The predictable reports of CAPEX (Capital Operating EXpenditure) and OPEX (Operational EXpenditure) cuts (not just in Information Technology) have already surfaced. Sales projections for public companies are being slashed on a daily basis.
“Weaker than expected demand” seems to be the favorite language. Does anyone in the C-Suite really fail to expect weaker demand? That’s unlikely given the kind of daily data available to every business.
Analyze your customer base with the knowledge that they are or will be forced to cut both CAPEX and OPEX and identify the necessary products and services they can’t live without. If you’re not already supplying one of those products and services, then expect the weaker demand for your organization.
Almost every company of any size has IT (Information Technology) projects at various stages of completion. Many of these may have substantial resources dedicated towards them and yet they wander in the desert of incompleteness. Can you afford this?
Kill your weak IT projects now. It may be painful, but it’s long overdue and you know it. You are wasting resources that you’re going to need to combat the “weaker than expected demand”. The first place you should re-deploy those resources are into those IT projects that have a direct impact on keeping your company competitive.
- Finish that Exchange cut-over and kill the old servers.
- Actually retire those servers you replaced with VMware.
- Upgrade your storage to the higher capacity drives with the lower power consumption and get rid of the old storage.
- Consolidate or move your data centers into more efficient and cost-effective space.
Finally, Dan Rua reminds us not to neglect the interpersonal opportunities that adversity can bring. Reach out to a trusted adviser. You may be able to help each other with your respective challenges.
General, Lessons Learned
Data about job losses, housing starts and foreclosures, venture capital pull-backs and stock market volatility can be used to justify almost any thesis. Watching the panic parade play out in both traditional and online media has resulted in at least one identifiable outcome from the C-Suite: Fooled into Inaction.
Whatever thesis you subscribe to, shouldn’t you be taking some kind of appropriate corrective action to match your conviction?
I found three good and recent examples in predictable places to illustrate the kind of critical thinking that can help you break from the crowd to form your own roadmap. The first is from Irving Wladawsky-Berger. There’s a lot to digest in his post, but Diversification, Mass Extinction, and Survival poses this central question: What can a company do to maximize its chances of survival at such times?
Attempting to answer that question for your business is likely a better use of your time than marching in the Panic Parade.
The second example comes from Chuck Hollis. “Better Times Ahead For Service Providers?” suggests some reasons why a downturn could help these types of businesses. More importantly, you can learn from Chuck’s reasoning and apply to your own business. He’s spot on with the notion that “Transparency of Costs” will be something that will become familiar to all.
The difference-maker for business will be those that deal now with many of these issues while the paralyzed enjoy the parade!
Finally, Brad Feld put up a guest post he received via e-mail from Sarah Reed. I found The Legal Lexicon for an Economic Meltdown a refreshing and humorous reminder that this has all happened before. Humor is a necessary stimulant for critical thinking.
Survive or Thrive?
Remember that while you’re watching the parade, there are other individuals doing the planning to thrive in the current climate.
General, Lessons Learned
The Boulder County Business Report disclosed the news that Longmont, CO will be home to three 50,000 square foot data centers. Broadband Utilities, based in Dallas, chose land adjacent to the recently completed Honda North Amercan Data Center project.
Longmont is already home to some well-known organizations and interest remains high among prospects looking to relocate more than their data centers to the area. We had the pleasure of meeting with John Drossos, chief exectuive officer of Broadband Utilities, during one of his site visits to Longmont. These new data centers will satisfy the pent-up demand as well as benefit from the increased focus on geographic diversity to avoid downtime.
Of course, if you’re planning on relocating your data center, you’ll want to get our data center moving guide.
DataCenters, Welcome
Intel announced it is establishing a presence in Longmont, Colorado joining a who’s who of companies in the area. Of course IBM, just a few miles from Longmont, is one of the earliest and well-known technology giants that have shaped Longmont. Here are a few others:
Chips and Semiconductors
Broadcom Corporation
Fujitsu Computer Products of America
Intelliprop
LSI Storage Peripherals Group
Marvell Semiconductor
National Semiconductor
NUTEK Americas Inc.
STMicorelectronics
Synkera Technologies, Inc.
Texas Instruments
Xilinx
Storage and Peripherals
Conduant Corporation
COPAN Systmes
Data Storage Group
DataPlay
Dot Hill Systems Corporation
Emulex
ExcelStor Technology, Inc.
InPhase Technologies
Mountain Optech, Inc.
MP Tapes, Inc.
Pillar Data Systems
Pineree Peripherals, Inc.
Rebit, Inc.
Seagate Technology
Storage Genetics, Inc.
Western Digital Corporation
Biotech
Alpharma
Amgen
Array BioPharma, Inc.
Cevan Nutritionals
Chemizon
MicroPhage, Inc.
RMC Pharmaceutical Solutions, Inc.
Aerospace
ABSL Space Products
Custom Microwave, Inc.
DigitalGlobe (recently filed for IPO)
Earthmap Solutions (acquired by Monsanto)
Redstone Aerospace
With the increased interest from prospects in relocations, the addition of Intel bodes well for the future of corporate relocations to the area. Our data center moving guide is a great resource for those with a computer room or data center that needs to be moved.
DataCenters, General, Welcome
While I don’t agree with some of Chuck’s predicted trends in Next Generation Data Centers, this post isn’t about those disagreements. I think it’s important to highlight the value of his observation about Information Technology (IT) at significant scale.
We move data centers of all sizes. The difference in these data centers, regardless of physical size, is stark when someone was worried about what it means to architect, design, and implement Information Technology with scaling in mind. You don’t have to be a large IT shop to worry about scale. You do have to understand why investing in point solutions can be very costly for your organization versus investing in something that is designed to scale.
This means often actively resisting the marketing themes that make instant trade press architects out of technical and non-technical people alike. You’ll find Chuck Hollis talking about these themes also — most recently in his Adventures in Server Marketing.
Scale matters.
If you live in the C-Suite, make sure you understand scale even better than your IT Division.
DataCenters, Lessons Learned
With the advent of virtualization, particularly VMware’s VDI (Virtual Desktop Interface), much has been written about pairing a thin hardware client with VDI to ease administration and control costs. This hardware, however, still costs in the range of $300 to $800 per unit. Contrasted to a desktop PC, sometimes there is no savings on the hardware giving little incentive to roll out a thin client plus VDI environment.
Arguments such as “management nightmare”, “simplified support model”, and “less moving parts” don’t measure up to the economic realities that thin clients don’t bring a significant cost savings over a desktop deployment strategy.
Thin isn’t in because it’s not cheap enough to motivate an economic decision.
General, Technology
Have you wanted to develop budgetary estimates for VMware projects or build a business case for VMware and need MSRP pricing? Download our VMware MSRP pricing guide.
Virtualization
Since we first published the Free Data Center Moving Guide, the question of how to move user desktops is always present. To address that need, we’ve published a guide to moving desktops. The guide covers the desktop move phases including common mistakes to avoid, preparation, de-stage, and re-stage. You can download this guide at http://datacentermoving.com/desktopmovingguide .
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DataCenters
The updated data center move guide is now available for download. The data center relocation guide is useful for creating data center move checklists and data center relocation project plans.
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DataCenters
Most experts recommend a multi-phase approach for implementing VMware. The problem is that following this approach can take anywhere from 6 to 18 months before any benefits are realized. What if you’re already convinced of the VMware benefits and are looking to accelerate the adoption of VMware for competitive advantage? Here are some steps to help you accelerate a VMware deployment:
Use a Reference Design
There’s no need to engineer a new design for your VMware infrastructure. Most IT (Information Technology) professionals enjoy the engineering step and the result can be an over-complicated hardware layer that actually inhibits a VMware deployment. Use an existing and proven reference design that scales.
Plan For Storage Growth
Because a VMware infrastructure can scale rapidly, you need to plan for storage growth before deployment. If you already have a SAN (Storage Area Network) or a NAS (Network Attached Storage), now is the time to integrate that storage into your VMware infrastructure.
Use Imaging Software
Loading Virtual Machines from scratch is a poor use of your time. Use readily available imaging software as well as the VMware provided tools to quickly build Virtual Machines as well as migrate a host to a virtual machine.
Choose a Partner
Like every other kind of deployment, choosing the right partner makes all the difference. In addition to access to VMware pricing, the right VMware partner can help you avoid costly mistakes. Avoiding distractions and focusing on issues of scale are key to a rapid VMware deployment.
General, Virtualization
