Technology Assessments: What, Why, How?
Posted on Fri, Aug 06, 2010 @ 09:10 AM
Do you know which of your servers are good candidates for server virtualization? Do you know what it will cost to implement wireless networking in a particular building? Do you know if you are spending too much on software licensing or maybe not enough? Can you reduce the amount of power your desktop computers use, hence reducing your carbon footprint and saving energy costs?
These are all common questions and they all have a common answer: To find the answer, your best bet is to perform a technology assessment.
Merriam-Webster defines the word assessment as “the action or an instance of assessing” and it defines assessing as “to determine the importance, size or value of.” Now that is about as clear as mud. I think a better definition would be “to collect concrete information about something so that educated decisions can be made about its present and/or future state.”
For example, let’s look at one type of assessment: evaluating the power consumption by the desktop computers in a business environment.
It Ain’t Easy Going Green
Over the past few years, companies have begun to recognize that being “green” should be an important part of their business practices. One way a company can do this is by reducing its carbon footprint or reducing the amount of power that is used by the business as a whole. One type of assessment that is helping companies reduce their carbon footprint is a desktop power assessment.
A desktop power assessment is simply the monitoring of the computers in your environment to see when they are being used and when they are sitting idle. The assessment involves installing a small piece of software, called an “agent,” on all of the computers and then allowing that agent to collect data about the actual usage of those devices. After a data collection period (normally 30 days), the data can then be used to determine what the usage patterns of your computers are and if you can save money (and the environment) by adjusting their power settings to better match their usage patterns.
Most computers in office environments are only used between 8 A.M. and 5 P.M. and then, if not powered off, sit idle for the rest of the day and night. However, just because a computer is sitting idle doesn’t mean that it isn’t using any power. Now, one computer sitting idle for 15 hours might not seem like that big of a deal. But what if instead of one computer it is 1,000 or 5,000 computers? Average cost savings can be as much as $75 per year per PC. The savings around optimizing the power usage of the desktop computers in your environment can only be realized if you first assess the situation and then act on the data collected through that assessment.
Would you buy a house if you knew no inspection or appraisal had ever been done? I hope not. Inspections and appraisals are forms of assessments and they provide valuable information about the state and value of a house and the property it is on. The same concept should apply for most Information Technology projects.
Can a wireless networking project be successful without a site survey (building assessment) as its foundation? Can a desktop virtualization project be successful without a comprehensive desktop computing assessment? Can you know if you are wasting money on licensing that you do not need or power that is being eaten up by idle computers without assessing these areas of your business? The answer is no.
Technology assessments provide the concrete data that serves as the foundation for making educated decisions about your IT environment.
 |
Jason Dell is a Converged Network Solution Consultant at MCPc, and is responsible for developing and programming custom solutions for clients. His expertise includes network security and security for mobile devices in the enterprise. Connect with Jason on LinkedIn.
|
Image Credit:
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1072/527317755_20f682ae73.jpg