| Options for Operational Agility -
Create organizational options to be agile. -
Use outsourcing and service providers when it makes sense. -
Become well educated about your true capabilities and costs. -
Formulate the right decision framework. -
IT data centers should strive to be value centers and not cost centers; the company wins when you think this way. -
Take advantage of external expertise when required. -
Commit to flexibility. -
Treat your data like true assets and continue to act accordingly . 7.1 Outsourced Storage -
Managing the complexity of complete storage architectures can easily outstrip the skills of inhouse staff. -
Complexity increases from hardware, to software and networking infrastructure, to people, to complete integration with management software. -
As complexity increases, so does perceived value to the organization. -
Outsourcing (in full or in part) allows companies to accomplish best-of-breed solutions economically. -
Storage service providers (SSPs) offer a wide array of services requiring close examination. -
SSP capabilities span virtually all storage- related functions from SAN and NAS, to backup and recovery, to remote connectivity, to specific management options. -
SSPs employ service level agreements (SLAs) to benchmark offerings. -
SSPs close the gap between vendor equipment and stringent SLAs by deploying software and organizational management. -
IT outsourcing has been practiced for years by IBM Global Services, EDS, and others. -
Storage outsourcing is just a more specific tactic targeted to today's infrastructure needs. -
SSPs deliver services based on the premise that through scale and knowledge they can provide greater cost advantages than companies could do internally. 7.2 Integrated Network Services -
Network service providers (NSPs) embrace storage solutions due to the amount of billable traffic placed on their network. -
With IP as a viable storage delivery mechanism, both for NAS, IP SANs, and Fibre Channel across IP, NSPs can offer integrated storage and network services. -
Primary NSP storage offerings include remote SAN/NAS, remote tape backup and restore, and collocation for storage. -
NSPs, with an available network and geographically dispersed data centers, offer content delivery for companies requiring replication to numerous locations. 7.3 Managing Service Level Agreements -
SLAs illustrate and document the commitment of the offering between provider and consumer. -
SLAs may exist between SSPs and companies or even within companies between the IT department and business units. -
Measurable objectives such as reliability and availability define SLAs. -
Organizational discipline can be more important than underlying technology in SLA delivery. -
SLAs are delivered in phases: plan, execute, and manage. -
Process documentation guarantees administrators have clear procedures to follow. -
Certification allows IT groups a chance to evaluate if a set solution will meet their enterprise needs. -
Standardization aims to create as many "template" solutions as possible for the IT group , minimizing management overhead. -
Centralization keeps storage operations in an accountable, manageable framework. -
Normalizing the infrastructure helps meet SLA-readiness criteria for reliability and availability. 7.4 Application Deployment -
Network infrastructures facilitate rapid application deployment or transition. -
Applications can be relocated within data centers or across data centers, including service provider locations. 7.5 Corporate Asset Management |
