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Isolated Silos or Seamless Integration? The Choice is Clear

Integrate now.

That’s the message of NetworkWorld in a recent column which discusses the ongoing—and expected ramping up of—consolidation in the management software industry. As more IT management companies begin to offer more tools because of this market consolidation, the result will be simplicity. Bottom line, you’ll be able to get more tools ranging from performance management to security solutions—from one vendor.

But more will not mean better if your new tools are not interoperable. Often, NetworkWorld writes, these software and systems just don’t work together smoothly.  “The result (of this consolidation) is a multitude of management consoles, agent components, storage and database requirements that pose training, management and support challenges,” said Fred Broussard, research director of Symantec’s Systems Infrastructure Software group.

As a result, IT management companies who acquire technology need to focus on integration. Some management vendors, of course, know this. CA recently unveiled plans to update its management software portfolio to better integrate its tools. And Symantec last week launched its Open Collaborative Architecture and a new third-party developer program to not only better manage multiple technologies but to better secure them too.

Consolidation will continue. And with consolidation, integration will be a crucial step.
But also keep in mind that software is available in the market that can integrate seamlessly with existing monitoring investments. IT management tools such as these can give you a substantial competitive advantage during this time of consolidation.

Smaller Budgets + Increased Workloads = Real Problems

A tough workload may seem like a great thing in a soft economy. But according to a new survey by Robert Half Technology, many IT managers think these demands are too big—and causing way too much stress.

Of the 1,400 CIOs polled in the survey, 36 percent think too much work is the No. 1 worry in the IT marketplace right now. This, of course, is happening because fewer IT pros are being hired amid fears of a recession and as more managers are being asked to cut costs in general. Worse, many of these IT managers are being asked to improve efficiency—at the same time.

There is one upside to being asked to do more with less: IT staff will get experience performing some tasks that they may not have had otherwise. But in a recent discussion in Network World’s online community, which was mentioned in The New York Times, many posters argued that the negatives still outweigh the positives.

“I have seen a lot of people burn themselves out, become experienced in everything and good at nothing,” one poster rumbled.

Yet another problem is simply poor job performance. “Overstressed IT workers are unlikely to perform their best,” said Katherine Spencer Lee, executive director of Robert Half Technology.

There’s no doubt IT departments are being asked to do more with less. This was happening before the recent credit crisis.

So how can you cope with this trend? One way is to outsource, especially on a project basis. Yet another is to make the jobs of your IT pros easier. Automation is a key weapon in this effort. IT performance management solutions, such as our own Integrien Alive, that automatically tell you when you are going to have a performance problem with root cause symptoms, can significantly reduce manual efforts in troubleshooting. There are other IT automation solutions that support a variety of repetitive manual tasks.

These practices can not only make your IT staff more efficient but can substantially reduce operating costs in the process. 

IT departments always need to do everything they can to meet their budgets and performance goals, especially in times like these.  By not giving your IT staff the best technologies they need to accomplish these tasks could be a recipe for failure.

502: The New Blue Screen of Death

If you’re a Google Apps user, you’ve probably seen the dreaded “Temporary Error (502)” message pop up from time to time. With the growing importance of remotely-hosted applications, the 502 has now become as (in)famous as the old Blue Screen of Death.

From Wednesday of last week until early Friday morning, a Gmail and Apps outage prevented many users from logging in. Google Apps is a hosted (and often free) suite of collaboration and communications programs. It has suffered numerous problems of late, as we’ve mentioned before.

The most recent outage caused many administrators grief as their end users—including high-ranking executives—complained about not having any service, according to a story by IDG News Service.

Administrators posted angry messages on a Google forum. One poster mentioned that his CEO was locked out of his e-mail for nearly a day. “I think I would have pushed for something else before we switched if I had known the level of this unreliability,” wrote the poster, “Bill W.”

IDG also says some Apps Start pages malfunctioned. Start pages are portals into Calendar, Gmail and other applications. In addition, it appears that Google—with little or no warning—changed its popular iGoogle homepage, causing troubles for many consumers and business users alike.

In another posting, a user identified as “Jay” asked: “Why must Google change things without letting administrators know in advance?”

Well, get used to it Jay. This unreliability will likely continue. And as more users flood to so-called cloud services, these problems will likely get worse.

Stop Waving the Red Flag

The past few weeks have undoubtedly caused trepidation, angst and downright fear in the business world. With global bailouts under way, increasing job loss, and declining stock markets, the IT sector is wondering where it fits in with this mess.

Some media of late have indicated rough times for IT. However, we are heartened by what we’re seeing from analysts.

While groups such as Gartner have recently downgraded their outlook for technology spending, these downgrades aren’t as bad as you probably think. Gartner still says IT spending will increase 2.3 percent in 2009. That figure is down more than 100 percent from previous estimates. But given the recent credit crisis, 2.3 percent growth isn’t bad at all.

In fact, the 2.3 percent increase is a “worst-case scenario,” according to analyst Peter Sondergaard, who was quoted in the San Francisco Chronicle. Forrester Research has actually issued more bullish projections (albeit a lower “worst-case scenario.”)

The current economic situation is often compared to the 2001 recession. However, at least for technology spending, there is no comparison to those dark times. “This is going to be extremely mild in comparison,” says Forrester analyst Andrew Bartels.

What all of this is really going to mean is that IT is going to have to do more with nearly the same resources. Let's face it. Regardless of flat or reduced IT budgets, companies are going to continue to expand their businesses. And that is going to mean new revenue-generating applications and supporting infrastructure that will need to be deployed and managed by IT. To support this, IT will have to review existing processes and procedures and eliminate non-essential steps and optimize as much as possible.

The next thing they are going to have to do is look for ways to automate time-consuming, labor-intensive tasks. This will be a tremendous opportunity for innovative vendors who can provide automation solutions with "no-brainer" pricing. It will be an interesting time for such vendors.

With these strategies in place, IT operations can thrive in a down economy, despite what some media are saying. In NASCAR, there are many flags to alert drivers of racetrack conditions. A red flag, for instance, means “end of race.” A yellow one means “caution.”

Too many people are waving the red flag. We believe it is time to get the yellow flag back on the track.

‘Seize the Day.’ Automate Now and Save Later

It may be difficult right now to think about improving IT operations—especially at a time when many CIOs are being asked to cut IT spending. But we are reminded time and time again how smart technology investments can improve productivity. And save money.

These returns are often seen instantly. In a recent CIO Today article, one financial transaction company, CashEdge, is profiled. CashEdge’s help desk was drowning in simple user requests ranging from password resets to user provisioning. Every day, CIO Today says, these 20-30 tickets were equating to three hours of manpower. That’s in addition to the countless hours of lost productivity of the users—who had to wait, on average, half a day before receiving a response.

Faced with rapid growth and strict regulatory compliance rules, senior engineer David Truong needed a safe way to automate simple tasks across multiple servers.

He ultimately found a compliant software solution that provided change management, mobile and client device configuration, delegated administration and resource optimization—all via a Web portal. Amazingly, the provisioning system was up within an hour!

The new system had scripts for many routine activities that used to be completed manually. Employees can now, for example, reset their own passwords and map their own drives without IT help. These features alone reduced password resets from three hours a day to less than 30 minutes. Best of all, users don’t have to wait hours for the IT desk to complete these tasks. That’s a serious—and measurable—return on investment.

During this time of economic uncertainty, it’s more important than ever to spend money wisely on IT projects. In a new release by Gartner, the research group says IT leaders must make better investments in areas that can show value. Further, Gartner says do it now. “IT can and should lead,” the report says. “IT organizations…shouldn’t wait for tomorrow, they should seize the day.” 

Yes, Your iPhone is a Powerful IT Tool

When the Apple iPhone was first launched, the cell phone suddenly became cool again. But at first, its business applications were at best shaky.

Since then, however, the iPhone’s popularity with the business crowd has skyrocketed, thanks to new features such as corporate mail.

Now, even systems administrators and webmasters—thanks to even newer third-party applications—are seeing the possibilities. According to website tracking firm Pingdom, there are many new apps that should garner serious attention with IT folks. Some of these new features include:

• Web Tools. Lets you view info about servers such as host name and location and lets you ping servers
• Network Utility. A testing tool that, among other things, lets you perform port scans and see where a server is located
• Jaadu VNC. A very powerful app (and more expensive) that lets you control your computer remotely from your phone
• aSubnet. A niche app that can help network technicians determine how many hosts there are, how many network bits are available, and much more.

Pingdom says the iPhone can be “extremely useful to administrators responsible for keeping servers, networks and websites up and running.” The site calls the phone a virtual “Swiss Army knife” for any IT manager.

Making the prospects of the iPhone even better for IT staff is the fact that Pingdom’s list—which includes 12 apps—only mentions programs available from the iPhone Apps Store. That means there are others available … on the so-called “jailbreak market.”

The ability to monitor and optimize your network can be a great thing for any IT operation. One reason: It allows you to be more mobile. But an even more important reason? Not all problems—especially system slowdowns and outages—occur during work hours.

Bottom line, companies that have the power to remotely and safely manage and monitor these critical applications will have a significant competitive advantage over those that don’t.

When it Comes to Virtualization, Don’t Sail Alone

Microsoft, which launched its Hyper-V platform earlier this year, is warning businesses that the tremendous benefits of virtualization can be hampered by issues such as increased power consumption.

Quoted in Inquirer.net, Bill Hilf, Windows Server and platform strategy general manager, said most customers run Microsoft’s virtualization technology on infrastructure hardware such as file servers. He said increased server load and virtualization implementations in an improperly configured data center can negate any cost-cutting measures.

However, other problems exist that companies should look at before adopting virtual environments too.

The biggest one is complexity. In an interview with CNET News, Bob Waldie, CEO of open source management services provider Opengear, calls this issue the “dark side” of virtualization. While improving flexibility and asset utilization, Waldie says, virtualization causes complexity by adding an extra hypervisor layer to the load.

Making things even more complex are hybrid virtual-physical environments. Other complexity problems will creep up too. You’ll have to manage significantly more metrics and alerts for one.

But these challenges are hardly the dark side of virtualization. They are easily manageable with the right tools. Virtualization management offers automation and proactive monitoring of virtual machines. Server virtualization management tools also help pinpoint problems to their root causes—drastically reducing guess work and increasing troubleshooting accuracy.

Virtualization offers a myriad benefits. But no company should sail into the virtualization waters alone. It’s much easier with a trusted partner.

Are Things Really This Bad?

The chaos witnessed over the last two weeks in the financial sector—and the resulting bailout brouhaha—sent shockwaves on Wall Street and consumers throughout the country. Money markets slowed. Stock markets plunged. Combine these headlines with rising fuel prices and rapid job loss and the question of whether or not we’re in a recession seems pretty much answered.

As for job loss, Chicago-based corporate consultant Challenger, Gray & Christmas says firing announcements rose by more than 20,000 in September compared to the same month last year.

Wow. Seems like the IT industry could be facing some serious trouble. In fact, Bloomberg reports computer companies “led industries in announced reductions” in September with 25,715. Computer companies’ planned cuts even surpassed the troubled auto industry (14,595) and financial sector (8,244).

But wait a minute. Of those 25,715 planned computer company job cuts, 24,600 came from ONE company—the troubled Hewlett-Packard. That’s roughly 96 percent from a single source. When you say “computer companies nationwide are planning to reduce 1,115 positions” it sounds pretty minor, doesn’t it?

Then there’s the tech-heavy NASDAQ index. It dropped 200 points last Monday! However, a better examination of the NASDAQ would be to compare dates before talks of the bailout. When you compare Sept. 26 of this year with the same day in 2006, the NASDAQ dropped only 78 points. Comparing Sept. 11 with the same day two years ago, it rose 85 points.

Our economy is clearly in a downturn. And the IT market will undoubtedly be affected. But IT, compared to other industries, is still in pretty good shape. As we’ve written about before, companies are still overwhelmingly planning to spend more on technologies such as virtualization and virtualization management. These technologies, IT managers are starting to see, help save money by reducing infrastructure and minimizing manual troubleshooting.

These benefits are even sweeter during a downturn. Or even a recession.

Performance Management a Morass for VMware users

This year marks the year that virtualization hit the big-time. It’s also the year that many IT managers saw for the first time the problems associated with the technology.

With an estimated 61 percent of data center managers using some form of in-house virtualization, there’s no doubt the IT industry sees the incredible advantages virtualization has to offer. But according to the Data Center Decisions 2008 Purchasing Intentions survey (IT reports have never been known for their catchy titles) nearly half of the 600 respondents said they experienced snags with their VMware environments. (VMware, by the way, is still the No. 1 virtualization platform.)

The biggest drawback is performance management, accounting for 47 percent of the respondents. Capacity planning and issues with troubleshooting were also big concerns, accounting for 20 percent to 45 percent of the survey takers.

Nonetheless, the adoption of virtualization is still skyrocketing. According to the report, 29 percent of the respondents said they were going to test or deploy a virtualized environment by the end of 2008, leaving only 10 percent with no near-term virtualization plans. Further, 56 percent said they were going to increase virtualization spending in the near-term. Only 2 percent said they were going to decrease their spending.

If you need further proof of the future of virtualization, look at Intel. The company has just launched its Xeon line of computer chips, which are designed to suit virtualized servers. More chip makers could follow suit, reports say.

With so many data center managers expected to spend more money on virtualization, and with other companies looking to capitalize on that trend, IT departments ought to be mindful of solutions that address the No. 1 problem with virtualization today: performance management. Those departments ill-equipped with solutions to automate troubleshooting in these complicated virtual environments will find themselves spending more money in the long run.

Yet Another Problem for Banks: Website Unavailability

Bad debt. Bankruptcies. Bailouts.

As news of the turmoil sweeping the banking industry saturated the papers, airwaves and wires Sept. 22, Bank of America customers received even more frustrating news: For at least five hours last Monday, they were unable to access their accounts.

Think website problems such as this one are only minor? Think again. The banking industry thrives on trust. What kind of message is sent when one of the biggest banks in the country is unable to manage its own site effectively? Further, how much productivity was lost due to customers’ inabilities to transfer funds or perform other online banking tasks?

If you want proof of how important five hours of downtime can be to customers, check out Google Trends, the service that tracks online search patterns. According to Rich Miller of Data Center Knowledge, the phrases “bank of america” and “bank of america login” were in the top 10 search terms that day.

Worse, it appears no press releases were issued on the glitch that week. In BofA’s “press release” section of its website, there were only headlines of awards the company has won (Sept. 23) and charitable projects it has donated money to (Sept. 22, Sept. 18 AND Sept. 17). What about accountability?

With the current Wall Street “crisis” in play, Miller says, along with a rash of recent M&A—BofA’s acquisition of Merrill Lynch for one—several other financial services sites have experienced problems of late too.

It’s unclear what caused the troubles at BofA or the other affected firms. What is clear is that companies—especially financial services companies—need to have their critical applications running at peak availability at all times. As jittery investors watch to see how market consolidation and the economic downturn affect them, they shouldn’t have to be jittery because of technical problems.