Reaching for the Cloud creates Business Value

Amazon CTO provides his take on cloud computing and the type of cloud that would appeal to CIOs and increase adoption. Amazon has introduced a virtual private cloud that can be used to extend an enterprise architecture. Interesting note: some CIOs are capping the growth of their traditional data center in favor of growing the cloud portion of the architecture. This offering plays to that emerging trend. ...

... "The cloud let its users focus on delivering differentiating business value instead of wasting valuable resources on the undifferentiated heavy lifting that makes up most of IT infrastructure. " ...

Via All Things Distributed: Extending the Data Center to the Virtual Private Cloud

Night of the Living Dead

Finish that upgrade or implementation project? Didja retire the legacy system or infrastructure that it replaced? Oops. You've got zombies. And, they're costing you ... big-time. ...

... "I'm talking about zombie servers, machines that, for whatever reason, have been left in the rack, powered on but doing very little or no work whatsoever. " ...

Via InfoWorld: Slay your zombies

Focus on the Positive

Don't forget information technology's role in improving business productivity --- focus on the positive impact --- even common infrstructure, such as telephony, provides the opportunity to drive business benefits. ...

... "Even something as familiar as a telephone system can present challenges for users when changes are introduced. To overcome this, we ran a number of demonstration days, where key individuals from the business were shown the full functionality of the system. " ...

Via iTnews Australia: IT is key

Valuing IT Assets

Researchers exploring ways to make the information technology asset life-cycle conversation more meaningful for business leaders. ...

... "Executive management and CEOs don't have the language, models and tools to have a business-oriented value conversation around their IT infrastructure, says Peppard. We're also trying to think about how an organisation might put a value on legacy [past IT] investments. " ...

Via The Irish Times: IT project value

PC Energy Footprint

Considering a project proposal for energy efficiency in the data center? Don't forget your personal computers and peripherals as an opportunity to reduce your energy footprint. ...

... "PCs and related peripherals consumed 41% of the information and communication technology's global footprint – telecoms infrastructure, data centers, and printers consumed 37%, 14% and 8%, respectively. " ...

Via Forrester: PC Power Management

Resiliency Services

IBM makes significant investment into business continuity, branding its services as providing "Business Resilience" through its globally distributed centers. The service will be offered through the cloud. ...

... "The massive infrastructure expansion is the largest of its kind and will permit IBM clients to access services that support business continuity for the first time from a cloud computing environment. Business continuity and resiliency services help ensure uninterrupted operations across all layers of the business, as well as helping businesses avoid, prepare and recover from a disruption. IBM is the world's leader in providing services that help avoid disruption and enable business continuity. Future Business Resilience service delivery centers will be located in every geographic region of the globe ... " ...

Via IBM: $300 Million Investment to Expand Business Continuity and Resiliency Services

Google Application Infrastructure Opening

Google starts preview release of its infrastructure for developers. ...

... "application-hosting tool that developers can use to build scalable web apps on top of Google's infrastructure. The goal is to make it easier for web developers to build and scale applications, instead of focusing on system administration and maintenance. " ...

Via Google: Your Apps on Google's Infrastructure

See video discussion of this application hosting capability ...

HP IT Transformation

CIO offers insights into HP information technology transformation, where data center consolidation, application architecture rationalization, and project portfolio management are the rule of the day. ...

... "A deep dive into a company's technology infrastructure will help open a technology manager's eyes. Some of the 1,240 IT projects Mott cataloged at HP during a 30-day review weren't slated to be finished for 20 years. " ...

Via Information Week: Incremental IT

Organize for Virtualization Success

A virtualized environment offers the ability to achieve significant scalability. Benchmarks and heuristics can help you assess the future state model for your organization post-implementation. ...

... "Management team: 15 percent of IT groups are creating a dedicated team, often called the virtual computing team, that brings together experts from various IT disciplines to manage the overall virtualization effort ... " ...

Via CIO: Benchmarks

Project Dark-Porcelain: Get Connected

Tired of you current ISP? Here's an alternative ...

... "The Toilet Internet Service Provider (TiSP) project is a self-installed, ad-supported online service that will be offered entirely free to any consumer with a WiFi-capable PC and a toilet connected to a local municipal sewage system. " ...

Via Google Press Center: Dark porcelain project offers self-installed plumbing-based Internet access

Virtual Infrastructure: Grid Perspective

Grid-computing provider discusses the characteristics of managing a successful distributed computing infrastructure, which is of interest to companies that are aiming for a more lights-out, virtual infrastructure. ...

... "It is in the interest of application providers to meet the demands of their customers, and some of their largest customers are demanding grid-enablement as part of their overall IT strategy in the data center. " ...

Via Grid Today: Read