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Understanding and Deploying LDAP Directory Services > 14. Analyzing and Reducing Costs > Reducing Costs

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Reducing Costs

In today's competitive business environment, efficient processes are vital to an organization's bottom line. Making your directory more efficient makes those business processes that depend on it more efficient. Understanding your directory service's costs is the first step toward making it as cost-effective as possible. In this section, we'll outline some general cost-reduction principles as they apply to directory services. We'll then provide specific suggestions for reducing the costs at each point in the directory service life cycle.

General Principles of Cost Reduction

There are three general principles you should keep in mind when striving to reduce the costs of your directory service:

  • Hardware and software costs are generally lower than personnel costs.If one of your staff members feels limited by the available hardware or software, it's almost always best to make an investment to remove that bottleneck. For example, suppose you have an update process that requires manual intervention and runs on a computer with insufficient memory. Greater efficiency would be achieved by purchasing and installing a memory upgrade. The cost of the upgrade may seem high, but when you balance this against the increased productivity of your maintenance staff, you'll often find that these types of investments pay for themselves quickly. Besides, it's also easier to buy a new piece of hardware than it is to interview and hire additional staff.

  • Automation of manual processes can save time and allows your deployment and maintenance staffs to concentrate on increasing the reliability and availability of the directory. It also allows new applications to be developed more rapidly . For example, moving from a manual, attended backup process to one that occurs automatically frees up a person's time to do something more useful.

  • Your maintenance and deployment staffs are your best resource for identifying opportunities for improving efficiency. They work with the directory each day and routinely see where the system is less efficient than it should be. Involve them in the planning process and solicit their input for ways to reduce the costs of running the directory service.



Understanding and Deploying LDAP Directory Services,  2002 New Riders Publishing
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Index terms contained in this section

automating
         manual processes
                    reducing costs
costs
          reducing
                    automating manual processes
                    hardware/software vs. personnel
directories
         costs
                    reducing 2nd 3rd
hardware
         costs
                    reducing
manual processes
         automating
                    reducing costs
personnel
         costs
                    reducing
processes
         automating
                    reducing costs
reducing
          costs
                    automating manual processes
                    hardware/software vs. personnel
software
         costs
                    reducing

2002, O'Reilly & Associates, Inc.



Understanding and Deploying LDAP Directory Services
Understanding and Deploying LDAP Directory Services (2nd Edition)
ISBN: 0672323168
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 1997
Pages: 245

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