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Top Tips on How to Squeeze More From Your IT Systems?

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  • Networking
  • Systems
  • Business Computing
Last response: in Networking
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June 12, 2014 10:45:44 AM

Hey all!

We've got a big feature article coming up based on the above title, and we'd like to address a few questions the IT Pros in the crowd have and share a bit of your own insights with the community.

Every business has IT systems, whether they are racks for HPC computing or ranks of SAN boxes. You might have one server in a closet, or a whole data center humming along in the desert. One thing remains consistent - everyone out there is constantly searching for more ways to wring more out of their IT dollar.

Virtualization is one way (and we cover this here on the forums in Business Computing), but that's a pretty big generalization. Surely, some approaches to virtualization prove more effective than others.

We also hear a lot of buzz about converged architectures, where IT has "piles" of compute, storage, and networking infrastructure that can be dynamically allocated to the organization as needed. What we want to know:

• What has been your experience with converged architecture?

• Has it been helpful?

• Do you need more info on the subject?


If you've got some pearls of wisdom and advice, we encourage you to share some of your top tips. If you find you are lacking on advice, tell us what you'd like to hear about within this context. This is your change to help shape the Tom's coverage, so we can in return offer you better, more actionable information.

Thanks in advance!

Yours,
William Van Winkle, Contributing Writer
Joe Pishgar, Senior Community Manager

More about : top tips squeeze systems

June 18, 2014 4:42:04 PM

i would help if i could... but sorry that is outside my realm of expertise.
June 23, 2014 3:18:49 PM

Let me see if I can goose this discussion a bit with some more specific questions. Please feel free to address any of the following:

1. How do you go about determining if your current infrastructure is sufficient for the business you anticipate conducting 12 to 24 months forward?

2. How do you go about planning flexibility into your infrastructure? For example, say you made a big infrastructure investment six months ago, and today you have a need to change things up – you need more storage bandwidth or a change in application types demands higher compute capabilities. Did you plan for such eventualities, and, if so, how?

3. Do you use cloud resources in order to help manage workloads? If so, can you describe how in general terms?

4. There is this idea of “silos” in data centers, that “this app runs over here” or “this segment of the business runs over there.” Converged infrastructure, which shares compute, storage, and networking resources from a centralized pool as needed, is increasingly mentioned as a fix for the inefficiencies of “siloing.” Is it? Have you witnessed these inefficiencies in your own operations? And have you tried some sort of converged infrastructure as a remedy? If so, did it work?

5. What areas of your IT infrastructure now benefit most from virtualization?

Thanks for taking a couple minutes to consider this!
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July 10, 2014 4:35:05 AM

Great explanation.
September 30, 2014 10:39:03 PM

Here's a tip as far as freeing space goes. I use Photon Web browser for flash related sites. For any apps that have web-based sites, you can use this browser to access and view everything you would on these apps. This means I can view shows on Hulu and Crackle, listen to music on Songza, Pandora, etc., without having any of the apps for these things installed. Also, Safari has the ability to create an icon on your home screen that can be used and treated just like an app, but it doesn't take any space. Useful for apps like Feedly or DuoLingo or SkyDrive. I don't have to have any of these apps installed, because browser links do everything I need. This is handy if you only have 16GB!
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