December 30, 2008
Padding your IT budget? IT managers pad their budgets because they believe the funding for the budget will be cut no matter how well justified. This approach creates a problem. If you get asked about your numbers, and don’t have a good answer, your credibility could go out the window. Future requests for funding could [...]
December 23, 2008
All IT managers face IT chaos at one time or another. This chaos is usually the result of software, hardware and networking equipment acquired over time, and a patched together infrastructure. Through different eras of acquisitions and different vendors, much of what goes into a data center doesn’t work harmoniously. Data center change happens so frequently [...]
December 17, 2008
Right now, with BIZI pre-owned network equipment, you are able to save substantially on upgrades. In many cases, you can lower your total cost of ownership by applying cash back from trading in your excess equipment towards your new requirements. Get more value out of your exiting network system, by adding pre-owned equipment to enhance functionality . With our programs, you have three cost effective ways of getting [...]
December 16, 2008
A benefit of virtualization is that many physical servers can be collapsed onto a single server, which reduces the need for additional equipment. With the absence of physical network aggregation points, like a switch or router, organizations can potentially lose the vital ability to watch all network traffic due to these “blind spots.” There’s no doubt that [...]
2009 is going to be an interesting. Most contraction will stem from efforts to reduce IT expenses, primarily by either increasing user efficiency or reducing hardware waste. So where should you concentrate your efforts? Your best bet is in the server virtualization arena. Huge efficiency gains have already been brought to the data center. In the next year, even [...]
December 10, 2008
Cloud services claim to provide nearly everything you need without requiring you to run your own IT infrastructure. There are three basic uses of the cloud’s tech resources: computing power on-demand, SaaS (software as a service) applications delivered over the Internet, and PaaS (platform as a service) application development and provisioning delivered over the Internet. We’ve seen organizations [...]
The protocols of choice are Fibre Channel, iSCSI, and NAS (NFS). Your choices are going to be 8Gbyte FC (maybe 4Gbyte), 1Gbyte iSCSI, and 1Gbit/s or possibly 10Gbit/s Ethernet w/ NFS. When it comes to straight performance, many organizations concede that Fibre has the performance advantage from a raw numbers standpoint. Choosing iSCSI or NFS for ease of use [...]
December 9, 2008
The financial efficiency of an enterprise network is as important as its technical performance. In poor economic times, this simple truth becomes even more important. Running a mission critical network is not cheap and very often you can’t put projects on hold for an indefinite period of time without experiencing more degrading performance. But, when the costs for new equipment is expensive and the [...]
December 8, 2008
In the data center, it’s easy to overlook airflow. But good airflow management is one of the key ways to keep energy costs in check. Poor airflow management can reduce a CRAC unit’s capacity by up to 50 percent. For improving airflow management, first, make sure hot air is removed immediately as it exits equipment, rather than [...]
December 4, 2008
Companies looking to deploy networking equipment have choices. The ‘used vs. new’ scenario has been a major point of contention since the secondary industry emerged over 15 years ago. The question is still relevant today as companies continue to look for opportunities to cut costs. In this economy, many organizations wish to extended their existing network platform with increased functionality [...]