I recently came across a website that I found extremely helpful in many areas of IT. It’s an independent community and boast of more than 6,000 IT decision makers, technology practitioners, industry analysts, consultants and subject matter experts.
Wikibon is a place to gain and share knowledge about business and IT. Wikibon is an open community where you can read, write and collaborate on a range of topics. If you are passionate about a subject, you can meet other experts and create world-class research and how-to advice. Wikibon can help you get smart on a topic, hone your writing and analytic skills, build a reputation with a global audience and have fun!
I became a member, and started a profile. You can connect with me through my email from Wikibon: tcarson@2roads.com.
Here is an article posted on the site today by Stuart Miniman, a regular contributor to Wikibon…
Virtualization as a Driver to Breaking Down Organizational Barriers
Aug 11
, 2010 | Stuart Miniman | Wikibon
Prior to deploying file virtualization, Colonial Williamsburg’s storage requirements were handled separately by each department. Budgets were separate and stove-piped infrastructure was the modus operandi. Business requirements to have access to their rich media assets and to use their resources more efficiently drove the need to consolidate its IT resources. Colonial Williamsburg could have approached alternatives such as backing-up data from laptops and desktops directly to the cloud, freeing up space, however it was simpler and of greater business value to implement F5’s file virtualization technology. This change also gave all users full access to the vast stores of historical information (rich media). The bottom line is IT organizations must remove the current stove-piped views of infrastructure architecture and management.
Action Item: The IT organization must develop trust across lines of business so that a shared storage and network infrastructure model can be delivered. The virtualized infrastructure can deliver consistent access times, high availability and adequate service levels, even for infrequently accessed data. In the absence of chargebacks, in a virtualized world, notwithstanding organizational constraints, storage budgets must also be shared among business units for optimal efficiency. Ultimately this will allow internal IT organizations to become more competitive with cloud service providers.
