SHARE in Seattle 2010

The SHARE conference offers insight into the business value of IT. Gain direct, one-on-one access to industry leaders and learn firsthand about the latest in business IT trends.

Enterprise Virtualization & Cloud Computing

As companies throughout the world examine the business value of cloud computing, it is important to understand how cloud can lower IT expenses.
Based on a shared infrastructure where pools of resources are linked together, clouds can be delivered in private, public or a hybrid of both to provide the delivery of services. Many organizations today are looking to implement private clouds as a better way to respond to customer needs and manage the delivery of services in a more cost effective manner.
Virtualization is one of the key enabling technologies for the cloud, which can lead corporations and ISVs to:

• Foster rapid innovation and decision-making.
• Increase agility to respond quickly in today s highly competitive environment.
• Greatly reduce capital expenditures including data center energy costs by effectively accessing IT capacity only when needed.
• Establish and ensure greater business continuity and disaster recovery strategies.
• Reduce the need for IT infrastructure experts so those technical resources can be redirected toward applications that are more focused on the core competencies of the business.
• Ensure transparency through Service Level Agreements (SLAs) that protect the customer whether resources are managed by their IT department or managed outside of their firewall in the cloud.

Understanding all facets of this technology reveals a new opportunity for the IT industry to no longer be seen simply as an infrastructure but as a means for better business.


IT & the Bottom Line


To be effective, IT must be aligned and attuned to the service needs and strategies of the core business. IT organizations and departments must be viewed as a partner in planning for business success. In turn, enterprise IT professionals must be able to express how these services directly relate to the business strategies of the company.
IT organizations must continuously deal with competing budget priorities in these difficult economic times and demonstrate their worth by contributing to organizational effectiveness and efficiencies, while realizing cost-savings.  Here are some examples:

• Increase efficiencies from existing investments
• Optimize resource utilization through virtualization
• Track and assign costs through asset management
• Deliver service while using less power, space and cooling, thus reducing costs
• Employ best practices as described by ITIL to ensure delivery of quality service
• Eliminate/centralize duplicated IT services across the organization
• Respond quickly to changing business needs through rapid provisioning of IT services
• Ensure optimum customer satisfaction by provided agreed upon levels of service
• Manage resources according to business priorities
• Eliminate IT investments that do not deliver business value

There are many more, but the key is to communicate IT initiatives in a way that shows value to the business and to the bottom line. It`s not about the technology or technical excellence; it`s about improved business results.