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IT Essentials for Success

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PCQ Bureau
New Update

A typical IT infrastructure comprises of three parts --a server room or data center that runs your servers, storage, and business apps; a fleet of desktop PCs on a LAN and laptops out in the field; and an Internet connection accessible for end-users in the office and on the field. Due to developments in technology, this traditional IT infrastructure as we know is fast reaching its limits. It's therefore imperative for every organization to review their IT infrastructure and identify what are the new IT essentials required for their business.

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Let's start with the server room, which today is getting overcrowded with too many servers and storage devices. This has happened because of the tendency to simply add a server for every new application that's deployed, each with its own dedicated storage. Even the simplest of server rooms would have a NAS for file serving, proxy/gateway for Internet access, email, and multiple application & database servers (for accounting, ERP, CRM, etc). Over time, this leads to multiple silos of data, a lot of messy wiring and cables, and a management nightmare. This is where you need to decide whether to deploy technologies like virtualization or not, for both your storage and servers.

The other thing immediately related to server rooms are the business apps. The biggest challenge here is consolidating data from these apps to prepare reports that can be used by the management for strategic decision making. This is usually done in Excel sheets, and is a nightmare to handle. This is where you need to consider whether to deploy a BI solution or not, which would provide a 'single version of truth'.

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Moving on, the variety of end points available today to end-users has gone up from desktops and laptops to smartphones and tablets. There's a whole variety of business apps available for these mobile platforms, right from CRM apps to desktop productivity suites. It's a potential channel, which still remains relatively under-leveraged, other than all the BlackBerries used for email.

Last but not the least is the Internet, which is now able to do just about everything your inhouse IT infrastructure can -a phenomenon more commonly known as Cloud computing. You therefore need to identify the applications you want to migrate to the Cloud, the cost/benefit analysis of doing that, security issues, and more.

But how do you tune these new technologies with your business? Is anybody really doing it? You'll find some of these answers in this issue, which covers over 270 IT success stories from a spectrum of organizations.

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