IT strategy is enabling business strategy. Verizon Wireless is built on technology and uses technology to drive customer success.

TeamQuest analytics are a required component of the purchasing approval process. Without the necessary TeamQuest proof, funding requests are denied.

TeamQuest is the “Source of Truth” Used to monitor and optimize every environment: Solaris, Windows, HPUX, AIX, VMware, and Linux. Used to forecast future performance and also a deep dive diagnostic tool.

As we heard from Cameron Haight earlier, mentoring is key. Verizon Wireless pairs veteran TeamQuest users with those who have been identified needing capacity management experience.

Planning for Demand Peaks -Verizon Wireless is able to accurately predict peak utilization within 5% on critical Point Of Sale systems on Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Integrates TeamQuest with HP Openview to monitor key performance indicators. Plan to create dynamic thresholds using historical data collected by TeamQuest and setting alarms on a percentage deviation from the baseline.

Iconic Device Launch (IDL) Planning. VzW started selling a certain phone that many of your are aware of and all VzW teams used TeamQuest to forecast their hardware needs and guaranteed themselves to be ready for a successful launch day. They sold more Apple iPhones in the first 2 hours of the launch (3AM to 5AM) than any previous single day in Verizon Wireless history. Over 62% of sales were online–all systems performed within planned thresholds and no performance issues were encountered in stores, online or by customers activating their new phones.

Verizon Wirelss customer satisfaction is high, and continues to be, for existing and new customers. Focus on the Customer - Deliver Value to the Bottom Line!

Gartner Research Vice President, Cameron Haight began the event and noted that there are a variety of perceptions of capacity planners: mysterious an using arcane tools, honest, but focused on minutiae, unapproachable and living in an ivory tower, old fashioned and living in the past, and my personal favorite, “nerdy but generally harmless.”

Haight continued to discuss the Jevons Paradox - the more technology driven efficiency we have, the greater the amount of consumption. Cloud sprawl is inevitable. Cloud doesn’t eliminate the need for capacity planning, it makes it more important.

The world is evolving, is our focus as capacity planners? (social networking, energy costs, mobile technology, Web 2.0, cloud, VDI)

Another Issue: A Failure to (Appropriately) Communicate. Translating the language of the business into the language of IT. Number of trades in an hour vs CPU processing power, End-of-quarter financial processing vs database growth projections, etc.

Tunnel Vision: Are We Focused on the Process or the Outcome? Cargo cult styled capacity planning is a method of capacity planning that is characterized by the ritual inclusion of processes or policies that serve no real purpose.

Capacity Planning Self-Assessment: Do You Get “it/IT?” You need to fully understand what creates value for your organization–otherwise there is nothing to get!

Need to help your CEO think strategic and enable them to respond more rapidly to changing conditions. Think strategic: help your CIO impact the P&L statement. Think strategic: help your CRO (Chief Risk Officer) more accurately manage business risk.

Key take aways/action items:

• Resolve yourself to never mention “queuing theory” again. Change the conversation to be business oriented.
• Understand the links between business metrics and IT–develop links to your work.
• Improve communications about your efforts…and results.
• Re-assess current processes to remove waste and increase agility.
• Begin mentoring of others that need capacity planning capabilities.

TeamQuest Technology Summit 2011 is off and running with an introduction by our very own Vernon Johnson (follow him on Twitter at @vjthree). The events this week promise to be packed full of discussions around virtualization, cloud computing, and just how capacity management can guarantee a successful implementation of a variety of emerging technologies.

TeamQuest CEO, Jerred Ruble, takes the podium to let the audience know that 2011 is a also the 20th anniversary of TeamQuest Corporation’s existence. We are proud to say that our company has been profitable for all of these 20 years and we have no one more to thank more than our customers!

Mr. Ruble also announced that Verizon Wireless has been named the recipient of the TeamQuest IT Service Optimization (ITSO) Award for TeamQuest customers adopting ITSO best practices and leveraging TeamQuest Performance Software in their operations.

In looking to the future, TeamQuest is focusing on virtualized and cloud environments, scalable and extensible Capacity Managment Information System (CMIS), and more automated capacity management.

In just one short week, TTS 2011 will be kicking off in sunny Tucson, AZ. We wish everyone could could attend in person, but we understand schedules don’t always allow for that. We will be live tweeting and blogging throughout the event for your viewing pleasure. So make sure to check back here or subscribe to our ITSO Blog RSS feed. Also, tweets will be flowing from a variety of sources including @TeamQuest_Corp. Be sure to follow the hashtag #TTS2011!

We hope you find the information presented at TTS 2011 to be informative. As always, let us know by leaving a comment here or contacting us on Twitter.

We recently had the opportunity to listen to Charles Babcock, editor-at-large of InformationWeek, speak about the much discussed topic of cloud computing at the TeamQuest Technology Summit. Babcock reinforced a couple of themes that we have been saying all along during the advent of cloud computing.

Cloud computing is not a revolution, but as Mr. Babcock terms it, a “convergence” of several technologies used together in a unique way. When it comes right down to it, a cloud environment still consists of traditional compute fabric we all have grown accustom to in the past several years with virtualization in the forefront. The main twist to the technology of cloud computing is the method of delivery to the end user.

Listen to the Clip: Cloud Computing Evolution vs. Revolution

We need to avoid “compulsive over-provisioning,”  which is something that we have seen in a majority of IT organizations in early stages of Capacity Management Maturity. Joining the journey to becoming a mature IT organization takes time and effort and a key component is understanding the current state of capacity coupled with forecasted capacity requirements. Having strong capacity management processes in place allow you to focus on bringing value to the business versus reacting to performance problems and incidents that arise due to capacity issues.

Listen to the Clip: Compulsive Over-prosivisioning

I like the idea of using the cloud to dodge problems with over-provisioning. I should point out though, that contrary to popular belief, tapping cloud computing still requires careful performance and capacity management. To achieve IT Service Optimization using the cloud, you need to analyze the financial aspects as well as performance, capacity, and risk when determining how, how much, and when to use cloud services. Keep in mind, the cloud is more complicated than any one of the technologies that converge to comprise it. As you prepare for it, you’ll want to tap the right performance and capacity tools to ensure that cloud projects successfully deliver business value.

If you are interested in learning more from Mr. Babcock regarding cloud computing, check out his book, Management Strategies for the Cloud Revolution. You might also be interested in this white paper from TeamQuest: Capacity Management Ensures Success for Enterprise Cloud Consumers.

Engineer Mark Manness’ breakout session focused on understanding that performance instrumentation at all levels (e.g., application, guest OS, virtual machine, host) is necessary for successful capacity management on VMware. The three main takeaways from his presentation:

• Monitoring inside the Guest OS is an important piece of the performance puzzle
• What some of the Host and Virtual Machine metrics mean and how they can be used.
• Appreciate the numerous modeling options available on the VMware platform.
  • Physical to Virtual planning
  • Proper configuration of virtual machines
  • Using data from smaller benchmarks to size larger workloads.

Thanks for the post Mark.

TeamQuest engineer Scott Johnson wanted the audience to walk away with the following main points from his presentation:

• While measuring application response time can be a challenge, there are some reasonable options for passive data collection.
• A fortuitous side effect of some response time monitoring agents is additional data that can be used for application trouble shooting and business intelligence.
• Application measurements can be used to enhance capacity models.

Johnson also noted that transaction rate and response time information are very valuable for monitoring service level agreements. In the world of Unix, Linux, and Windows, there is no standard transaction monitor for applications. For those that grew up in the mainframe world with proprietary transaction monitors, this situation is a bit unsettling. However, several approaches have been developed to address certain classes of applications.One approach for web-based applications is to use synthetic transactions and response time “robots” to initiate and measure these transactions. This approach is called active measurement since it initiates a small artificial load on the application in order to obtain measurement data. This approach provides reasonable indicators of application availability and network latency.Another approach is to instrument the application and then make the response time information available, perhaps through an application log file. Also, the technology used in web applications provides the possibility for web server log file analysis and TCP packet sniffing. These last approaches are usually called passive monitoring since they add no transaction load to the application. The advantage of passive monitoring is the potential to understand the actual rate of application activity and the actual user experience.Thanks to Scott for this post.

The guy pictured above was a part of the entertainment at the North American TTS 2010, where this year’s theme was “Optimize Your IT Zoo.” The San Diego Zoo is famous throughout the world, so in addition to the technical content, there were a number of visitors present who work at the zoo, including the beautiful bird shown here.

In some cases the technical content of the show was blended together with the zoo-based theme. In fact, one of my favorite presentations at this year’s event was a talk by the zoo’s Chief Technical Officer, Robert Erhardt. Here are a few tidbits from my notes:

• Google Street View works inside the San Diego Zoo. Check it out!
• The zoo attaches tiny fraction-of-a-gram RFID devices with little whisker-like antennas to rare mice in order to track them.
• Condors have radios that send data via satellites. The trick needed to make the radios practical was to design antennae that did not interfere with the birds’ ability to fold their wings.
• In California, organizations can qualify for big rebates by implementing power-saving virtualization solutions. They measure your power consumption before and after virtualization and your rebate is calculated based on the reduction in power usage.

I thought Erhardt’s talk was both entertaining and informative. It was good fun that I think exemplifies this year’s summit. If you didn’t make it this year, don’t miss next year’s event which is sure to be even better. At next year’s summit we will celebrate TeamQuest’s 20th year of existence!

This survey was taken at the 2009 TeamQuest Technology Summit, April 28-29. We asked attendees to choose their highest priority for 2009. And the winner… Overwhelmingly, it’s virtualization. Is that a surprise? Well, no, but I have two questions. Why is cloud computing so low with a paltry 7 percent and when will processes such as ITIL finally get their comeuppance?

 

Virtualization - 68%
Virtualization has been the teacher’s pet for the last couple of years. The news articles, analysts and businesses continue to sing its praises. We’ve branched out though. Instead of focusing on server virtualization, we’ve moved to desktop and application virtualization. What’s next? How else are you exploiting virtualization capabilities? Will virtualization continue to be the class favorite?

ITIL - 14%
Ahhh yes. The processes that work well for IT, but have yet to translate to or get buy-in from the business side. ITIL is a tricky one for me. I see its value. ITIL isn’t easy. ITIL can demand a cultural shift and buy-in from IT staff. ITIL has several processes with just as many starting points. What are you to do?

With the mantra “do more with less” being trumpeted about companies and IT staff, one would think more businesses would welcome some sort of process to improve the delivery of services. Those of you who have had success incorporating an ITIL process or two should share your secrets with other readers. How do you get buy in from the business side?

Green IT - 11%
It’s good to see Green computing working its way up as a priority, but there’s more we in IT can do. I’m talking more than server consolidation. Ron Potter has a few ideas for data center and systems management professionals.

Cloud Computing - 7%
Cloud computing has captured the interest of the IT world in much the same way as virtual servers. It’s a great conversation piece, but its priority seems to be pretty low. Why is that? Is it due to security reasons? Are organizations concerned with someone else being in control?

Craig

In a poll of IT professionals at the TeamQuest Technology Summit, 85 percent said they were either reactive or more inclined to be reactive in their IT environment.

Maybe it’s the nature of the beast. IT is under demand to produce “more with less” and deliver always-on services. Marketing has a great idea and wants to run a campaign. Are we sitting at the table when marketing pitches a resource-taxing promotion on the company’s infrastructure? Do we allow ourselves enough time to test? Are we given enough time to plan for the campaign?

Some say you can’t sell prevention. But you can sell success. By proving that IT must be part of the strategic leadership on revenue-generating items, the company should have fewer hiccups, decreased headaches and more opportunities to capture revenue.

We’re all after the same thing - success for the company and happy customers. IT, by being ready (i.e., proactive), can help improve a company’s chances by using proper processes to improve revenue-generating and customer-facing opportunities.

For those of you who have had success at being proactive, how do you do it? What needs to happen to move toward being more proactive? Is it better software, processes, or people? Is it a combination?

We want to hear from you.

Craig