Why storage is a lot like toilet paper

I heard a great analogy in the office the other day when we were discussing storage requirements.

“Storage is like toilet paper, everyone needs it. You can either go for cheap stuff that does the job but can cause some pain, or the super soft luxury quilted one.”

This saying couldn’t be closer to the truth in the storage world.

We all need storage, it’s a fact. In this virtualised world, whether your infrastructure is on premise, in the cloud or you are just starting out your virtualisation journey. What type of storage you go for is the billion dollar question.

Time to rid yourself of resource-sucking zombie virtual machines

Zombie virtual machines (VMs) are those that are no longer being used, but still reside on the system somewhere, sucking the life out of your virtual infrastructure. Deleting a VMware definition from vCenter doesn’t delete the VM itself, and with unused templates, abandoned images and outdated VM backup snapshots lying dormant in your storage, it’s possible that you don’t even know they’re there.

But it doesn’t have to be this way.

How could Foglight for virtualisation change your business?

IT has a key role to play across all areas of your business; identifying areas for improvement, ways to optimise your operations, where to reduce costs and how support your business plan.

Traditionally, IT managers have had the huge task of supporting a number of different systems, which could involve monitoring lots of sporadic components, troubleshooting issues and searching for ways to save money.

But it doesn’t have to be that way.

Getting started on your virtualisation journey

According to EduGeek, an educational ICT forum, an average secondary school has 12 servers and this can be quite costly. A server will cost approximately £3k, plus electricity and maintenance costs, it takes up space and needs replacing every few years.

But it doesn’t have to be like this.

Considerations for BYOD

I’ve been engaging with some clients of late who have all started to use the phrase ‘bring your own device’ (BYOD).

It’s a great concept, and your favourite search engine will produce articles from VMware, Aruba (Dell re-brand its wireless and network access control (NAC) technology), Deloitte, HP and others with a total of about 82.5 million search results returned.

The benefit of end-user computing

What consumes the majority of an IT department’s time on any given day?
Backup issues?
Change requests?
Or maybe end-user support?
If you chose the latter, you would not be alone. End-user support is the one of the most difficult IT costs to quantify; it’s difficult to measure, impossible to predict, and issues that occur are often classed as high severity, meaning resources may be pulled from project work or scheduled tasks to support the problem.