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Selecting a Desktop Management Solution
Changing technology and business requirements and an increase in mergers and acquisitions have left IT managers with
the unenviable task of monitoring ever-changing IT assets and environments. This encompasses the management of
desktops, operating systems and applications. IT operations are costly, and the day to day management of users and their
desktop environments adds significantly to those costs. Desktop management solutions will benefit a wide range of
organizations and the demand for these solutions will expand. The following is a summary of the key trends that
Datamonitor sees influencing the market over the next two years:
- The overlap between desktop management and IT systems management will increase - There is a great
degree of overlap between desktop management and IT systems management. Datamonitor sees this overlap
increasing until desktop management solutions becoming a subset of the IT systems management market. The
convergence between the two markets will be prompted by end users’ desire for simplifying technology
procurement and deployment. End users are increasingly wary of fragmented IT implementations and will favor
manageability and simplicity over competitive price or technology leadership.
- As the two markets draw closer many desktop management vendors will expand - Vendors who have
traditionally focused on desktop management will expand their offerings to include greater systems management
functionality. Avocent is clearly taking this path with its LANDesk products and Altiris was en route to becoming a
fully-fledged IT systems management vendor before it was acquired by Symantec. The addition of Altiris’s
technology to Symantec’s portfolio (which already includes Veritas) may allow it to become a strong contender in
the systems management space over the next two years.
from Decision Matrix: Selecting a Desktop Management Vendor (DM-2104)
Disk-to-Disk Backups
D2D solutions offer an alternative to the many problems of tape backup, including media failure
(damaged or corrupted tapes), operator error, and lost tapes. Diogenes Analytical Laboratories,
an IT advisory company that performs independent product lab evaluations, estimated that
between five and twenty percent of nightly tape-based backup/recovery jobs fail on average.
In addition, D2D and VTL technologies bring the speed of disk to the backup and restore
process, allowing users to meet shortening backup and restore windows without adding and/or
upgrading tape hardware to meet the time requirements.
In general, both backups and restores are usually faster with both VTLs and other D2D options.
However, some users may not see the same ratios of improvements, depending on where their
bottlenecks are (e.g., networks or servers) and on how their backups are configured.
from Virtual Tape Libraries and Disk-to-Disk Backup and Protection (Part I) (EX-9184)
Why Tablet PCs are Great
- They require relatively little training. Writing with a pen is a natural activity for most people.
Since not all end-users are comfortable using conventional laptops for note-taking, a pen-based
interface can often be the more productive choice.
- They support richer data entry. Replacing the keyboard and mouse with a digital pen allows for
more intuitive input. For most end-users, it is easier to write in the margins with the stylus than it
is to learn how to use the conventional features within productivity applications like Microsoft
Word. As a result, users are more inclined to incorporate more detailed text and graphics into
their feedback.
- They can be more productive. The tablet interface’s use of gestures, in which the stylus is
moved a certain way on-screen to initiate commands, allows for a powerful command interface.
An available extension for Firefox, for example, allows a group of circled URLs to be opened in
unique tabs.
from Tablet PCs Near Enterprise Readiness (IN-6434)
Storage and Tiered Architecture
Since 2002, storage administrators have focused primarily on data movement
instead of a true tiered storage strategy. Their primary focus was acquiring
cheaper SATA and SCSI drives to move off of expensive FC disks. Info-Tech
anticipates that this year will see the beginning of true tiered deployment, where
decision makers take a holistic approach to tiered storage.
The impact of storage tiers is very real. Significant benefits include:
- Increased storage utilization rates due to better data allocation.
- Improved application performance because resources are freed up by
removing unnecessary data from important storage systems.
- Easier management since no forklift upgrades are necessary to
accommodate bloated data. Additionally, the amount of data on the
storage system is within expected levels because all extraneous data is
placed on appropriate platforms.
- Better data protection. The tiered nature of the data allows the
administrator to con?gure data security to more closely match data
sensitivity.
- Real ROI gains. Solid ROI has been realized for smartly deployed
tiered storage systems. As decision makers intentionally deploy
tiered storage, we expect to see this level of savings across the board.
from Ensure Storage Success: Marry ILM with Tiered Storage Technology (IN-6407)
Funding IT Infrastructure
We did not find that funding methods are a particularly big factor in the decision-making process
for IT infrastructure investments, and the decision to lease or buy technology is usually governed
by the finance organization’s established procedures and viewpoints on the cost of capital. More
significant is the decision on how to charge for infrastructure and other services once they have
been approved and implemented. Are all IT services bundled into a corporate tax and allocated
via a simple formula around business unit revenues or employees? Or do you charge at a very
detailed level to each company cost center for specific services consumed (e.g., number of calls
to the help desk)? If you require a business unit to use a service (such as security administration),
should you charge by the same method used where the business unit has control over
consumption? Whatever mechanisms you use, how do you avoid endless arguments between IT
and business units about the appropriateness of the charges? And how do you administer
chargeback procedures economically and efficiently?
Difficulties with chargeback often arise because companies do not clarify their objectives. IT
often operates on a mandate to charge such that "one-hundred percent of your costs get
recovered." As one CIO stated, "My primary measure of success is that I was on budget and
everything got allocated somewhere." Meanwhile, the business units want information that will
help them reduce (or at least control) their IT costs, while continuing to want more technology to
improve their processes. Rarely do chargeback mechanisms help business units understand what
actions they can take to manage cost - or even highlight their role in the cost equation - and they
frequently fail to explain the causes of variations in charges. This lack of accurate IT cost
information is more than just an internal accounting problem - it can be a business problem if
business units have distorted views of what it costs to make products and serve customers.
But perhaps the most fundamental issue with chargeback is that discussions focus almost
exclusively on cost. Measuring cost in the absence of measuring service is like having a
discussion on the price of cars without knowing the make, model or year.
from Justifying and Funding IT Infrastructure: Investing in Business Agility (CG-4532)
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