Capacity Planning

There is a lot of belt tightening happing at the moment and one of the key areas of focus is IT. Operating technology systems is a major cost for many organisations but it is also an essential one. The question now is how to dramatically reduce costs while continuing to achieve the business benefits that technology provides. Virtualisation is one area where businesses of all sizes have achieved both savings and improvements relating to IT systems.

Where do you start? With regular reports of savings in excess of 70% virtualisation is a hot topic for many organisations. Getting started and fully understanding the potential benefits virtualisation can bring, start with first understanding current systems and defining the required objectives. For many the key objective is to save money, be it avoiding regular and costly hardware purchase or dramatically reducing the number of costly to run servers. There is another recurring requirement for SME businesses and that is Business Continuity.

The most successful strategy to identify where savings can be made and provide the information to achieve cost effective protection for vital business systems is a capacity analysis. This is where the utilisation of server infrastructure is recorded over a pre-defined time frame and then the resulting information presented in a management report. This information can then be used by the business to quantify the achievable savings in IT purchase and operational costs as well as defining systems to protect the business in the event of a disaster.

The first step. To enable SME organisations in the North East fully understand the potential benefits of virtualisation leading virtualisation services provider SITS Group has teamed up with capacity analysis software vendor Lanamark to provide a low cost capacity analysis solution. To find out more on how virtualisation can benefit your organisation call Phil Cambers on 0191 215 5015.