeholders and enhance visibility into IT’s capacity and processes is key to both project and organizational success.
Too much intake red tape will lead to an underground economy of projects that escape portfolio oversight, while too little intake formality will lead to a wild west of approvals that could overwhelm the PMO. Finding the right balance of intake formality for your organization is the key to establishing a PMO that has the ability to focus on the right things.
Impact and Result
Eliminate off-the-grid initiatives by establishing a centralized intake process that funnels requests into a single channel.
Improve the throughput of projects through the portfolio by incorporating the constraint of resource capacity to cap the amount of project approvals to that which is realistic.
Silence squeaky wheels and overbearing stakeholders by establishing a progressive approval and prioritization process that gives primacy to the highest value requests.
This document provides information from Info-Tech Research Group regarding modernizing communications and collaboration infrastructure.
[1] It recommends following a three phase methodology to modernize communications - assess current infrastructure, define the target state, and advance the project. Various tools and templates are provided to help with each phase.
[2] It emphasizes that the project scope and assessment phase takes more time than anticipated and is critical for defining requirements. Both business and IT perspectives should be considered.
[3] A hybrid deployment model combining on-premises and cloud solutions is recommended to modernize infrastructure over time without requiring a full replacement of existing systems.
Your Challenge
Organizations have to adapt to a growing number of trends, putting increased pressure on IT to move at the same speed as the business.
The business, seeing that IT is slower to react, looks to external solutions to address its challenges and capitalize on opportunities.
IT and business leaders don’t have a clear and unified understanding or definition of an operating model.
Our Advice
Critical Insight
The IT operating model is not a static entity and should evolve according to changing business needs.
However, business needs are diverse, and the IT organization must recognize that the business includes groups that consume technology in different patterns. The IT operating model needs to support and enable multiple groups, while continuously adapting to changing business conditions.
Impact and Result
Determine how each technology consumer group interacts with IT. Use consumer experience maps to determine what kind of services consumer groups use and if there are opportunities to improve the delivery of those services.
Identify how changing business conditions will affect the consumption of technology services. Classify your consumers based on business uncertainty and reliance on IT to plan for the future delivery of services.
Optimize the IT operating model. Create a target IT operating model based on the gathered information about technology service consumers. Select different implementations of common operating model elements: governance, sourcing, process, and structure.
Info-Tech is the most innovative firm in the industry, and we pride ourselves on delivering better research than anyone.
Become a member and unlock a range of data-driven tools and resources to drive systematic IT improvement.
Your Challenge
It is difficult to start the project, engage the right people, and find the necessary requirements to drive the value of an enterprise architecture operating model.
It is challenging to navigate the common enterprise architecture (EA) frameworks and right-size them for your organization.
The EA practice may struggle to effectively collaborate with the business when making decisions, resulting in outcomes that fail to engage stakeholders.
Our Advice
Critical Insight
The benefits of an EA program are only realized when all components of the operating model enable the achievement of the program goals and objectives. Many times organizations overplay the governance card while ignoring the motivational aspects that can be addressed through the organization's structure or stakeholder relations.
Info-Tech’s methodology ensures that all components of an EA operating model are considered to optimize the performance of the EA program.
Impact and Result
Place and structure your EA team to address the needs of stakeholders and deliver on the previously created strategy.
Create an engagement model by understanding each relevant process of COBIT 5 and make stakeholder interaction cards to initiate conversations.
Recognize the need for governance and formulate the appropriate boards while considering various policies, principles, and compliance.
Develop a unique architecture development framework based on best-practice approaches with an understanding of the various architectural views to ensure the creation of a successful process.
Build a communication plan and roadmap to efficiently navigate through enterprise change and involve the necessary stakeholders.
Your Challenge
Business transformations are happening, but CIOs are often involved only when it comes time to implement change. This makes it difficult for the CIO to be perceived as an organizational leader.
CIOs find it difficult to juggle operational activities, strategic initiatives, and involvement in business transformation.
CIOs don’t always have the IT organization structured and mobilized in a manner that facilitates the identification of transformation opportunities, and the planning for and the implementation of organization-wide change.
Our Advice
Critical Insight
Don’t take an ad hoc approach to transformation.
You’re not in it alone.
Your legacy matters
Impact and Result
Elevate your stature as a business leader.
Empower the IT organization to act with a business mind first, and technology second.
Create a high-powered IT organization that is focused on driving lasting change, improving client experiences, and encouraging collaboration across the entire enterprise.
Generate opportunities for organizational growth, as manifested through revenue growth, profit growth, new market entry, new product development, etc.
Craft an End-to-End Data Center Consolidation Strategy to Maximize BenefitsInfo-Tech Research Group
Info-Tech Research Group provides IT research and advice to help organizations address their full spectrum of IT concerns. The document discusses Info-Tech's services for data center consolidation, including actionable insights and templates to help plan and execute consolidation projects. It emphasizes that 12-18 months of planning is key to consolidation success in order to properly inventory equipment, address requirements, and mitigate risks and unexpected costs.
Your Challenge
Organizations are struggling to keep up with today’s evolving threat landscape.
From technology sophistication and business adoption to the proliferation of hacking techniques and the expansion of hacking motivations, organizations are facing major security risks.
Every organization needs some kind of information security program to protect their systems and assets.
Organizations today face pressure from regulatory or legal obligations, customer requirement, and now, senior management expectations.
Our Advice
Critical Insight
Performing an accurate assessment of your current security operations and maturity levels can be extremely hard when you don’t know what to assess or how to assess it.
Alignment can be a difficult area for security to get right when it’s trying to balance both regular IT and the business.
Communication is needed between the business leaders, IT leaders, and the security team for an effective security strategy to be in place.
Impact and Result
Info-Tech has analyzed and integrated regulatory and industry best practice frameworks, combining COBIT 5, PCI DSS, ISO 27000, NIST SP800-53, and SANS to ensure an exhaustive approach to security.
Through this process, a comprehensive current state assessment, gap analysis, and initiative generation ensures that nothing is left off the table.
This project will elevate the perception of the security team from being a hindrance to the organization to an enabler.
Your Challenge
Even though organizations are now planning for Application Integration (AI) in their projects, very few have developed a holistic approach to their integration problems resulting in each project deploying different tactical solutions.
Point-to-point and ad hoc integration solutions won’t cut it anymore: the cloud, big data, mobile, social, and new regulations require more sophisticated integration tooling.
Loosely defined AI strategies result in point solutions, overlaps in technology capabilities, and increased maintenance costs; the correlation between business drivers and technical solutions is lost.
Our Advice
Critical Insight
Involving the business in strategy development will keep them engaged and align business drivers with technical initiatives.
An architectural approach to AI strategy is critical to making appropriate technology decisions and promoting consistency across AI solutions through the use of common patterns.
Get control of your AI environment with an appropriate architecture, including policies and procedures, before end users start adding bring-your-own-integration (BYOI) capabilities to the office.
Your Challenge:
As Portfolio Manager, you’re responsible for communicating portfolio results and future capacity to your steering committee.
Business and IT leaders need more accurate information on project status and resource availability to decide when to start and stop projects.
You need to better understand the needs of the PMO and assess the costs and benefits associated with different tools and approaches to PPM.
Our Advice - Critical Insight:
PPM is a practice, not a tool. Before succeeding with a commercial tool, you need to establish discipline and trust around reporting processes, which can be done using spreadsheets and other simple tools.
Portfolio management is separate from project management. Think of it as the accounting department for time. Project managers report into the portfolio and are held accountable to it, but it isn’t simply an extension of project management.
Our Advice - Impact and Result:
Decrease the wasted portfolio budget by reducing the number of cancelled projects and other sources of efficiency.
Establish the portfolio as the “one source of truth” for project reporting by increasing rigor around project status updating and reporting.
Align project intake with resource capacity to improve throughput, quality of estimates, and stakeholder satisfaction.
This document provides advice for implementing an Enterprise Service Bus (ESB) by highlighting important considerations. It emphasizes that an ESB is a platform to deliver solutions and must be implemented as part of broader initiatives to be successful. It also stresses the importance of people, processes, technology, governance and change management for a functioning ESB.
Your Challenge:
Implementing a shared services model is a difficult process to undertake, and is comprised of many different components. Becoming a shared services provider is comparable to becoming a vendor and most IT groups don’t have the capabilities to easily make the transition.
Most companies look to achieve cost reductions through offering a shared services model. Adopting a shared services model doesn’t always result in these intended cost reductions. Simply combining the operations of two IT organizations doesn’t necessarily result in economies of scale and cost efficiencies. Before leaping forward with your shared services implementation, determine if the project will deliver value to your organization.
Our Advice - Critical Insight:
Implementing a shared services model needs to be viewed as more than simply extending a current service to other sites. The organization providing services essentially turns into a vendor. As a vendor, think of the IT service you’re offering as the “product.”
Remember that there are people, process, and technology capability pre-requisites to successfully becoming a shared services provider. These capabilities are not typical for the average IT shop, and need to be taken into consideration when you look to transition to a shared services model.
Our Advice - Impact and Result:
Before jumping into the implementation of your shared services project, assess your customer requirements and your current people, process, and technology capabilities to assess whether your organization is ready to implement a shared services model.
Understand the financial implications of moving to a shared services model prior to implementing. Make sure there is a strong case for implementation.
Your Challenge:
Situation
Enterprise Architecture increases the organization’s ability to provide consistent services, accessible information, scalable infrastructure, and flexible technology integration on demand. It helps bridge the gap between business and IT and creates a shared enterprise vision.
Complication
EA programs that are run without the required EA capability level are prone to failure.
EA capability optimization and EA operating model design skills are not common, as they are not everyday tasks.
Our Advice:
Critical Insight
Using this research while assessing and optimizing your EA capability will help you:
Architect the EA capability by applying four architectural perspectives: Contextual, Conceptual, Logical, and Physical. Develop an EA Operating Model starting at the contextual level, and proceeding through to the physical.
Develop a sponsored mandate for EA capability. Identify and engage EA capability stakeholders. Determine organizational scope, i.e. responsibility and authority of EA. Identify business drivers for optimizing an EA capability. Analyze organizational context. Secure executive support and authorization to execute.
Establish EA capability purpose and strategic direction. Write EA capability vision statement. Craft EA capability mission statement. Define EA capability goals and measures. Create EA principles. Assess current and determine target EA capability level.
Document EA management process. Define EA management practices. Define interactions between EA management and other processes. Define EA capability performance and value measurement approach.
Design EA organization and roles. Design EA organization structure. Define EA roles. Define required skills and proficiency levels for EA roles. Determine required EA staff capacity.
Standardize EA tools and work products. Establish an EA repository. Decide on EA tools to be used. Define EA artifacts and work products.
Develop an EA capability improvement plan. Consolidate and refine steps required to roll out the target EA operating model and improve EA capability. Draw an EA capability improvement roadmap.
Unlock the Future of Search with MongoDB Atlas_ Vector Search Unleashed.pdfMalak Abu Hammad
Discover how MongoDB Atlas and vector search technology can revolutionize your application's search capabilities. This comprehensive presentation covers:
* What is Vector Search?
* Importance and benefits of vector search
* Practical use cases across various industries
* Step-by-step implementation guide
* Live demos with code snippets
* Enhancing LLM capabilities with vector search
* Best practices and optimization strategies
Perfect for developers, AI enthusiasts, and tech leaders. Learn how to leverage MongoDB Atlas to deliver highly relevant, context-aware search results, transforming your data retrieval process. Stay ahead in tech innovation and maximize the potential of your applications.
#MongoDB #VectorSearch #AI #SemanticSearch #TechInnovation #DataScience #LLM #MachineLearning #SearchTechnology
In the rapidly evolving landscape of technologies, XML continues to play a vital role in structuring, storing, and transporting data across diverse systems. The recent advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) present new methodologies for enhancing XML development workflows, introducing efficiency, automation, and intelligent capabilities. This presentation will outline the scope and perspective of utilizing AI in XML development. The potential benefits and the possible pitfalls will be highlighted, providing a balanced view of the subject.
We will explore the capabilities of AI in understanding XML markup languages and autonomously creating structured XML content. Additionally, we will examine the capacity of AI to enrich plain text with appropriate XML markup. Practical examples and methodological guidelines will be provided to elucidate how AI can be effectively prompted to interpret and generate accurate XML markup.
Further emphasis will be placed on the role of AI in developing XSLT, or schemas such as XSD and Schematron. We will address the techniques and strategies adopted to create prompts for generating code, explaining code, or refactoring the code, and the results achieved.
The discussion will extend to how AI can be used to transform XML content. In particular, the focus will be on the use of AI XPath extension functions in XSLT, Schematron, Schematron Quick Fixes, or for XML content refactoring.
The presentation aims to deliver a comprehensive overview of AI usage in XML development, providing attendees with the necessary knowledge to make informed decisions. Whether you’re at the early stages of adopting AI or considering integrating it in advanced XML development, this presentation will cover all levels of expertise.
By highlighting the potential advantages and challenges of integrating AI with XML development tools and languages, the presentation seeks to inspire thoughtful conversation around the future of XML development. We’ll not only delve into the technical aspects of AI-powered XML development but also discuss practical implications and possible future directions.
Maruthi Prithivirajan, Head of ASEAN & IN Solution Architecture, Neo4j
Get an inside look at the latest Neo4j innovations that enable relationship-driven intelligence at scale. Learn more about the newest cloud integrations and product enhancements that make Neo4j an essential choice for developers building apps with interconnected data and generative AI.
Full-RAG: A modern architecture for hyper-personalizationZilliz
Mike Del Balso, CEO & Co-Founder at Tecton, presents "Full RAG," a novel approach to AI recommendation systems, aiming to push beyond the limitations of traditional models through a deep integration of contextual insights and real-time data, leveraging the Retrieval-Augmented Generation architecture. This talk will outline Full RAG's potential to significantly enhance personalization, address engineering challenges such as data management and model training, and introduce data enrichment with reranking as a key solution. Attendees will gain crucial insights into the importance of hyperpersonalization in AI, the capabilities of Full RAG for advanced personalization, and strategies for managing complex data integrations for deploying cutting-edge AI solutions.
Threats to mobile devices are more prevalent and increasing in scope and complexity. Users of mobile devices desire to take full advantage of the features
available on those devices, but many of the features provide convenience and capability but sacrifice security. This best practices guide outlines steps the users can take to better protect personal devices and information.
Cosa hanno in comune un mattoncino Lego e la backdoor XZ?Speck&Tech
ABSTRACT: A prima vista, un mattoncino Lego e la backdoor XZ potrebbero avere in comune il fatto di essere entrambi blocchi di costruzione, o dipendenze di progetti creativi e software. La realtà è che un mattoncino Lego e il caso della backdoor XZ hanno molto di più di tutto ciò in comune.
Partecipate alla presentazione per immergervi in una storia di interoperabilità, standard e formati aperti, per poi discutere del ruolo importante che i contributori hanno in una comunità open source sostenibile.
BIO: Sostenitrice del software libero e dei formati standard e aperti. È stata un membro attivo dei progetti Fedora e openSUSE e ha co-fondato l'Associazione LibreItalia dove è stata coinvolta in diversi eventi, migrazioni e formazione relativi a LibreOffice. In precedenza ha lavorato a migrazioni e corsi di formazione su LibreOffice per diverse amministrazioni pubbliche e privati. Da gennaio 2020 lavora in SUSE come Software Release Engineer per Uyuni e SUSE Manager e quando non segue la sua passione per i computer e per Geeko coltiva la sua curiosità per l'astronomia (da cui deriva il suo nickname deneb_alpha).
Goodbye Windows 11: Make Way for Nitrux Linux 3.5.0!SOFTTECHHUB
As the digital landscape continually evolves, operating systems play a critical role in shaping user experiences and productivity. The launch of Nitrux Linux 3.5.0 marks a significant milestone, offering a robust alternative to traditional systems such as Windows 11. This article delves into the essence of Nitrux Linux 3.5.0, exploring its unique features, advantages, and how it stands as a compelling choice for both casual users and tech enthusiasts.
Infrastructure Challenges in Scaling RAG with Custom AI modelsZilliz
Building Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) systems with open-source and custom AI models is a complex task. This talk explores the challenges in productionizing RAG systems, including retrieval performance, response synthesis, and evaluation. We’ll discuss how to leverage open-source models like text embeddings, language models, and custom fine-tuned models to enhance RAG performance. Additionally, we’ll cover how BentoML can help orchestrate and scale these AI components efficiently, ensuring seamless deployment and management of RAG systems in the cloud.
Observability Concepts EVERY Developer Should Know -- DeveloperWeek Europe.pdfPaige Cruz
Monitoring and observability aren’t traditionally found in software curriculums and many of us cobble this knowledge together from whatever vendor or ecosystem we were first introduced to and whatever is a part of your current company’s observability stack.
While the dev and ops silo continues to crumble….many organizations still relegate monitoring & observability as the purview of ops, infra and SRE teams. This is a mistake - achieving a highly observable system requires collaboration up and down the stack.
I, a former op, would like to extend an invitation to all application developers to join the observability party will share these foundational concepts to build on:
For the full video of this presentation, please visit: https://www.edge-ai-vision.com/2024/06/building-and-scaling-ai-applications-with-the-nx-ai-manager-a-presentation-from-network-optix/
Robin van Emden, Senior Director of Data Science at Network Optix, presents the “Building and Scaling AI Applications with the Nx AI Manager,” tutorial at the May 2024 Embedded Vision Summit.
In this presentation, van Emden covers the basics of scaling edge AI solutions using the Nx tool kit. He emphasizes the process of developing AI models and deploying them globally. He also showcases the conversion of AI models and the creation of effective edge AI pipelines, with a focus on pre-processing, model conversion, selecting the appropriate inference engine for the target hardware and post-processing.
van Emden shows how Nx can simplify the developer’s life and facilitate a rapid transition from concept to production-ready applications.He provides valuable insights into developing scalable and efficient edge AI solutions, with a strong focus on practical implementation.
GraphRAG for Life Science to increase LLM accuracyTomaz Bratanic
GraphRAG for life science domain, where you retriever information from biomedical knowledge graphs using LLMs to increase the accuracy and performance of generated answers
Essentials of Automations: The Art of Triggers and Actions in FMESafe Software
In this second installment of our Essentials of Automations webinar series, we’ll explore the landscape of triggers and actions, guiding you through the nuances of authoring and adapting workspaces for seamless automations. Gain an understanding of the full spectrum of triggers and actions available in FME, empowering you to enhance your workspaces for efficient automation.
We’ll kick things off by showcasing the most commonly used event-based triggers, introducing you to various automation workflows like manual triggers, schedules, directory watchers, and more. Plus, see how these elements play out in real scenarios.
Whether you’re tweaking your current setup or building from the ground up, this session will arm you with the tools and insights needed to transform your FME usage into a powerhouse of productivity. Join us to discover effective strategies that simplify complex processes, enhancing your productivity and transforming your data management practices with FME. Let’s turn complexity into clarity and make your workspaces work wonders!
Unlocking Productivity: Leveraging the Potential of Copilot in Microsoft 365, a presentation by Christoforos Vlachos, Senior Solutions Manager – Modern Workplace, Uni Systems
1. Select the Right Vendor for Server Virtualization Enable server efficiency & cost savings from consolidation to internal cloud
2. VMware continues to dominate, but selection isn’t just about who is the leader. Competitors are providing legitimate alternatives for consolidation and virtual infrastructure management. Introduction This Research is Designed For: This Research will Help You: IT Leaders planning to implement server virtualization to save costs on server hardware. IT Leaders looking to advance their server virtualization strategy beyond simple consolidation to realize efficiency benefits of a fully managed virtual infrastructure. IT Leaders planning to develop their virtual environment into a fully automated utility infrastructure (internal cloud). Organizations considering adopting a hybrid server virtualization strategy (i.e. multiple solutions) to avoid future vendor lock-in and lower cost to serve. Understand available functionality of current server virtualization software for consolidation, management and utility infrastructure as well as differentiating factors among vendors. Align vendor strengths and limitations to your current and projected needs around virtualization. Be able to prepare an RFP and score RFP responses. Select the vendor that is the best fit for your organization. Develop implementation plans that address common challenges.
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4. VMware’s product focus is on advanced internal cloud enablement and public-private cloud integration. Citrix has also been developing solutions in this area.
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7. Understand Trends and Current Issues This section will help you to: Understand the benefits & costs of more heavily virtualizing your current environment. Get a handle on the current market & recent differentiators. Formulate a cost/benefit analysis to demonstrate the value & justify the cost of future virtualization plans. Sections: Understand Trends & Current Issues Evaluate Server Virtualization Vendors Arrive at an Implementation Strategy
8. Organizations implementing server virtualization often avoid costly hardware upgrades up front and improve ongoing management of their servers Capital cost savings in server hardware is the most immediate benefit of server virtualization. Operations also benefit. Info-Tech finds that servers are the primary source of cost savings associated with server virtualization & consolidation – averages above the dotted line indicate agreement that cost/hours have been reduced. As organizations become more virtualized these cost savings continue to become more prominent – organizations that are highly virtualized are more likely to see cost/time savings than those less virtualized. N = 88. Source: Info-Tech Research Group.
9. Benefits can be grouped into three broad categories: Beyond server consolidation, enterprises are realizing significant benefits from a managed virtual infrastructure Consolidation: For new server hardware, more can be done with less as multiple workloads (running on virtual machines) more effectively utilize shared physical servers. CAPEX savings can range from 40% to 75%. Management: Virtual machines can be created and configured much more rapidly than physical servers. High availability and rapid recovery can also be architected much more cheaply than physical servers. This has time and cost savings benefits for ongoing management and business continuity planning. Automation (Internal Cloud): Virtualization does not magically make a private cloud appear; however, in moving to internal infrastructure-as-a-service (or private cloud), a virtual infrastructure is more agile. Virtualization vendors are incorporating automation, self-service, and cost accounting (metering) features into their management stacks to enable the creation of cloud-like internal services. Vendors such as VMware and Citrix are also working on standards and functionality for bridging between these internal clouds and public Infrastructure as a service clouds. Lowered OPEX (fewer servers to manage) Reduced CAPEX (fewer server purchases) Energy Savings (smaller footprint) Easier server maintenance Faster application provisioning Improved application performance Higher availability More reliable DR capabilities Streamlined capacity management/planning Automated virtual server management User self service Improved visibility for metering/charge-backs
10. Server virtualization solutions deliver features that enable consolidation, agile management, and internal cloud Info-Tech sees virtualization as a journey that starts with CAPEX savings, but progresses through management to cloud as more servers are virtualized Consolidation Phase: The focus is on transitioning workloads to virtual machines and getting the most out of the hardware (most VMs per host). Capacity analysis and P2V (physical to virtual) migration tools and features that boost consolidation ratio are most important value add features in this phase. Management Phase: Virtual infrastructure has become a core technology hosting production servers. Rapid agile provisioning, resource scheduling and load balancing, and high availability are key features in this phase. Optimization of shared storage resources is also critical. Internal Cloud Phase: Focus shifts to end-to-end management of complete systems from application through virtual machines to hardware. Performance monitoring for service level maintenance as well as management automation and self-service are key to building infrastructure as a service. Automated cost accounting for chargeback or “showback” also brings cloud-like capability to the virtual infrastructure. Smaller enterprises (i.e. 25 to 250 servers) rapidly progress to the management phase because they virtualize more servers faster (up to 65% in a single year). They have less to gain in capital savings (less to virtualize) but want the agility and availability benefits of a virtual infrastructure.
11. Phase One: Consolidateto reduce server capital expenses, lower operational costs and save energy Consolidation ratios are important, but not the “be all” and “end all”, as competitors have largely caught up to VMware Consolidation ratios are not a significant vendor differentiator: Don’t get hung up on vendor claims of consolidation ratios as this only matters for very large enterprise seeking economies of scale through maximum workloads per physical host. Much hype has been generated over technologies for improving the number of VMs that can run on a physical host, primarily because VMware promotes these as a means of lowering total cost per VM. VMware achieves most of its memory optimization through a flavor of memory over-commitment called ballooning, which is the same technology used in Citrix & Microsoft’s dynamic memory capabilities. Red Hat accomplishes this with transparent page sharing & hypervisor paging, also used by VMware. Physical-to-Virtual (P2V) involves transitioning of physical servers to VMs and candidate server identification. VMware & Citrix (except Windows Server 2003) allow machines to be migrated without downtime to the server; Microsoft does not. Virtual-to-Virtual (V2V) primarily differs among vendors in that Citrix and Microsoft allow migration of VMs from VMware ESX hosts, whereas VMware’s proprietary software does not support migration of VMs from XenServer or Hyper-V hosts.
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13. Measure the impact on savings of various virtualization solutions and Windows licensing options.
14. Weigh the impact on overall savings of increasing and decreasing the number of virtual instances per physical machine (the consolidation ratio).Microsoft has improved their server licensing over the years by allowing unlimited Microsoft server virtual instances to share a single licensed physical server. This privilege, however, comes at the price of having to purchase the more expensive Windows 2008 Data Center Edition. Under this model, pricing is based on the number of host servers, and the number of processors on each.
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16. They began evaluating server virtualization vendors for their production environment when 25% of their servers’ hardware maintenance agreements expired or were no longer eligible for maintenance.
17. Available physical space in the data center was sparse and the organization’s server footprint had been growing.
18. PSECU selected VMware based on its P2V capabilities that did not require downtime to their 60+ servers during transition.
19. Server virtualization was deployed to reduce physical server footprint and improve DR through high availability functionality (see next section).
20. IT avoided expansion of cooling & UPS power through footprint reduction, and were even able to add additional equipment.
21. PSECU’s policy going forward is that all new servers are virtual servers, and they expect to virtualize another 25% in 2011 Since we’re a financial institution, we spend a lot of time on business continuity. We put in the cost of a server outage, and that seemed to grab [stakeholder] attention.
22. Phase Two: Evaluate features that realize management benefits especially as virtual exceeds 50% of servers Managing the virtual infrastructure is crucial, as virtual servers have rapidly become core infrastructure; enterprises are now more than 50% virtualized. Current & Projected Virtualization Server Virtualization by Company Size* 75% 60% 52% 50% 44% 42% Small
Enterprise Medium
Enterprise Large
Enterprise % Virt 18
Months % Virt 3
Years % Virt
Now It is not unusual for small to mid-sized organizations, with primarily x86 Windows and Linux infrastructure, to report 95% virtualization. However, most organizations are between 40% and 60% virtualized where management features, and management benefits, are of primary concern. The wide-ranging benefits of server virtualization for consolidation & management have led organizations of all sizes to deploy. Because benefits increase with further virtualization, many organizations have a “virtualize unless otherwise” policy leading to increased virtualization ratios over time. *As reported by respondents; Source: Info-Tech Research Group; N = 87 *As reported by respondents; Source: Info-Tech Research Group; N = 75
23. Most organizations reap considerable management benefits, where significant vendor differences begin VMware was first to game and still leads in their migration capabilities with vMotion Live Migration: VMware was the innovator of this feature, but it is now offered by every major server virtualization vendor. Live migration is a critical feature where a running virtual machine can be moved from one physical host to another with zero downtime. This is accomplished by having the two physical hosts, each running the hypervisor, share the same storage (typically an iSCSI or Fibre Channel SAN array). Thus, while the VM moves from one physical processor to another, the storage used by that VM does not move, enabling VM workloads to be non-disruptively moved off hardware for maintenance. Dynamic Resource Allocation: Leveraging live migration, VMs can also be moved to balance utilization across multiple hosts so that all VMs get the best resources (to meet service level commitments) by shifting resource-hungry VMs to hosts with more available resources. VMs can also be migrated to fewer servers during non-peak periods to save power and cooling resources.
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25. Primary business driver to deploying server virtualization was to optimize overall performance & user experience in remote desktops by increasing the total number of devoted servers, thereby reducing the number of users sharing a machine.
26. Vinfen Corporation began virtualizing with the free version of XenServer & were able to create 3 VMs on each physical server.
27. They have since traded up their XenApp licenses to XenDesktop licenses & in the process received the advanced version of XenServer.
28. Vinfen Corporation has now optimized what they have on a minimal budget to triple the capacity for their virtual desktops.
29. They have also used XenServer to virtualize file servers & Exchange 2010.
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31. Consolidation cost savings continue as organizations reap benefits of a managed virtual infrastructure As organizations move beyond consolidation into a managed virtual server infrastructure consolidation continues to deliver value Server virtualization brings additive benefits: Cost savings through consolidation are most often associated with initial stages of virtualization because these benefits are used to make the business case. However, capital and operational savings continue as a greater proportion of the infrastructure is virtualized because further hardware refreshes are avoided. Management capabilities may be a primary business driver: High availability for disaster recovery & improved application delivery may be sufficient to justify investment in server virtualization. Organizations with a small server footprint (or without an impending server refresh) may not be in a position to achieve significant immediate cost savings through consolidation. However, the potential cost of down time may make a compelling business case without consolidation savings. Internal Cloud Benefits Management Benefits Consolidation Benefits 27% 26% 44% 22% 100% 100% 31% 89% Percent of Organizations Achieving Set of Benefits 67% 69% 100% 100% 100% 78% 62% Percent Virtualized 0% 100% Source: Info-Tech Research Group N = 70
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33. They recognized the opportunity to evaluate and change vendors with their hardware refresh.
34. Being proactive, the IT group wanted to select a vendor that could prepare and enable their virtual infrastructure for the possibility of internal cloud, should they wish to move in this direction down the road.
35. A large IT services organization was 30% virtualized on Microsoft Hyper-V.
36. Impending hardware refresh of almost 60% of the server environment and a portion of the storage architecture.
37. Having moved past pure consolidation, the organization already had a ‘virtualize when possible’ policy in place and planned to become 90% virtualized in the next year. We could reduce our footprint by a substantial amount in our next upgrade of hardware… …I had a [storage] cluster that was not able to be purchased new at a reasonable level. I was able to eliminate the need for a cluster design, which was a very expensive venture. I was able to go to a virtual environment and still have some level of confidence that I could restore & replicate at a better price point than buying a cluster.
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39. Abstracted compute resources (processor cycles, memory, storage) are typically derived from aggregated and virtualized servers.
40. Compute resources are presented to the customer as a service. Both internal & external models are highly agile and responsive to changing business demands.
41. Internal cloud is the new frontier for virtual servers and advanced virtual management. Enabling features include automation, metering, self-service & public cloud integration.76 %focusing on internal cloud You have the physical environment; then you’ve got virtualization. Then you’re going to go to automation – probably private cloud – and then the pure cloud... From virtualization, we’re going to what I’ll call automation. - Peter Valters, Infrastructure Manager, Empowered Networks Enabling the internal cloud is the logical next place to go for server virtualization and server virtualization vendors. However this is a logical rather than necessary progression. For many organizations, effective management of an agile virtual infrastructure will be good enough. Their infrastructure will have neither the high growth potential or capacity variability to need to be run like a fully automated self service cloud.
42. VMware leads in internal cloud developments, but Citrix also has an internal/external cloud strategy Automation, performance monitoring, and metering allow organizations to deliver control and visibility to end users, but internal cloud is not a fit for all Self Service Functionality: With vCloud Director, VMware continues to innovate around internal /external cloud. With VMware Lab Manger, self service is provided for end users to develop & test (stage) applications – as well as to promote them to a production environment - in a 100% virtual environment. Administrators can control user quotas, roles and rights. Process automation: VMware (vCenter Orchestrator), Citrix (Workflow Studio), and Microsoft (System Center Operations Manager) all offer capabilities to automate infrastructure processes. Routine tasks such as server and application provisioning, DR automation in addition to more complex workflows and operations are typically candidates for automation. Metering & Chargeback/Showback: Ultimately enables IT to account, monitor, and report costs associated with the virtual infrastructure. This makes users/groups accountable for infrastructure utilization through fixed allocation- and utilization-based costing, with automated billing, reports and e-mail.
43. Evaluate Server Virtualization Vendors This section will help you to: Evaluate five different server virtualization vendors for best fit using Info-Tech’s Vendor Landscape. Use Info-Tech’s scenario analysis to shortlist vendors according to your current situation with the Server Virtualization Vendor Shortlist Tool Use Info-Tech’s Server Virtualization RFP Template, RFP Scoring Tool, and Demonstration Script to solicit feedback on a set of consistent criteria. Sections: Understand Trends and Current Issues Evaluate Server Virtualization Vendors Arrive at an Implementation Strategy
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45. Prominent server virtualization players, Sun Microsystems and Virtual Iron, were acquired by Oracle in 2009 making way for Microsoft to snatch up some market share and Red Hat to make an entrance with its Enterprise Virtualization offering.
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47. Microsoft. Second in market share, Microsoft has made recent strides in consolidation ratios through dynamic memory and provides strong application integration with Microsoft software like Exchange, SQL, and SharePoint.
48. Citrix. Rounding out the top three, Citrix provides the most comprehensive all around solution for the price, but struggles to overcome VMware’s mind & market share in the space. Citrix’s strong market share in desktop virtualization is also seen as a plus for potential clients.
49. Red Hat. A relatively new offering in the space, Red Hat’s Enterprise Virtualization has made up considerable ground in consolidation and virtual management capabilities in the past 8 months with its KVM hypervisor that it acquired from Qumranet in late 2008.
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51. Server Virtualization Vendor Landscape Category Definitions For a complete description of Info-Tech’s Vendor Landscape methodology, and a comprehensive list of the evaluation criteria used, see the Appendix.
53. Server Virtualization Vendor Scorecard = 0 = 1 = 2 = 4 = 3 Legend: Note: “Harvey Ball” scores are produced by normalizing weighted scores for each category, resulting in rankings for each category. For example, an empty circle does not indicate a zero score; it indicates the lowest score in that category relative to the other products.
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56. Singular focus on VMware virtualization has made supporting multiple hypervisors a challenge; however, Hyper-V management & V2V conversion is being Beta test through a vCenter plugin called XVP Manager & Converter.8200+ Palo Alto, Californiavmware.com vSphere 1998 NYSE: VMW FY09 Revenue: $2B Employees: Headquarters: Website: Pricing: Founded: Presence:
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58. XenServer free edition offers XenMotion live migration, advanced management tools (XenCenter) as well as IntelliCache for support of XenDesktop virtualization projects.
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60. Citrix’s virtual cloud offering contains important features, such as automation, self service, and provisioning service; however, advanced functionality in this area is where Info-Tech sees the biggest difference with VMware.4600+ Santa Clara, Californiacitrix.com XenServer/XenCenter 1989 NASDAQ: CTXS FY09 Revenue: $1.6B Employees: Headquarters: Website: Pricing: Founded: Presence:
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62. R2 release offers live migration for free & R2 SP1 offers support for dynamic memory, which dynamically distributes memory resources to VMs as needed, leading to better performance & density.
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64. Microsoft’s reliance on Citrix for advanced functionality through Essentials for Hyper-V is viewed by some to be a negative.89,000+ Redmond, Washingtonmicrosoft.com Virtual Machine Manager 1975 NASDAQ: MSFT FY10 Revenue: $62.5B Employees: Headquarters: Website: Pricing: Founded: Presence: Info-Tech Recommends: Organizations with significant investment in Microsoft, especially in Server 2008, may find that Hyper-V covers all of their requirements without requiring additional spend to upgrade. Recent additions of live migration, Cluster Shared Volume support, and dynamic memory may make Hyper-V management capabilities good enough.
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66. Red Hat has made up considerable ground on competitors in a short time with capabilities, such as live migration, high availability, memory over-commit, and power management already available.
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68. RHEV currently does not provide cloud functionality or storage management capabilities (e.g. storage live migration).3500+ Raleigh, NCredhat.com RHEV support 1993 NYSE: RHT FY11 Revenue: $909.3M Employees: Headquarters: Website: Pricing: Founded: Presence:
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70. Oracle VM offers zero-dollar licensing (with paid support) and some advanced management functionality, such as high availability and live migration.
71. Oracle focuses on selling the full stack and lacks support for other hypervisors. Potential vendor lock-in may scare off organizations.
72. Oracle’s management capabilities show some notable gaps, such as power management, storage migration/management & memory over-commitment; however, these may be addressed in version 3.0.Oracle introduced its Xen-based virtualization solution, OVM, in 2007. With its acquisitions of Sun Microsystems (completed Jan. 2010) and Virtual Iron (2009), Oracle removed two competitors from the server virtualization vendor landscape while adding new pieces to its own virtualization arsenal (particularly from Sun’s virtualization suite). Info-Tech Recommends: Oracle is likely best suited to IT environments that already leverage a number of Oracle apps. 100,000+ Redwood Shores, CAOracle VM (OVM) support Oracle.com 1977 NASDAQ: ORCL FY10 Revenue: $26.8B Employees: Headquarters: Pricing: Website: Founded: Presence:
73. It’s not all or none. Many server virtualization vendors may meet the needs of your organization
82. Market PresenceInternal cloud not in the plans? Change the weightings! Info-Tech’s shortlist for your organization will change if internal cloud is not a future consideration. Tool Tip
99. When possible, ensure one of your solutions can manage the other for day-to-day management tasks like live migration & P2V.
100. Microsoft & Citrix can manage VMware and each other.
101. VMware is beginning to offer management of Microsoft VMs.Source: Info-Tech Research Group; N = 71
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103. With VMware in their production environment they see higher availability, uptime, and centralized management & control for their critical applications.
104. They realized huge consolidation benefits – reducing 39 physical servers down to 3, which led to power & cooling savings, and consolidated workloads down to 17 VMs (only 1 physical server remains unvirtualized).
105. For Exchange, they purchased an Enterprise license of Microsoft Server 2008 R2, which comes with 4 OS licenses for Hyper-V VMs.
106. Leveraged solid integration between Hyper-V & Exchange, as well as built in redundancy of Microsoft’s Data Protection Manager 2010, which are certified and well tested on Hyper-V.
107. They implemented a 3-node VMware cluster with vCenter Management console in their remaining production environment.
108. Horsley Bridge rolled out server virtualization to their production environment at the same time they went through an upgrade to Microsoft Exchange 2010.
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111. New opportunity & exciting technology engaged the employee, as it allowed him to move into a more proactive role.
112. Our VMware guy’s really coming to work engaged, he’s interested, he’s even doing stuff at home to prep for his VMware training course. He’s figuring out neat things he can do with it…
113. He was the guy doing the “buy, build, deploy” and now he’s doing “right click deploy”…
114. He just grins from ear to ear when he’s doing it. To me, that’s the biggest, most important part. His job satisfaction is there. He’s spending time on things that aren’t repetitive tasks anymore.
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119. Based on the assessment, they started with the free version of Citrix XenServer to consolidate their environment down to 10 virtual servers & leverage live migration as well as VM templating capabilities.
120. They have since upgraded to XenServer Advanced for advanced features like memory optimization & high availability.
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124. Take advantage of SAN array management features, such as High Availability, dynamic resource scheduling & power management, to enable VM failover & maximize resource use.
136. Look to chip sets that have built in virtualization optimization features.Poor virtual machine performance is often a result of having too many virtual machines sharing not enough virtualized hardware resources.
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141. Ability to enter multiple server options allowing TCO comparisons such as:
150. Having developed service tiers in infrastructure was the strongest predictor of overall success in consolidation.
151. A capacity management process, such as inventorying resources annually, was also a predictor of success, especially in managing virtual server sprawl, security assurance, and business continuity.
152. Cost accounting and capacity planning were not predictors of current success. However, efficient capacity planning and cost accounting are not direct inputs, but outcomes of capacity management. .09 Capacity Planning Note: * = correlation is significant. N = 88.Source: Info-Tech Research Group
153. What next? Check out these Info-Tech Solution Sets to learn more about server virtualization & the internal cloud
156. Methodology – Vendor Landscape & Harvey Balls Info-Tech Research Group’s Vendor Landscape market evaluations are a part of a larger product selection solution set, referred to as a ‘Select Set.’ From the domain experience of our analysts, a vendor/product shortlist is established. Product briefings are requested from each of these vendors, asking for information on the company, products, technology, customers, partners, sales models and pricing. Our analysts then score each vendor and product across a variety of categories. These scores are then weighted according to weighting factors that our analysts believe represent the weight that an average client should apply to each criteria. The weighted scores are then averaged for each of two high level categories: vendor score and product score. A plot of these two resulting scores is generated to place vendors in one of four categories: Champion, Competitor, Market Pillar, and Emerging Player. Analysts take the individual scores for each vendor/product in each evaluation category and normalize them to a scale of zero to four. This produces a relative scoring, where a low score value indicates low performance in that category relative to the performance of the other products in that category and vice versa for a high score. These normalized scores are represented with Harvey Balls, ranging from an open circle for a score of zero and a filled-in circle for a score of four. Harvey Ball scores do not represent absolute scores, only relative scores. Individual scorecards are then sent to the vendors for factual review, and to ensure no information is under embargo. We will make corrections where factual errors exist (e.g. pricing, features, technical specifications). We will consider suggestions concerning benefits, functional quality, value, etc; however, these suggestions must be validated by feedback from our customers. We do not accept changes that are not corroborated by actual client experience or wording changes that are purely part of a vendor’s market messaging or positioning. Any resulting changes to final scores are then made as needed, before publishing the results to Info-Tech clients. Vendor Landscapes are refreshed every 12 to 24 months, depending upon the dynamics of each individual market.
DR component– “our driving factor is the DR component. I can confidently have it somewhere else without having replicated hardware. I can just go to a cold site virtual if you will and have confidence that I can be up a running very quickly.”