The benefits of server virtualization are great. We’ve heard most of it before - cost reduction, flexibility, etc. What IT professional wouldn’t be interested in consolidating under-utilized servers, reducing energy consumption or reducing the physical size of the data center?  Is there more we’re missing? 

I believe Dan Kusnetzky brings up a good point: What’s next after server virtualization? We’re now getting into how do we understand and manage the virtual environment. I agree with Kusnetzky’s assessment, and I believe many organizations are missing one complementary discipline - Capacity Management.  

It’s the key to optimizing virtual environments. The constant flux and variables affecting services can affect IT resource allocation which makes Capacity Management important in virtual environments and to the business. How does IT know the impact of planned consolidation activities or understand what the application is doing inside the virtual machine?

In a step toward improving the management of virtual systems, we set out to find how IT managers are utilizing virtualization in their organizations. It wasn’t surprising that respondents mentioned that proper planning is key for successful virtualization efforts. Forty percent of respondents noted that bottlenecks (events that impacted performance or end-user needs) are one of the top three challenges in deploying virtual systems. Fortunately, the survey also points out the effectiveness of tools to monitor and manage virtual systems as well as how organizations are measuring their efforts.   

You might be interested in more on the virtualization study.  

The Ovum survey results reinforce the point that up front Capacity Management is necessary to mitigate risk and maximize the ROI of virtualization efforts.  

Take a look at this story from writer Denise Dubie called “7 tips for succeeding with virtualization.”  

If you have any thoughts, success stories, or tips for those working on virtualization projects, feel free to post comments on the TeamQuest Blog.  

There is a lot of promise in the use of virtualization, but it’s rare to hear vendors mention the complexities associated with its use.

They understand it, work hard to hide it, and have ambitious plans to manage it.

Media such as Computerworld, SearchDataCenter.com and eWeek have devoted time to discussing the complexities associated with managing virtual environments. We’ve all heard the benefits of virtualization. For example, you can deploy multiple operating system technologies on a single hardware platform.  

However, we all know and appreciate that when any system becomes congested it will slow and potentially fail. To unclog bottlenecks, we need to know where they are in the system.

As we know, virtualization’s promise is to make things easier by hiding complexities. We also know that virtualization is more complex and harder to understand when it fails. Visibility or transparency into the system is paramount to remediating problems with the system.

What do you need to effectively manage your virtual environment? What’s missing from the current management tools for server virtualization, as an example?

With whatever virtualization solutions you are looking at, encourage your vendor to put in the instrumentation and telemetry so that when the system is suffering – and it will eventually – you can remediate quickly.

How any times have we heard the saying “Let’s not reinvent the wheel”?  That statement can certainly apply to capacity planners. The trouble is that until recently, capacity planning was not a widely-adopted IT discipline so there were fewer places to share information. Now we have a large number of newer people struggling to do the right things for their company and information sources are not easily found.   

I can remember the first capacity planning work I did and quite frankly, I struggled. At that time there were few publications available and they were usually heavy into mathematical theory and short on practical knowledge.  

Over the years it took a lot of work plus countless hours at conferences listening at sessions and swapping war stories at social gatherings to find the best, most efficient ways of doing our work. When I heard ideas to do things better, I took them back and adopted them. Some worked well in my organization, others did not, but over the long haul the ones that worked made me successful.

We capacity planners need to keep up with the challenges resulting from faster moving business. I think Bill Gates said it best with the title of his book “Business at the Speed of Light.” Caught up in these fast-moving times, we often don’t take the time to look around for better ways of doing things or swap ideas with peers. We keep focused and do the work the best we can with our experience and tools at hand. 

We at TeamQuest have strived to help by posting capacity planning and performance tuning information on our website. Although there are a wide variety of articles available, some have indicated their schedules make it difficult to spend the time needed to understand the in-depth articles. With busy schedules in mind, I have recorded a short White-board Series vidcast that covers some of the better capacity planning habits I’ve learned from experience and from those more learned than me. 

 Please take a few minutes out of your busy schedule watch the vidcast. It is only about 7 minutes long and hopefully it will give you some ideas that will make you more successful in your current situation and throughout your career.

If you have other ideas for future, helpful clips, please email me at ronald.potter@teamquest.com.

For most, the real motivation for going green is about the cost and availability of power. Ted Samson said on his Sustainable IT blog that there are four reasons to go green:

• Save money
• Reduce the impact of an imminent energy crisis
• Garner good green PR
• Help the environment 

Helping the environment is nice, but would businesses and shareholders care as much about the environment if power was cheap and abundant? 

Greening IT is a noble social cause and we should devote efforts toward it. Being green isn’t new.  IT has had the chance to be green for a long time. Think about it. Overprovisioning hardware, printing tomes of reports and leaving PCs on at night were par for the course in most IT departments and the business.  

When you stand at the edge of a landfill, do you see waste or recycling potential?  What do we see when we look inside our data centers? Do we see recycling potential?

How much power is being wasted keeping data around that we will never use again? It is far too easy to be wasteful in IT. We do it without even realizing it. However, there has never been a need to worry about being green in IT – no outside pressure, no mandates, no accountability. Now that’s changing. 

Economics is the primary driver for a greener IT and I’m sure this doesn’t come as a surprise to anyone. We like the side-effect of preserving the environment, but let’s be honest. 

In IT, if we really want to, we can do a lot more.

Take a moment and read a paper from a colleague of mine – Ron Potter – titled “Shades of Green: Which will your organization choose?” 

We can make a big difference.

TeamQuest is building a community on LinkedIn. If you’re not familiar with LinkedIn, it’s a business-oriented social networking site used for professionals. If you are a present, past, or possible future TeamQuest software user, we welcome you to participate in our TeamQuest Group on LinkedIn.

 To join or for more information, visit us on LinkedIn.

It seems like you can’t watch a TV program,  open up a newspaper or crack the cover of a magazine without finding information on ‘how to survive the recession.’

The main ‘theme’ I’ve noticed is to cut back on what people often think of as ‘must have’ items. It does make you think.  I have to ask myself how often will I use the latest tool that I had to purchase or maybe it’s the new book someone told me about that I am considering buying.  It all adds up.

I’d like to know how many businesses act the same way with their IT infrastructure. With the recent economy, I’m guessing  a lot of new purchases are not happening.  For me, I know it isn’t happening in my home.

This leads me to ask what are you doing as an IT professional, systems administrator or data center manager, to get more bang for your buck? How are you coping with having to do more with less?

TeamQuest recently produced a brief whiteboard series about doing more with less. Check it out here.

You can also listen to this interview with an analyst about aligning IT and business.

And now after writing this, I guess you can say that even bloggers are providing information and asking for ‘survival tips.’   Feel free to share your insight with us via the TeamQuest Blog.

Most software companies admit that they listen to their customers and value input. One way they do that is via a customer survey.  Customer surveys are a great way to acquire information about expectations and experiences.  The results can help companies build strategies for improvements.  

During the past several months, TeamQuest has been refining our annual customer survey as well taking some time to look at last year’s results and ask ourselves “how are we doing?”  

The TeamQuest Customer Survey is focused on three areas: 

1. Identifying perceptions of software and support
2. Measuring expectations and satisfaction
3. Examining feedback to generate improvement

As you might imagine, we take the findings very seriously.  In last year’s survey more than 90% of respondents had a high satisfaction experience with the company.  Almost 90% had a high satisfaction rating for the software product they purchased.  The high marks are extremely positive, and while near the top, we continue to refine aspects of the product and customer experience to not only keep them where they are, but beat last year’s percentages.  

Since our survey has remained constant over time, we are able to provide in depth gap analysis.  This helps us better target specific areas for refinement.   

Our survey also allows for respondents to submit anonymous comments.  We are lucky to have such an active customer base that provides insight that we might not normally receive.   

Chances are if you’re reading this, you’ve received some kind of an email survey from a vendor.  I know you probably wonder if it’s worth your time to fill it out.  In our case, I would say the answer is definitely yes, as TeamQuest receives valuable feedback that we actually utilize.  Our survey also provides an opportunity for written comments.  We have always been pleasantly surprised at our customer’s responses, naming people at the company who have helped provide support or answers to questions.  It has not been unusual to be asked for an introduction to our support or documentation staff members at our TeamQuest Technology Summit.  Our customers want to put faces to the voices or to the email help they have received.   

Whether comments are in regard to our products, customer support, or the corporation in general, we’re listening.  If you are a TeamQuest customer, you can expect to receive our survey this fall.  However, we’re working on it now, and take it very seriously, as past comments and results have helped us refine our products, services, and support.

- Craig

At this past TeamQuest Technology Summit in Tucson, AZ, I had the pleasure of having dinner with Robert Erhardt, Chief Technology Officer for the San Diego Zoo. Robert was one of the keynote speakers and delivered a fascinating presentation on the business of zoos. If there was ever a poster child for best practices, Robert is that person. 

We spoke for over an hour about the zoo and its challenges around the world. I only remember one comment that was specific to a particular technology – weather resistant information kiosks.  

The rest of the time we talked about the BUSINESS challenges the zoo faced. We discussed the considerable number of animals for which they care that can no longer be found in the wild and the steps they are taking to increase the numbers to be able to reintroduce them to their former habitat.  It was a discussion in business terms, not technology.  He spoke of business solutions where IT played a role, but again at a high level – such as a data repository of animal care information where zoos, veterinarians and wildlife rehabilitators around the world can learn from each other on the caring for endangered and exotic species. 

Robert really impressed me.  We are bombarded with media promoting the integration of business and IT but we usually see little of it in our day-to-day lives. Robert is already there and more. Robert has a passion for the animals his organization protects and is an integral part of the business that is needed to sustain the ongoing work. He knows the business as well or better than the people he serves and uses that knowledge to develop innovative solutions, both high and low tech. From a best practice perspective, who can ask for any more than that?    

If you share Robert’s passion for animals, please consider going to http://www.sandiegozoo.org/ and make a donation to support their cause. TeamQuest has. 

Ron

Hello, my name is Jerred Ruble and I am one of the founders of TeamQuest Corporation and serve as the President and CEO of the Corporation. I thought it would be a good time to start a blog.

First things first. You will not read postings that discuss the greatness of TeamQuest software. We can do that in a news release and on our website. I’ll leave the glitz, glam and promotions to the marketing department.

The purpose of the TeamQuest blog is to share with you what is going on within TeamQuest, the issues IT operations professionals experience, and our thoughts where the industry is headed. We may even challenge the thoughts of an industry analyst or two.

All of our employees will be encouraged to post to the blog, making it a company-wide tool for keeping in touch with you. Every employee who posts to this blog is here to listen. This is a conversation among peers.

Last month we met with several customers at our technology summit in Tucson, Arizona, and I expect to share some of the takeaways from that event. 

Here’s a link to the event - http://www.teamquest.com/news-events/events/technology-summit/index.htm. I’ve posted a couple of images.

Some of the topics you should read from TTS include:

• Performance management and capacity planning for virtualized environments
• The challenges of aligning IT with business
• How virtual environments are represented with IT resources
• Understanding CPU measurements for multi-threaded processors
• Analyzing business data with the user agent

Be sure to check back often.