For Vendor Strategy Professionals

Market Overview: Workload Automation, Q3 2009

Is BSM The Future Of Workload Automation?

by Jean-Pierre Garbani, November 9, 2009

Job scheduling is a necessary component of data centers. Without job scheduling, an enterprise could simply not execute long application processes that deal with massive amounts of data and are necessary to prepare for online and transactional processing. . . .

For Vendor Strategy Professionals

The IT Automation Imperative

Putting IT On The Road To Industrial Mass Production

by Jean-Pierre Garbani, July 30, 2009

Cost reduction is the universal 2009 battle cry. With 35% of a typical IT budget spent on personnel, staffing represents the heaviest IT financial burden. The way in which IT evolves in complexity and size, combined with the current inefficiency of many . . .

For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

Virtualization Is This Season's Cap Management

Capacity Management In A Virtual World

by Simon Yates, June 17, 2009

With improved service performance, coupled with the rise of virtualization and the limits of hardware sprawl, Forrester anticipates improvements to the capacity management process. Data centers will make a comeback. They'll be different though, and better, . . .

For Vendor Strategy Professionals

Inquiry Insight: IT Management Software

Sustained Activity In Spite Of The Economic Downturn

by Jean-Pierre Garbani, May 13, 2009

Forrester analyzed the IT management software (ITMS) inquiries received from vendors and end users in 2007 and 2008. Inquiries are a good indicator of the tactical issues faced by Forrester's clients and of the activity surrounding a given subject matter. . . .

For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

Q&A: Consolidating Linux Workloads On System Z

Best Fits For Making The Technology And Business Case

by Brad Day, April 21, 2009

Transitioning Linux workloads to run on a System Z footprint will first require your chief information officer's (CIO) sponsorship — as any step away from convention would entail. Take the shortcut on this assignment by asking him three simple questions: . . .

For Vendor Strategy Professionals

Capacity Management In A Virtual World

Transforming The Traditional Process To Serve Virtualization Imperatives

by Jean-Pierre Garbani, April 17, 2009

Traditional capacity planning is seen as an exercise in forecasting the alignment of hardware resources to enterprise activity growth. Cheap systems meant that this was eventually considered to have little value: Why use scarce and expensive intellectual . . .

For Application Development & Program Management Professionals

Behind "Cloud" Is Your Future Application Environment: Ultra Modular Computing

Shift Cloud Excitement To Your Own Data Centers

by Charles Brett, Jeffrey S. Hammond, April 6, 2009

Cloud computing is all the rage, but its greatest benefit may be to teach IT organizations how to build flexible and cost-efficient private data centers. The technical foundations of cloud computing — commodity hardware, virtualization, elastic workload . . .

For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

Can Specialty Engines Save The Mainframe?

Deploying New Workloads On System z

by Brad Day, April 29, 2008

System z specialty engines are specifically designed to make IBM's System z more attractive for the optimization of new workloads, while helping to significantly lower the life-cycle cost of running those workloads on a System z server. Specialty engines, . . .

For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

Consolidating Java Workloads On System Z

zAAP Specialty Engine As The Enabler

by Brad Day, January 30, 2008

Many Forrester clients are considering both the technical and economic benefits of running Java workloads on IBM System z. The technology enabler that makes this compelling is a specialty engine called an IBM zAAP, or System z Application Assist Processor. . . .

For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

The App Tier Is Tapped Out Again?!

Dealing With The Server Demands Of Large Middle-Tier Applications

by James Staten, July 17, 2007

As the static Web rapidly evolves into a fully interactive Internet, the data center performance burden shifts from the Web tier to the application tier. This shift puts new demands and challenges on server administrators — if properly addressed, they . . .

For Technology Product Management & Marketing Professionals

The Job Scheduling Software Market

A Market Reaching Maturity

by Jean-Pierre Garbani, June 6, 2007

Job scheduling is present in all data centers and is an indispensable tool in IT operations. Over the past 25 years, since the first automated job scheduler was put on the market, the available solutions have evolved to adapt to different platforms and . . .

Pragmatic Approaches To Server Virtualization

Flexible Manageability Drives Adoption As Users Work Around Obstacles

by Frank E. Gillett, Galen Schreck, June 19, 2006

Adoption of server virtualization has continued at a rapid pace in 2006: Today, 40% of North American enterprises surveyed by Forrester say they have already implemented server virtualization. Many firms attribute their adoption of virtualization to server . . .

VMware Launches Upgraded Product Suite

by Galen Schreck, Frank E. Gillett, June 7, 2006

VMware has announced several major enhancements to its product suite: VMware Infrastructure 3. Forrester met with VMware President Diane Greene to discuss the new release and its impact on the industry and customers. Forrester believes that VMware's Infrastructure . . .

Physical-To-Virtual Server Conversion Basics

by Galen Schreck, March 23, 2006

The rapid adoption of server virtualization products from VMware and Microsoft has created an opportunity for conversion tools that help migrate physical servers to virtual machines. Today, physical-to-virtual (P2V) products range from low-cost utilities . . .

Server Virtualization Goes Mainstream

Virtual Servers Will Motivate Firms To Embrace Organic IT

by Frank E. Gillett, Galen Schreck, February 22, 2006

Server virtualization has quickly surpassed other forms of infrastructure virtualization, including techniques for virtualizing storage and networks. Globally, 75% of 1,221 enterprises surveyed by Forrester say they are aware of server virtualization . . .

A Free VMware Server Is The Right Move For Users

VMware Server Will Slow Microsoft's And Xen's x86 Virtualization Success

by Frank E. Gillett, Richard Fichera, February 10, 2006

VMware has announced the beta version of the free VMware Server, which it plans to ship in Q2 of 2006. VMware Server will replace VMware's entry-level GSX Server product with an upgraded product that includes advanced features such as support for 64-bit . . .

Update On Distributed Job Scheduling

by Jean-Pierre Garbani, December 6, 2004

The next logical step in the evolution of distributed systems is to offer operability characteristics at a level that is consistent with mainframes. Job scheduling, one of the most critical management tools in a mainframe environment, is consequently . . .

When To Use Server Virtualization And Workload Management

by Galen Schreck, June 25, 2004

Two technologies — workload management and server virtualization — come from very different roots, but they can be used either together or separately to solve tricky server consolidation problems. By using virtualization to partition critical or unstable . . .

Best Practices in Estimating Workloads for Initial Infrastructure Sizing

by Jean-Pierre Garbani, November 19, 2002

Organizations facing the problem of initial infrastructure sizing should work closely with the business users since they are the key to the workload presented to the application component.

Server Workload Consolidation — Best Choices for Intel Server Environments

by Brad Day, October 9, 2002

The most significant benefit of workload management over partitioning is the typically very fine-grained control of CPU and memory resources within a single instance of the operating system.

Server Workload Consolidation, Part 2— Evaluating Unix Workload Management

by Brad Day, August 21, 2002

Workload management provides effective management of multiple, diverse workloads to efficiently share a single copy of the operating system and a common pool of resources.

When to Choose Partitionable Servers vs. Workload Management

by Brad Day, August 21, 2002

Within the partitioning solution options there are two different approaches — physical (hard) and/or logical partitions. An alternative is workload management, which has advantages and disadvantages, depending on specific circumstances.

Server Workload Consolidation — Evaluation of Unix Systems Partitioning

by Brad Day, July 5, 2002

The dual demands of reducing the proliferating overhead cost associated with computing infrastructures and increasing application resource efficiency continue to encourage consolidating multiple applications onto larger Unix servers.

Market Overview Update, March 2002: Cross-Platform Job Scheduling

by Jean-Pierre Garbani, March 13, 2002

Before selecting a vendor, organizations must ensure that the product concepts and direction are aligned, or at least compatible, with their enterprise distributed system strategy and business organization.

Data Center and Server Consolidation: Better Than Ever

by Colin Rankine, Brad Day, August 1, 2001

There have been a number of advances in both server and storage technologies during the last 18 months that have gone a long way to lift limitations, and as a result, enabled higher returns for consolidation projects.