For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

TechRadar™ For Infrastructure And Operations Professionals: Infrastructure Virtualization, Q4 2009

I/O Virtualization Enters Its Growth Phase

by Galen Schreck, November 16, 2009

Every major category of IT infrastructure has been endowed with some virtualization capability. Although virtualization can make your IT environment more cost-effective and agile, the underlying technologies have matured at different rates. Furthermore, . . .

For Sourcing & Vendor Management Professionals

Address The Governance Requirements Of Managed Outcome Engagements

by Bill Martorelli, October 26, 2009

The intensity of the recent economic crisis focused attention on immediate savings exemplified by renegotiation on billing rates for application development and maintenance (ADM) services, among other service types. However, with signs of stabilization . . .

For Sourcing & Vendor Management Professionals

IT Staff Augmentation Trends: Hiring Plans Show Signs Of Life, VMS Adoption Is On The Rise  (680 KB PPT)

by Patrick M. Connaughton, October 16, 2009

Results from a survey of 89 firms that use IT staff augmentation services.

For Sourcing & Vendor Management Professionals

Checklist: SOW And MSA Considerations For Managed Outcome Engagements  (37 KB XLS)

by Bill Martorelli, October 13, 2009

One of the keys to success in establishing managed outcome relationships is to contract for them successfully using elements of the relevant toolset such as the statement of work (SOW) and the master services agreement (MSA). In practice, the two document . . .

For Sourcing & Vendor Management Professionals

Market Overview Of Cloud IT Services From Major Telcos

by Paul Roehrig, Ph.D., September 1, 2009

Interest and hype around cloud IT services is at an all-time high, but most enterprise decision-makers are still exploring the potential risks and rewards. Although most clients are not rushing to implement an unproven set of services, the promise for . . .

For Information & Knowledge Management Professionals

Web Conferencing 2009 Market Overview

Pick A Portfolio Of Providers To Meet All Your Conferencing Scenarios

by Ted Schadler, Claire Schooley, August 27, 2009

Web conferencing has become a key real-time collaboration priority for most enterprises. IT is working hard to pick the right suppliers, negotiate the right price, and drive adoption. But the market remains fragmented, pricing is often mysterious and . . .

For Sourcing & Vendor Management Professionals

Outsourcing SAP Operations Expands With Economic Uncertainty

by Bill Martorelli, Liz Herbert, August 17, 2009

Continuing economic pressures are contributing to the new popularity of outsourcing services for SAP operational services, complementing the large, well-established market for implementation services. Diverse offerings now coexist within the marketplace, . . .

For CIOs

Q&A: By 2011, CIOs Must Answer The Question, "Why Not Run In The Cloud?"

But Finding A Good Place To Start Is A Challenge For Most Shops

by James Staten, Ted Schadler, John R. Rymer, Chenxi Wang, Ph.D., August 14, 2009

At Forrester's IT Forum in Las Vegas in May 2009, we hosted an analyst panel about saving, making, and risking cash with cloud computing. The session sparked a lot of interest — and a lot of questions. With the buzz still strong, and a few more months . . .

For Security & Risk Professionals

Case Study: Ingres Takes Advantage Of Identity Management In The Cloud

by Andras Cser, August 14, 2009

Ingres, an open source database software and support services provider, knew that it needed to reform its online community by improving its ease of use, particularly in the area of identity management. After deciding to explore the use of a cloud-based . . .

For Security & Risk Professionals

Best Practices: Identity Management In The Cloud

by Andras Cser, August 14, 2009

Many companies are struggling to adopt cloud-based identity and access management (hosted IAM) because they typically end up overscoping this initiative or have a difficult time getting funding for it in the current economic climate. Organizations that . . .

For Information & Knowledge Management Professionals

Tier Your Workforce To Save Money With Cloud-Based Corporate Email

Occasional Users Can Run Email In The Cloud For As Little As $2.43 Per Month

by Ted Schadler, August 13, 2009

Information and knowledge management (I&KM) pros are used to giving all employees the same software tools. While this has the benefit of simplicity, it often means buying licenses for software that is seldom or never used. With cloud-based email, . . .

For B2B Market Research Professionals

Enterprise Versus SMB: 2009 Managed/Outsourced Telecom Services Trends  (511 KB PPT)

by Ellen Daley, August 7, 2009

Using BDS' Enterprise And SMB Networks And Telecommunications Survey, North America And Europe, Q1 2009, Forrester analyzes managed/outsourced telecom services trends within enterprises and SMBs for 2009.

For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

Inquiry Spotlight: Cloud-Based Email, Q3 2009

by Christopher Voce, July 31, 2009

Interest in cloud-based email is rapidly rising. The promise of reducing operational costs and refocusing on their core competencies has many Forrester customers asking about the cloud. Cloud-based services like those of Google and Microsoft are more . . .

For Technology Product Management & Marketing Professionals

The Managed Service Market Continues To Percolate

Economic Worries Drive Consideration, While Business Value Drives Satisfaction

by Henry Dewing, July 14, 2009

Managed services vendors promise mitigation of economic and technology risk to business customers, and some IT professionals are buying those services. The market for many new and traditional managed services has weathered the recent economic environment . . .

For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

European Telecom Operator Managed Services Deals Survey: H2 2008

by Phil Sayer, July 10, 2009

Forrester's sixth survey of managed services deals signed in Europe by telecom service providers reviews 476 contract wins recorded in the second half of 2008. The number of deals increased from the 407 that we tracked in H1 2008; however, the total contract . . .

For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

Use Deduplication To Store More With Less

Dedupe Your Backups Today, But Plan For Other Environments

by Stephanie Balaouras, July 10, 2009

While the cost of disk has declined significantly over the past five years, you still can't call it cheap at thousands of dollars per terabyte (TB). IT professionals struggle to keep up with 30% to 40% annual data growth while simultaneously creating . . .

For Vendor Strategy Professionals

UC Deployments Miss The Mark

Give Buyers Hard Financial Results

by Henry Dewing, July 8, 2009

Forrester's recent network and telecom survey of buyers identified a troubling trend: Some early adopters of unified communications (UC) solutions are not deriving the benefits they expected for key stakeholders within the business. Unified communications . . .

For CIOs

CIOs: New Sourcing Models Mean New Tactics For IT

by Sharyn Leaver, June 25, 2009

As emerging sourcing models such as managed hosting, SaaS, PaaS, and cloud-based services become more prevalent, traditional sourcing tactics, terms, and expectations may no longer be adequate. CIOs should be aware of the challenges their sourcing teams . . .

For Sourcing & Vendor Management Professionals

Market Overview Of Current Cloud Service Offerings From Global IT Providers

by Paul Roehrig, Ph.D., June 9, 2009

Compared to traditional enterprise IT services, a new family of services is emerging that are more standardized, scalable, and billed based on consumption. Known as cloud-based IT services, ,there are new signs that this sourcing model is moving beyond . . .

For Vendor Strategy Professionals

CDN Road Map: New Solutions Storm The Market

Bundled Services Expand The Business Value Of Content Delivery

by Henry Dewing, May 22, 2009

Content delivery network (CDN) leaders like Akamai Technologies, Limelight Networks, and CDNetworks face a perfect storm. Ever more demanding customers, a burgeoning Web, and new content delivery business models threaten to undermine the leading position . . .

For eBusiness & Channel Strategy Professionals

The Future Of The eCommerce Platform

Dropping The "E" In eCommerce

by Brian K. Walker, May 18, 2009

eCommerce has come into its own as a key channel for both direct-to-consumer and business-to-business (B2B), and platform solutions to enable them have followed suit. But eCommerce continues to evolve quickly. With the channel increasingly being at the . . .

For Sourcing & Vendor Management Professionals

Multisourcing By Alliance: Getronics Uses Partners To Deliver Services Globally To Clients

by Andrew Parker, May 7, 2009

On March 25, 2009, Getronics and six partner firms formally announced the Getronics Workspace Alliance. The group will collaborate to deliver managed desktop services and a range of associated capabilities for enterprise clients. Forrester got the lowdown . . .

For Security & Risk Professionals

Hosted Identity Is Real — Are You Ready For It?

by Andras Cser, April 17, 2009

Identity and access management (IAM) projects have long been plagued with their long implementation times, high services-to-license ratios, integration challenges, labor-intensive build-out and operations, and long wait times to produce compliance and . . .

For Sourcing & Vendor Management Professionals

Emerging Outsourcing Models Require New Sourcing Tactics

Adjust Your Approach To The Reality Of New Alternatives

by Bill Martorelli, April 16, 2009

Emerging outsourcing models — including managed hosting, virtual managed hosting, and application hosting and SaaS — are proliferating. They generate interest among business buyers because of their flexibility and cost effectiveness. However, they often . . .

For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

Which Cloud Computing Platform Is Right For You?

Understanding The Difference Between Public, Hosted, And Internal Clouds

by James Staten, April 13, 2009

Cloud computing platforms are more than just shared, multitenant infrastructures on the public Internet. There are actually three infrastructure-as-a-service cloud deployment options available to enterprises today, each with unique characteristics and . . .