SMB: Saving money and headaches by moving to a homogenius infrastructure platform

So what do I mean by moving to a "Homogenius Infrastructure Platform". Simply put by moving off of a vast mix of different Server Vendors, Operating Systems, database platforms and consolidating onto 1 or 2 different solutions for each. Now saying that, ans my apologies to Microsoft, IBM and everyone else, no ONE solution is right for everything. So the best method is to take an audit or assessment of where your IT Infrastructure is NOW, call it Current State, and take a serious look at what low hanging fruit exist in your environment today. Audits also tend to educate management as to the age and support levels that still exist on aging applications and systems. I have shocked a couple of clients that were running applications on servers that were past EOL and on database platforms that were no longer supported by the vendor. In one case a client was paying a premium for support to keep a database on a server that was no longer supported (DEC Alpha) and could take the one year support cost normally paid to the DB Vendor and use it to replatform the database to a Linux Platform (including HW Costs, SAN Costs and Re-Licensing of the DB).

Example: You work for a small manufacturing company. The email and website systems are on Windows based Intel (WinTel) platforms from vendor X running MS Server 2000. A few years ago the company created a MS Sharepoint environment, again on WinTel from vendor Y and are running MS Server 2005. The actual Production planning system is on yet another Windows based platform and the Production tracking and shipping system is on a UNIX platform. Accounting & General Ledger on yet another WinTel platform. The new BI/DW project is on another UNIX vendors solution.

By creating a matrix for both approved/suggested WinTel and UNIX vendors, models, operating systems, and even database vendors you can decrease you overall support costs by standaradizing on say HP or DELL hardware, one version of the Operating System, and one version of MS SQL Server for WinTel. You may also decide to strategically pit two vendors against each other, say SUN and IBM in the UNIX server space, to allow them to compete for PRICE. Certainly by eliminating different OS versions, etc. your Support organization will eliminate headaches and can become more focused.

But the crux is you have to have already done the Current State Analysis, created an Infrastructure PLAN (where do you see yourself in 1 year, 3 years, etc.) and determine if you are going to go ahead and replatform low hanging fruit, via natural selection, when the application is upgraded or replaced or a mix of the two. It takes an Infrastructure Plan, something that can be assessed from time to time, year to year and changed as the terrain changes. Zombie Data performs just this service for companies, from the initial audit & assessment to building the Future State model and assisting in developing the Infrastructure plan on how to get there. Let's schedule a time to look at your company's infrastructure and see where you can make some adjustments.

Rob Vorbroker
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