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From the Blogosphere IT Metrics Drive Enterprise IT Cost Visibility
The IT organization is moving toward a centralized internal IT service provider model
Jan. 8, 2013 09:00 AM
Many organizations are focusing on IT metrics and metering to generate IT cost savings. Here's a quick summary of how one organization is using metering of IT resource consumption to improve IT cost visibility and move from being a cost center to an internal service provider.
Company and IT Overview
The Company operates a 24-hour cable network that reaches about 100 million US homes and a web site that has more than 60 million users per month. The Company is divided into two primary business units, each with their own P&L.
The IT organization is moving toward a centralized internal IT service provider model that supports both lines of business. The IT infrastructure is owned and operated by the Company with approximately 400 physical servers and 700 virtual servers across the business. The majority of the virtual servers are running open source Xen Server, but the Company also uses VMware vSphere for virtualizing Windows workloads.
Challenges
The Company was challenged with a lack of accurate IT metrics, cost data and visibility into consumption across a highly diverse infrastructure, hypervisor, and application environment.
Limited IT resource metrics
Because the Company was running a highly virtualized infrastructure with multiple hypervisors, getting accurate and comprehensive data on how the IT resources were being consumed was extremely difficult. The IT group knew they could improve the business value they delivered to the Company through utility metering their infrastructures, but they didn't have a mechanism to get a complete view of how their IT resources were being consumed by virtual machines or even how much a particular department or user was consuming.
- Inefficient project budgeting
As an IT-intensive organization, the Company's business initiatives required a significant amount of IT resources - compute, storage, networking, etc. As projects were requested IT resources were provisioned. When a project was requested for which there wasn't sufficient resources, that project was saddled with the entire cost of the next infrastructure investment.
- Inaccurate cost and profitability data
After numerous iterations of project challenges because of IT cost misallocation, the Company recognized their methodology heavily skewed IT and business initiative costs, making accurate costing and project profitability determinations nearly impossible.
Solutions
The Company adopted 6fusion's innovative SaaS based UC6 platform and Cloud Resource Meter to meter all machines in the Company's IT environment, both physical and virtual across multiple hypervisors. Their infrastructure now includes Cloud Resource Meter for VMware and Cloud Resource Meter for Xen, and they plan to deploy Cloud Resource Meter for Linux on their physical machine environments to expand visibility across that infrastructure as well.
Results
- Shift to an Internal Service Provider
Cloud Resource Meter has been a key component in the IT group's move from being a cost center to an internal service provider.
- IT Project Budgeting Transformation
Using this technology has enabled the Company to deliver accurate IT metrics, cost and business initiative profitability, transforming their business process and putting IT in a leadership role in the Company.
- Detailed IT metric reporting
The Company now has the ability to provide detailed real time and historical reports on IT resource consumption, from the department level down to the individual VM level.
6fusion's platform gives the Company the ability to provide end-user self-service for deploying and managing workloads across private and public cloud environments.
Because 6fusion provides access to a federated network of public cloud providers using the same technology, the Company now has the ability to leverage a hybrid or public cloud model when the Company is ready.
The post IT metrics drive enterprise IT cost visibility appeared first on 6fusion. Read the original blog entry...
About John CowanJohn Cowan is co-founder and CEO of 6fusion. John is credited as 6fusion's business model visionary, bridging concepts and services behind cloud computing to the IT Service channel. In 2008, he along with his 6fusion collaborators successfully launched the industry's first single unit of meausurement for x86 computing, known as the Workload Allocation Cube (WAC). John is a 12 year veteran of business and product development within the IT and Telecommunications sectors and a graduate of Queen's University at Kingston.
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Cloud Expo 2012 East Opening Keynote by SHI
In this Cloud Expo Keynote, Henry Fastert, SHI's Chief Technologist and Managing Partner, will share insight on how the latest generation of cloud computing is now capable of addressing the needs of the enterprise mission critical applications. These mission-critical applications require computing infrastructure that is secure, optimizes performance, and is highly resilient. The purpose of the keynote is to highlight how the latest cloud computing designs have evolved in terms of security, availability, and overall service quality to meet the needs of mission critical applications.
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John Engates, CTO of Rackspace Hosting Live From New York City
Last year, cloud computing pundits predicted that 2012 would be the year when the clouds would open. They were right as cloud computing enthusiasts all over are embracing the open ecosystem; however, denying one vendor the right to serve as the de facto API is only the tip of the iceberg of this computing climate change. Join Rackspace Chief Technology Officer John Engates as he discusses the open ecosystem and how ultimately, winning cloud technologies will be based on the ecosystem they represent.
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Keynote: Step up to a Higher Cloud
Cloud is a transformational shift in computing that can have a powerful effect on enterprise IT when designed correctly and used to its full potential. Join Citrix in a discussion that centers on building, connecting and empowering users with cloud services and hear examples of how enterprises are solving real-world business challenges with an architecture and solution purpose-built for the cloud.
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A Pragmatic Journey to the Cloud
As enterprise adoption of cloud computing accelerates, organizations must have a strategy and roadmap for moving to the cloud. Faced with different options including building a private cloud, subscribing to public clouds, or leveraging a hybrid cloud, organizations need a rational and pragmatic approach. This session explores the emerging trends in cloud computing and offers best practices for how organizations can successfully navigate a journey to the cloud.
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Cloud Expo Breaking News By Jeremy Geelan  “I believe it is incumbent on the Cloud Service Providers (CSPs) and/or System Integrators (SIs) to understand the regulatory and compliance-related issues that their customers face,” noted Manjula Talreja, VP of Global Cloud Business Development at Cisco, in this exclusive Q&A with Cloud Expo Conference Chair Jeremy Geelan. “Of course these issues are different in each industry and in each country.”
Cloud Computing Journal: The move to cloud isn't about saving money, it is about saving time - ... Jun. 17, 2013 07:00 AM EDT Reads: 3,993 | By Jeremy Geelan  “Regulations and compliance are key trust topics with regards to cloud solutions and technology,” noted Sven Denecken, Vice President, Strategy and Co-Innovation Cloud Solutions, SAP AG, in this exclusive Q&A with Cloud Expo Conference Chair Jeremy Geelan. “But it is also more than security of access – it is portability of data and a clear definition of where the data resides.”
Cloud Computing Journal: The move to cloud isn't about saving money, it is about saving time – agree or disagree?
Sve... Jun. 17, 2013 06:30 AM EDT Reads: 1,759 | By Jeremy Geelan  Many organizations want to expand upon the IaaS foundation to deliver cloud services in all forms – software, mobility, infrastructure and IT. Understanding the strategy, planning process and tools for this transformation will help catalyze changes in the way the business operates and deliver real value. Jun. 13, 2013 09:00 AM EDT Reads: 3,172 | By Elizabeth White  WSO2 on Thursday announced that WSO2 Vice President of Technology Evangelism Chris Haddad and SUSE Business Development Manager Frank Rego will lead a joint presentation at 12 International Cloud Expo. The session, "Bridging IaaS and PaaS to Deliver the Service-Oriented Data Center," is part of the event's Enterprise Cloud Computing Track on Thursday, June 13, 2013. The Cloud Expo conference is being held June 10-13, 2013 at the Javits Center in New York City.
Bridging IaaS and PaaS to Deliver ... Jun. 13, 2013 07:00 AM EDT Reads: 2,332 | By Jeremy Geelan  IT has more opportunities than ever before with the growth in users, devices, data and secure cloud services. This creates not only a more enriching experience for users, but more opportunities for businesses. The key to capitalizing on these opportunities is to have the right tools in place to help scale operations. In his Day 3 Keynote at 12th Cloud Expo | Cloud Expo New York [June 10-13, 2013], Intel's Rob Crooke will describe the range of products that Intel provides to support different usa... Jun. 12, 2013 08:30 AM EDT Reads: 3,140 | By Elizabeth White  Quantum Corp., a proven global expert in data protection and Big Data management, has announced that Senior Vice President of Cloud Solutions Henrik Rosendahl will present a session exploring the future of cloud data protection and the impact of data reduction technologies on cloud storage at the 12th International Cloud Expo. The conference takes place June 10-13 at the Javits Center in New York City.
Rosendahl will explore trends in cloud-based backup and disaster recovery (DR) and how curre... Jun. 11, 2013 12:00 PM EDT Reads: 2,021 | By Elizabeth White  One of the cloud’s biggest draws is the capability to virtualize computing resources, allowing it to be consumed with the click of a mouse. But behind that simple click is an enormous infrastructure challenge that has recently been cited as a major cause for slower enterprise adoption. Enterprises can better prepare for this shift and take full advantage of future computing benefits. Between architecture design and migration planning, the road can be long, so what do you do with your talent?
I... Jun. 11, 2013 09:00 AM EDT Reads: 4,212 | By Pat Romanski  In the old world of IT, if you didn't have hardware capacity or the budget to buy more, your project was dead in the water. Budget constraints can leave some of the best, most creative and most ingenious innovations on the cutting room floor. It’s a true dilemma for developers and innovators – why spend the time creating, when a project could be abandoned in a blink? That was the old world. In the new world of IT, developers rule. They have access to resources they can spin up instantly.
A hyb... Jun. 11, 2013 08:00 AM EDT Reads: 4,322 | By Pat Romanski  INetU, the industry's experts in complex hosting and a global provider of business-centric managed cloud and application hosting, has announced that Cloud Architect Rich Hand will be presenting "Private Cloud, Public Cloud - Is There a Third Option?" at the 12th International Cloud Expo taking place June 10-13, 2013 in New York City.
As more enterprise IT departments move into the cloud, many executives are evaluating whether to adopt a Public or Private cloud. The cost benefits of the Public ... Jun. 11, 2013 07:00 AM EDT Reads: 1,917 | By Liz McMillan  “I’m careful when using terms like Big Data, because it can mean so many things to different people,” explained Eric Hanselman, Chief Analyst at 451 Research, in this exclusive Q&A with Cloud Expo Conference Chair Jeremy Geelan. “There is huge value in analytics that companies can use to pull intelligence from a collection of data sources that are available in their businesses. The inexpensive storage that cloud services can offer make a great environment to pull together siloed data.”
Cloud Co... Jun. 10, 2013 01:00 PM EDT Reads: 2,173 |
Top Stories for Cloud Expo 2012 East
... (more)
Best Recent Articles on Cloud Computing & Big Data Topics  By Jeremy Geelan The Arlington, Virginia-based National Science Foundation has just released its "Report on Support for Cloud Computing" - in response to the America Competes Reauthorization Act of 2010, Section 524.
It is an absolute must-read for all concerned with current and future research projects in Cloud Computing. Reads: 9,000  By Jeremy Geelan "The volume of data we're generating now from machines pales in comparison to the volume of data we'll soon generate from our own bodies," says data security expert Dave Asprey. Writing in a Trend Micro blog, Asprey - who is one of the leaders in the emerging Quantified Self movement - explains his vision of a world in which personal biometrical data is shared via the cloud. Reads: 15,266  By Wolfram Jost Cloud computing has caught the attention of business leaders around the world in every
industry because of its enormous transformative potential. Visionary companies know that
the value of the cloud is far greater than the current focus solely on technology and operating
costs: when combined with a collaborative approach to designing processes, cloud computing
will change how we do business.
Reads: 21,805  By Elizabeth White Want to make sense of the hottest new concept in Enterprise IT?
Want to understand in just hours what experts have spent many hundreds of days deciphering?
Cloud computing is a technology that has rapidly evolving peppered with a lot of hype along the way. Customers find it hard to navigate through this and make sense of what aspects of this technology will give them real business benefit.
Cloud Computing Bootcamp, led by our 2013 Bootcamp Instructor Larry Carvalho, is a great way to get a practical understanding of this technology. We offer multiple days of actionable insight into what vendor offerings are currently available and help you comprehend their strategy.
The ever-popular Bootcamp, which is now held regularly around the world, is being held in conjunction with the 12th Cloud Expo, June 10-13, 2013, at the Javits Center, New York, NY. Reads: 11,049  By Larry Bettino Did you know that ninety percent of the data in the world has been created in the last two years? Every day, we create 2.5 quintillion (or 2.518) bytes of data, according to IBM.
As corporations across all industries globally are struggling with how to retain, aggregate and analyze this mounting volume of what the industry refers to as Big Data, it also provides a unique opportunity for innovative startups that recognize the business prospects Big Data presents. Big Data is not just unlocking new information but new sources of economic and business value.
Interactivity is driving Big Data, with people and machines both consuming and creating it. Digital companies focused on becoming good at aggregating and analyzing the data created by the end users of their product, who then provide their customers with solid insights taken from that data are at a distinct competitive advantage over others in the marketplace. Reads: 8,914  By Elizabeth White Industry-specific clouds are those PaaS, IaaS, and PaaS services that are tailored for a specific vertical, such as transportation, retail, finance, and health care. IDC sees a $65 billion market in these industry solutions for 2013, rising to $100 billion in 2016.
The value of industry-specific clouds is that businesses within a vertical can connect to applications, processes, and databases that are pre-defined for that vertical within a public or private cloud. They can extend processes and databases into the business domain, versus defining the data and processes within a generic cloud-based platform.
So, are industry specific clouds right for your business? What options are out there? How do you figure out the ROI? Reads: 7,053  By Pat Romanski SYS-CON Events announced today that Rackspace Hosting, the open cloud company, has been named "Platinum Plus Sponsor" of SYS-CON's 12th International Cloud Expo, which will take place on June 10-13, 2013, at the Javits Center in New York City, New York.
Rackspace® Hosting (NYSE: RAX) is the open cloud company, delivering open technologies and powering more than 205,000 customers worldwide. Rackspace provides its renowned Fanatical Support® across a broad portfolio of IT products, including Public Cloud, Private Cloud, Hybrid Hosting and Dedicated Hosting. Rackspace has been recognized by Bloomberg BusinessWeek as a Top 100 Performing Technology Company, is featured on Fortune's list of 100 Best Companies to Work For and is included on the Dow Jones Sustainability Index. Rackspace was positioned in the Leaders Quadrant by Gartner Inc. in the "2011 Magic Quadrant for Managed Hosting." Rackspace is headquartered in San Antonio with offices and data centers around the world.  By Liz McMillan 10th International Cloud Expo, held on June 11-14, 2012 at the Javits Center in New York City, featured four content-packed days with a rich array of sessions about the business and technical value of cloud computing led by exceptional speakers from every sector of the cloud computing ecosystem.
The Cloud Expo series is the fastest-growing Enterprise IT event in the past 10 years, devoted to every aspect of delivering massively scalable enterprise IT as a service.
We invite you to enjoy our photo album of the show - we'll be adding new images all week. Reads: 9,563  By Carmen Gonzalez Ulitzer.com announced "the World's 30 most influential Cloud bloggers," who collectively generated more than 24 million Ulitzer page views. Ulitzer's annual "most influential Cloud bloggers" list was announced at Cloud Expo, which drew more delegates than all other Cloud-related events put together worldwide. "The world's 50 most influential Cloud bloggers 2010" list will be announced at the Cloud Expo 2010 East, which will take place April 19-21, 2010, at the Jacob Javitz Convention Center, in New York City, with more than 5,000 expected to attend. Reads: 47,453  By Kevin Hartig Cloud computing is becoming one of the next industry buzz words. It joins the ranks of terms including: grid computing, utility computing, virtualization, clustering, etc.
Cloud computing overlaps some of the concepts of distributed, grid and utility computing, however it does have its own meaning if contextually used correctly. The conceptual overlap is partly due to technology changes, usages and implementations over the years.
Trends in usage of the terms from Google searches shows Cloud Computing is a relatively new term introduced in the past year. There has also been a decline in general interest of Grid, Utility and Distributed computing.
Likely they will be around in usage for quit a while to come. But Cloud computing has become the new buzz word driven largely by marketing and service offerings from big corporate players like Google, IBM and Amazon. Reads: 200,670  By Elizabeth White SYS-CON Events announced today that Dell Inc. has been named "Silver Sponsor" of SYS-CON's 12th International Cloud Expo, which will take place on June 10-13, 2013, at the Javits Center in New York City, New York.
For more than 28 years, Dell has empowered countries, communities, customers and people everywhere to use technology to realize their dreams. Customers trust Dell to deliver technology solutions that help them do and achieve more, whether they're at home, work, school or anywhere in their world. Learn more about Dell's story, purpose and people behind its customer-centric approach. Reads: 3,200  By Liz McMillan One of the most compelling promises of the cloud is that you can pull out a credit card and be working in minutes. No purchase orders to fill out, no equipment to wait for on the loading dock. Just instant access to the resources you need, when you need them. But accessibility comes at a price, and an unintentional consequence may be that you create yet another orphaned identity silo. Enterprise IT has spent years consolidating its mishmash of directories, only to discover that cloud now threatens to turn back their hard-won victories.
In his session at the 12th International Cloud Expo, Scott Morrison, CTO and Chief Architect at Layer 7 Technologies, will look at strategies to incorporate identity into cloud applications. Enterprise identity or social login can both be a part of your go-to-cloud strategy, but you must plan for this upfront, rather than try to retrofit identity and access control at a later date. Reads: 3,656 By Roger Strukhoff Cloud Expo, Cloud Expo East, Cloud Expo West, Cloud Expo Silicon Valley, Cloud Expo Europe, Cloud Expo Tokyo, Cloud Expo Prague, Cloud Expo Hong Kong, Cloud Expo Sao Paolo are trademarks and /or registered trademarks (USPTO serial number 85009040) of Cloud Expo, Inc. Reads: 17,581 |
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Introducing
There is little doubt that Big Data solutions will have an increasing role in the Enterprise IT mainstream over time. Get a jump on that rapidly evolving trend at Big Data Expo, which we are introducing in June at
Cloud Expo New York.
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Cloud Expo was a fantastic event for CSS Corp - we easily exceeded our objectives for engaging with clients and prospects." |
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AHMAR ABBAS
SVP, Global Infrastructure Management, CSS Corp. |
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With our launch at Cloud Expo, we successfully transformed the company from a relatively unknown European player into the dominant player in the market. Our competitors were taken by surprise and just blown away. We got a huge number of really high quality leads..." |
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CEO, Abiquo |
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We were extremely pleased with Cloud Expo this year - I’d say it exceeded expectations all around. This is the same info we got from partners who attended as well. Nice job!" |
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Director of Marketing, UnivaUD |
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Cloud Expo helps focus the debate on the critical issues at hand in effect connecting main street with the next frontier." |
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President & CEO, Appzero
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The World's Most Influential Blogs By Walter Hinton  Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) solutions allow IT organizations to deploy and manage virtual user desktops in the data center, eliminating the tedious management of numerous physical desktops. At the same time, virtual desktops allow end users to maintain their own personal desktops with acces... Jun. 19, 2013 02:00 PM EDT Reads: 748 | By Jonathan Gershater  I previously wrote a review of the Microsoft Azure public cloud and included a comparison between Azure and AWS (Amazon Web Services) and will now compare OpenStack and VMware vCloud. For a review of IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) see my blog post and video.
This table provides a simple and hi... Jun. 19, 2013 01:18 PM EDT Reads: 623 | By Keith Mayer  In this article, we’ll provide an overview of the Hyper-V enhancements in Windows Server 2012 R2. After you review these new capabilities, I’m sure you’ll see why the R2 release is a MAJOR RELEASE – so MUCH MORE than “just another” Service Pack release!
This month, we’ll be releasing a new article ... Jun. 19, 2013 10:00 AM EDT Reads: 701 | By Peter Silva  It certainly has been a wild ride thus far for 2013 as we head into the second half. Breaches, hacks, exposures, leaks, along with things like BYOD and SDN should make the next 6 months interesting. From the many headlines in 2012, you’d think organizations would be locked down tight but alas, int... Jun. 19, 2013 09:15 AM EDT Reads: 460 | By Jonathan Gershater  OpenStack is easily installed using a package called Packstack. Redhat is one of the primary contributors to packstack and my install experience is similar to the installation of RDO, described here
The procedure is quite simple:
Install Redhat, Fedora or Centos on one or more x86 servers.
I inst... Jun. 19, 2013 09:00 AM EDT Reads: 509 | By Unitiv Blog  Software defined networking (SDN) has been in the spotlight since its conception in recent years because of the revolutionary potential that this emergent technology has for the future of IT networking. SDN is like a testament to the changing times. It is a confluence of several of the most signific... Jun. 19, 2013 09:00 AM EDT Reads: 591 | By Lori MacVittie  The notion that PaaS exists solely "in the cloud" as a discrete environment of developer services is hampering the maturation of enterprise PaaS.
The three most common answers to "give me an example of PaaS" are: Force.com, Azure, Google. I didn't even need to do an unscientific Internet survey to ... Jun. 19, 2013 09:00 AM EDT Reads: 1,126 | By Gathering Clouds  One of the key aspects of cloud’s value to an organization is the way in which its implementation and processes can impact the bottom line of a business. Automation, in particular, is an issue in the cloud that can have a major effect on cost, and there are two major ways to think about what generat... Jun. 19, 2013 09:00 AM EDT Reads: 547 | By Xenia von Wedel  Interview with CEO Brad Bostic - hc1.com is committed to improving the quality of healthcare while reducing costs. We believe a critical ingredient to averting the current healthcare crisis faced by the US can only occur by improving the way healthcare professionals across the continuum of care man... Jun. 19, 2013 08:00 AM EDT Reads: 791 | By Toddy Mladenov  n the cloud doesn't matter whether you are running on an Open Source platform or not - it is NOT free because you pay for the service. And for long Open Source project have been funded through the services premiums that you pay. I would argue that Open Source vendors have mastered the way they can t... Jun. 18, 2013 01:36 PM EDT Reads: 989 |
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