7445_48-53_Servers.qxd 22/9/08 16:25 Page 49
SPECIAL REPORT: SERVERS ■
MAKING GAINS
Advantages of outsourcing server management:
• 24x7 monitoring and maintenance of servers
• Security updates, patching and oversight of the backup process
• In-house IT staff can concentrate on their particular specialties
• Service level agreement
Rowan O’Donohue, Origina
• A regular, predictable IT cost
• Remote monitoring and asset management tools can be used
to proactively monitor and manage your network to protect and
defend against hackers, viruses and spyware, while ensuring
uptime, productivity and efficiency.
*courtesy of A&O Systems & Services
According to Ryan, server provi- the IT infrastructure was being kicked the demand for blade
sioning and deployment is now as asked to do. “Traditionally speak- servers into gear due to companies
simple as “a couple of mouse ing, the average office worker is getting rid of brick servers like the
clicks” to create a new machine. probably using a machine that tower and rack formats. “HP and
This, he says, negates the whole draws more resources than neces- IBM have been talking about the
business case for the traditional sary. The typical client would be a amount of blades shipped, which
server acquisition process such as laptop running 2-3GB of memory they say is now above 50-50 … I
looking for quotes, finance, the and running XP or Vista, and think it’s around 60-40 in favour of
ordering process and the imple- there is a debate that if you’re run- the blades. So that is a big
mentation phase. “This level of ning three or four key applications, increase,” says Casey.
dynamism was unheard of before why can’t that also be run on vir- According to Kevin Reid, busi-
virtualisation. The server now tual machines on a thin client? A ness development manager at
becomes a more dynamic asset desktop can be virtualised in the Sureskills, the move to server-based
that can be moved around, backed same ways as a server and the user computing has always had classic
up and copied far more quickly and can then log on and request his difficulties – does the company go
vigorously than in a traditional virtual PC. client/server or three-tier? What is
hardware environment.” So does this development suggest the application between where the
While blade servers have been a return to dumb terminals? “Let’s processing takes place and where
the belle du jour of the server stay away from that phrase, it the client sits and so on? “We are
hardware world for some time, upsets too many people,” Ryan really moving back to a main-
Ryan feels even they will feel the jokes. “But there is a cultural frame-like model where you’re
pinch from virtualised machines. change to go through here for using the client purely as a presen-
Pointing out that most virtualisa- users to rebalance their require- tation layer, and whether that’s
tion projects are based around ments, based on what they do on web-based or a thin client, it doesn’t
reducing server numbers, Ryan their machine with what it is capa- matter because it’s much more
adds: “Suffice to say, virtualisation ble of. For instance, a standard PC presentation focused than process-
has superseded the rackable- runs on a 350-400 watt power sup- ing focused. Whether you use a
to-blade migration because – with ply. Typically, only 25 watts would two-tier model at the backend for
respect to the hardware vendors – be needed for the apps they run.” app processing and data storage or
they would love to see you do a John Casey, sales manager at a single-tier combing, those doesn’t
one-for-one refresh of all the Datapac, says a virtualisation matter, but there is a very strong
servers forever.” strategy all depends on the organ- move towards this setup.”
So has server-based computing isation and what it wants to Reid has an interesting take on
beat out the heavy client model? achieve. In his experience, some the different players in the server
Ryan believes that it ultimately companies are using virtualisation market, seeing little difference
depends on the applications. He for legacy systems, while others among them. He believes the prob-
admits that in many cases heavy are using it to reduce the number lem with vendors trying to make a
clients were an absolute necessity, of servers in the organisation. He distinction between themselves is
due to workload or the type of job also believes that virtualisation has that all the manufacturers are
September 2008 Knowledge Ireland 51
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84