Act now - standardize your IT infrastructure in Data Center - x86!

Now days pressure about utilization and decrease of operational costs increase. If you are running bigger Data Center throw years you collected many different systems. Different systems make it hard to maintain (not only the HW but also to administrate many different OS0s).
So, what happened now? Now you can find x86 hardware for less money (cheap). It is powerful enough and it is possible to expand memory. IBM Power is too expensive (in comparison to x86), HP Itanium road map is very blurry (I'll said bad). Operating systems running on that platform became mature and feature lists expand. Also many application now support those OS's. Just to mention some candidates (Linux Debian, Linux Red Hat, Solaris). You notice that there is no MS in list. I will recommend to keep it separately from that consolidation project. You can archive some savings in that are if you virtual some servers (machines).
Start the project, find the candidates and enjoy long term savings.

Is now time for "all-rounder" in Data Center?

Definition of all "all-rounder":An all-rounder is a cricketer who regularly performs well at both batting and bowling. How it is related to IT?
Well, for long time administrators were developed to became experts in one area (databases, UNIX platforms, backup, archiving, networking or Microsoft products). After 10+ years those people became religious about their job and vendor they know. They block any change or progress and often create hostile environment in Data center group. In most cases they did't share their knowledge and nobody knew what are they doing. Stop This!
Think of person that is skilled in more techniques and technologies. About person that can accept changes and can develop itself in different directions.
For new employee be very aware and ask smart questions on interview. Examples are: "How you feel about new technologies?", "What is you position in case of technology (or vendor) change?" etc. Trust me, from some people you will get straight forward answers like "In case of change vendor (is most cases CISCO experts) I'll change my job." So be very carefull when hiring new administartor.
In existing group you have to expand competences for persons. Communicate that you are going to do changes. First ask them for interest and preferences in other technology areas. You need motivated persons so try to fulfill wishes. Second start to train them. Example could be that Oracle DBA go to AIX UNIX course and vice verse.  Start to delegate simple tasks from different area. Agree in advanced what is level of expertise (or tasks) that can do independent and time to achive that. Regularly check the progress. In long term you will win!
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What CIO should do in first month on new job!

That is interesting topics. Usually there is two options, you can be promoted in-house or you are coming from outside. My opinion is that there is no different.
First what you should do is talk to Management board or shareholders and try to understand what is important for them. Try to understand why they  change previous CIO. Are they want to change something or want continuity.
Second talk to your new managers. By the book approach will be to run SWAT analysis. Don't underestimate SWAT. This is opportunity for managers to present themselves and for you to understand dependencies. SWAT analysis will deliver tasks as outcome. Prioritize tasks and group them in short and long term. Within tasks look at all aspects of organization: people, infrastructure and processes.
Third but most important is to introduce yourself to your coworkers. In following posts I'll explain in more details how this presentation should look like but in general it should consist of your work history and experience, things that are important to you and what are your expectations from others.
In communication be transparent, more listen then talk in that period. Set control mechanism (somebody like to call it KPI's) for your managers. In that way you will be able to track progress.
This are instructions for so called normal situation. If you jump in middle of crises you should act based on commands. Prepare execution plan, communicate it to all and start to execute. Be sure that end point is realistic and reachable in sense period.

Strong personalities have their own plan but if you follow this instructions you will achieve your goal.

Diagram: What CIO should do in first month on new job!

What CIO should do in first month on new job!

How to save on backup SW licences!

I would like to share with you one CIO tip that can easily be implemented and you could save some money. Usual situation is that you have backup of file systems, system backups or database backups. By default architecture of backup systems is to put backup agent on each server you want ot backup and then configure it through backup SW application. I don't need to mention that licensing policy is to charge each agent. Each exstension requires new backup licenses. Not looking good isn't it?
Here is the tip. You have two prerequisites:

1. custom made scripts that are coping backup content to backup servers
2. backup server (cluster)

Procedure is to create custom made scripts that upload backup content to backup server, on backup server you put backup SW agent that handle content to tapes or other. There is no need for one server, you can logicaly group servers you like. On illustrations you can see old and new backup setup.
Old backup setup:

New backup setup:

How to create activity and business plan for IT organisaton in 2011

If you still don't have activity and business plan for 2011, now it is right time to do it. Most common mistake is to try predict future. I mean people start to think what will be in next year. Don't badder with it. Nobody knows.
Your task is to think in two directions:

1. What service or performance you need to improve
2. What new service or feature you need

Visualize perfect situation (as you like to be) at the end of 2011. Write it down on paper. Now think of gap between current situation and targeted situation. Write down tasks what you need to to reach targeted picture. Add resources (people, money, time) to each task. Prioritize and recognize relations between tasks. Add responsible to each task and think of control system (how you will track progress of each task).

And that's it, viola, you have activity and business plan for 2011.
Cheers

Transform your IT organisation into service provider!

Now days IT organization are facing problems with maintenance costs and support costs. Sometimes shareholders are eager and then cost cutting starts. Is there way to survive tough times?
I will offer you idea to transform your IT organization to service provides. Definition of Service provider is :
A service provider is an entity that provides services to other entities. Usually this refers to a business that provides subscription or web service to other businesses or individuals. Examples of these services include Internet access, Mobile phone operator, and web application hosting. The term is more often applied to communication services than to other kinds of service industry.
I know, your first thought will be, that's not me. Think again, think about applications that you are offering now. If you are part of bigger organization (multinational company) for sure there is organization whee e you can offer your service. Or maybe just part of service - like database server, monitoring service or help desk service. If you don't have opportunity to offer it within local organization search local market.After a while, I'm sure you'll find at least one service. Then you are ready for step two.
In this step you should think of three things:

1. Processes
2. Organization
3. Infrastructure

1. Processes - if you grab ITIL or similar best practices, you are immediately in problems. Why? Because there are too many processes and you don't need all of them. Start with what is important for service provides. Incident (to preserve availability) and change (to stabilize systems). Later on develop more processes and don't forget that all processes cost resources (people and money).
2. Organization - you will probably need to setup Help desk. Good tracking of tickets received and control or resolution times are most important for customers.
3. Infrastructure - Check if your infrastructure can expand and what are real performance. Think about open source systems and low cost machines (like x86). Implement visualization.

I wish you all luck - and start earning money!
All comments and suggestiona are wellcome.
Cheers