Infrastructure

Not long ago, if you asked an IT executive about transformation, there was a good chance you’d get a technology-centric response. You’d hear about consolidation and virtualization, power and cooling, security and availability. Today, the responses are different. This edition of Unleashing IT is all about transformation. Not technology change, but business change through the use of technology.

This paper summarizes and evaluates the prevalence and efficacy of data center virtualization deployments, as well as the hardware that supports them. The conclusions drawn from this report are based on analysis of both quantitative market research and two qualitative interviews with a CIO and CTO in healthcare and finance, respectively. Each customer, referred to ESG by Hewlett-Packard (HP), had extensive experience deploying both server and desktop virtualization. The goal of the study was to determine the IT and business drivers to adoption of virtual technologies, the expected and realized benefits, ensuing infrastructure decisions,future outlook of the data center, and best practices for deployment.

Read this case study to learn how GMO Media achieved a significant reduction in the implementation period of a service development environment using a private cloud. HP Converged Infrastructure and private cloud built on HP ProLiant BL465c G7 Server Blades and open-source software (OSS) with Red Hat Enterprise Virtualization (RHEV) enables speed and supports business growth.

While virtualization is delivering clear benefits to multiple areas of IT, organizations need to start thinking about it holistically to serve business needs. Learn more about maximizing the value of your virtualization IT environment with this CIO.com eBook.

With the gaining popularity of virtualization in today’s enterprise data centers, you need a virtual security solution that allows you to confidently adopt virtualization throughout your data center without compromising on your existing security postures.

The workplace is changing rapidly to accommodate mobile and flexible work styles, as employees expect the same computing experience when working remotely as they get in the office. And those expectations are rising rapidly among all employees — not just in the executive hallways or engineering labs. To discover more about mobile work styles and client virtualization trends in today’s enterprises, Citrix Systems and HP commissioned Forrester Consulting to survey IT decision-makers in North America, Europe, and Asia for this Technology Adoption Profile (TAP). Coupled with Forrester’s existing Forrsights data, we found that IT is turning to client virtualization to manage the growing complexity that BYOD programs and mobility initiatives have created and is embracing end-to-end solutions to overcome the toughest client virtualization challenges concerning cost, performance, scalability, and security.

HP Cloud Solution for Microsoft is designed to provide a scalable, high-performance integrated infrastructure optimized for virtual environments built on Microsoft Hyper-V. Designed and built according to the Microsoft Private Cloud Fast Track reference architecture, HP Virtual System for Microsoft comes standard with Microsoft Windows Server 2012 (which includes Hyper-V) and is designed to deliver top performance for a wide range of virtualized applications, including Microsoft Exchange, SQL Server, and SharePoint. This paper will focus on ESG’s analysis of the costs and benefits—and ultimate economic value—associated with deploying and managing HP Cloud Solution for Microsoft, versus a comparable conventional data center infrastructure comprised of discreet, non-integrated compute, storage, network, and management components.

It is very clear that datacenter managers need, in addition to server virtualization, the virtualization, pooling, and management of all the other resources that interoperate with their VMs. They require virtualized network interconnects and storage. They also need the tools to manage and automate these converged IT assets as an integrated datacenter system. This more agile system is the key to enabling the shift to a cloud-based infrastructure IT delivery model. Solution providers like HP are now addressing the need for more optimized and agile IT solutions. They are delivering virtualized storage, virtual application network (VAN) infrastructure, and the orchestration software to manage and automate all these ingredients as a single system. Read this whitepaper to learn more.

SilverSky operates a major hosted infrastructure dedicated to providing world-class enterprise messaging solutions. This whitepaper is an in-depth overview of our Hosted Microsoft Exchange architecture and how we implement best practices across systems management, testing, application deployment, infrastructure and security to provide increased productivity and reduced costs.

As the volume of available data increases, and we have new ways of extracting insights from data, it is valuable to take a step back and examine the impact of these insights on integration and company actions. Join us for this webinar and learn how you can use big data in your organization.

What are some of the pitfalls you can avoid when augmenting an existing infrastructure to maximize performance, results, and success? Read on.

Modern blade solutions are the heart of flexible, cost-effective infrastructures.

Read this white paper to separate the technology and business potential from the marketing fluff. Get answers to your most pressing cloud questions and better understand when and where the cloud makes the most sense for your organization.

This strategy lets you leverage your existing virtualization investments in order to quickly and cost-effectively reap the full benefits of the cloud.

In this paper, we explore these concepts and highlight the critical features necessary to move beyond server virtualization by leveraging key integration capabilities between IT components.

Integration may not be new, but its role has drastically changed. Once used simply for support, it is now an enabler – serving as an indispensable foundation critical to achieving agility, efficiency, and growth. Done well, it can drive better business decisions, more cost-effective operations, and be the catalyst for competitive advantage. Architected without a clearly defined strategy, however, integration will fail to deliver on its promise. What are some of the pitfalls you can avoid when augmenting an existing infrastructure to maximize performance, results, and success? Read on.

This IDC paper “Business Value of Blade Infrastructures” indicates the considerable cost savings and the improved agility of the IT infrastructure by migrating to an HP BladeSystem environment.

Read this white paper to learn the three ways to reduce operating costs by outsourcing data center infrastructure.

This report defines storage-centric virtualized infrastructure, its opportunity and use cases, and the emerging vendor landscape that IT infrastructure and operations groups should evaluate as they purse the software-defined data center.

A robust configuration management database (CMDB) is the heart of a successful service knowledge management system. It is the faithful source of configuration details and relationships people rely on to manage services throughout their lifecycle. Like personal relationships, building and maintaining an effective CMDB is a commitment that requires care and attention to get the best value.

Cloud services create a compelling case to move application processing and storage out of the data center and onto the network.

Flash Storage For Dummies explores the many uses and benefits of flash storage technology in the enterprise. From server cache and back-end storage cache to hybrid and all flash arrays, flash technology improves performance and increases reliability in storage infrastructures. It also reduces energy and real-estate costs in the data center.

A complete and holistic solution can help organizations create system snapshots that can be restored quickly and efficiently, getting users back up and productive immediately.

With the right level of planning and forethought, email migration need not be a traumatic experience for the business or its IT department.

This document aligns the server hypervisor with the storage hypervisor by prescribing the best practices for deploying VMware® vSphere® 5 on clustered Data ONTAP.