For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

Driving Multitenancy In Your Virtual Environments

How To Get Business Units To Share Your Consolidated Infrastructure

by James Staten, November 18, 2009

As you continue to consolidate your server infrastructure and make it more cloudlike, a key hurdle you and most enterprises must overcome is the sharing of physical infrastructure between business units (BUs). While some organizations have a centralized . . .

For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

Charging Back For Your Virtual Infrastructure

How To Allocate Costs For Virtual Machines And Drive Greater Adoption

by James Staten, November 18, 2009

As you continue to consolidate your server infrastructure and make it more cloudlike, a key hurdle that you must overcome is cost allocation for the virtual infrastructure. While most enterprises are not yet charging back or tracking virtual machine (VM) . . .

For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

Role Overview: Service Catalog Manager

by Evelyn Hubbert, November 6, 2009

Most IT organizations "get" the service management concept and many have implemented and improved their processes, and the interrelationships of these processes, to support and service the business. Many companies have implemented elements of ITIL as . . .

For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

State Of Enterprise Disaster Recovery Preparedness: Q3 2009

by Stephanie Balaouras, November 4, 2009

Although disaster recovery (DR) was once considered an expensive insurance policy for rare but catastrophic events such as hurricanes and terrorist activity, Forrester survey data suggests that enterprises across North America and Europe are now moving . . .

For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

Service Catalog — Your Prerequisite For Effective IT Service Management

Yes, They Can Help Connect You With The Business

by Evelyn Hubbert, Glenn O'Donnell, October 28, 2009

The vision and purpose of effective IT service management is to efficiently develop, operate, and deliver services with value and alignment to the business. To do this, IT must transform itself from an organization with many silos of technical and functional . . .

For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

Virtual Machine Consolidation Ratio Benchmark, 2009

How Many Virtual Machines Can Enterprises Fit On A Single Physical Server?

by Rachel A. Dines, Galen Schreck, October 23, 2009

According to a recent Forrester survey, the physical to virtual consolidation ratio of server virtualization users varies significantly by company and industry. If your organization has implemented server virtualization but not realized the expected cost . . .

For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

Fostering A More Diverse Infrastructure And Operations Department

How To Recruit, Develop, And Retain Women And Underrepresented Minorities

by Rachel A. Dines, October 23, 2009

Diversity in IT departments has always been a sensitive subject. Many firms simply don't get a lot of diverse candidates applying to work in their IT departments, but they don't know why. And the problem isn't getting any better. Over the past few years, . . .

For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

The Help Desk Is On The Critical Path For Pandemic/Disaster Recovery

Oft-Overlooked Group Is Key To Business Continuity

by Evelyn Hubbert, Chip Gliedman, October 22, 2009

The designation of the H1N1 flu virus as a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) should, once again, prompt organizations to revisit their business continuity planning processes. However, recent conversations with Forrester clients reveal a . . .

For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

Service Catalog Manager — Job Profile And Description  (33 KB XLS)

by Glenn O'Donnell, Evelyn Hubbert, October 16, 2009

The service catalog manager plans, implements, configures, and maintains the catalog of available IT services.

For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

A Sample IT Infrastructure And Operations Balanced Scorecard  (41 KB XLS)

by Rachel A. Dines, Evelyn Hubbert, October 1, 2009

The Balanced Scorecard is built around four dimensions that have been adjusted for use in information technology: the value perspective, the user orientation perspective, the operational excellence perspective, and the future orientation perspective. . . .

For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

Building The IT Infrastructure And Operations Balanced Scorecard

The Eight Essential Metrics That Infrastructure And Operations Should Be Measuring

by Rachel A. Dines, Evelyn Hubbert, October 1, 2009

"You can't manage what you can't measure" is the stated adage, but when it comes to infrastructure and operations (I&O), what to measure is the first challenge. Many firms don't know which metrics to use, or how to collect the information they need . . .

For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

Role Overview: IT Asset Life-Cycle Manager

Reporting To Both IT And Business

by Evelyn Hubbert, September 25, 2009

The effective and efficient implementation of an IT asset life-cycle management (ITALM) program requires an approach that is disciplined enough to enable the entire organization to maximize the value of its IT assets over the entire asset life cycle. . . .

For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

Get A Good Start With Unified Communications

Upfront Planning Ensures A More Effective Deployment

by Elizabeth Herrell, August 12, 2009

While many businesses express high interest in deploying unified communications (UC), they often struggle to advance their plans. They face challenges developing their UC business case and getting the executive attention and commitment for UC upgrades. . . .

For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

IT Operations 2009: An Automation Odyssey

Prepare For The IT Automation Inflection Now

by Glenn O'Donnell, July 24, 2009

A combination of forces, including skyrocketing complexity and severe economic pressure, are radically and irreversibly altering the IT landscape. New methods, new functional sourcing, and new organizational structures are needed to address this onslaught, . . .

For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

Inquiry Spotlight: CMDB And CMS, Q3 2009

by Glenn O'Donnell, July 16, 2009

As IT organizations recognize the high value of structured IT management initiatives, Forrester is receiving many questions related to the configuration management database (CMDB). Since January 2008, Forrester has fielded 172 client inquires on various . . .

For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

Bring Your Own PC Reinvents The Corporate PC: A Citrix Systems Case Study

by Natalie Lambert, July 8, 2009

Bring your own PC (BYOPC) programs are becoming increasingly popular for today's businesses. Why? Because they allow individuals to work from the device of their choice, which not only increases employee satisfaction but also lowers IT costs. Getting . . .

For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

Role Overview: Virtual Infrastructure Architect

by Galen Schreck, Rachel A. Dines, June 25, 2009

As the adoption of virtualization across servers, storage, and networks continues to climb and organizations push to larger implementations of virtual infrastructure, a new question arises: Who is going to manage your virtual infrastructure? Sure, you . . .

For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

Virtual Infrastructure Architect - Job Profile And Description  (32 KB XLS)

by Galen Schreck, Rachel A. Dines, June 23, 2009

Position overview: The virtual infrastructure (VI) architect is responsible for managing all of the virtualized infrastructure across technology domains (this usually does not include the virtual desktop).

For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

Help Yourself Make Tomorrow's IT Decisions

Tools For IT Planning

by Simon Yates, June 23, 2009

Flexibility and quick thinking are vital when planning for IT, so go ahead and arm yourself with the best weapons: You're going to need them. Volatility in the marketplace and an increased reliance on IT across all business sectors have forced IT managers . . .

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 Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

Identifying Components Of The Network Skills Gap

Identify Roles And Skills That Are Significantly Important For Successful Network Management

by Chris Silva, Usman Sindhu, June 12, 2009

Organizations are upgrading their infrastructure with technologies that improve network efficiency, performance, security, and management. As a result, IT ops pros' roles must also evolve in network, system, service, and operation management skills. These . . .

For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

Case Study: Graybar Electric Builds Virtualization Into The DNA Of Its Infrastructure

by Galen Schreck, Rachel A. Dines, May 14, 2009

Five years ago, the supply chain management services giant Graybar Electric began to dabble in virtualization technologies. Today, it has a large and successful virtual server and storage environment and has not added a watt to its data center in two . . .

For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

The iPhone Is Ready For The 9 To 5

Making iPhone Work In the Enterprise: Early Lessons Learned

by Simon Yates, May 12, 2009

Apple has proven adept at diverting the course of entire industries, their most recent shake-up being in the mobile device world with the iPhone. This visible diversion, which it surely is, has caused companies to wait intently for things to settle a . . .

For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

BT For I&O: Make IT Easy For The Business

BT Changes IT's Operating Model

by Simon Yates, May 12, 2009

IT's role is changing. As business units become ever more reliant on technology and more comfortable with implementing it themselves, IT is becoming an advisor and a service integrator rather than the direct manager of all technology assets. Forrester . . .

For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

Unraveling ISO, CMM, And ITIL IT Management Frameworks

Combine CMM With ITIL And Six Sigma With ITIL For The Best Results

by Evelyn Hubbert, May 7, 2009

Technology is the beating heart behind business, but with economic crises on a global scale, increasing sensitivity to cost, and competitive pressures, IT services must be managed and delivered with high levels of customer service and satisfaction. At . . .