|
IT Managers Are Under Pressure to Cut Costs, Says IDC
Published: May 6, 2008
by Timothy Prickett Morgan
Only a few weeks ago, a report issued by Gartner based on surveys of chief information officers and other executives in charge of IT spending suggested that budgets for computers and related software and services are holding up, more or less. The word from IDC for the IT sector in the United States only a month later is a little less sanguine.
Of course, IDC only did in-depth interviews with 27 IT shops as part of a recent presentation it put together, and while depth is always appreciated, breadth is necessary to determine a trend, too. That said, information is information, and the study IDC has put together is meant to provide a leading indicator for possible future trends, which is why IDC is focusing on depth instead of breadth in gathering IT budget data. IDC's findings were divulged in a report called IT Executive Views: IT Priorities and Investments, and they show some of the issues that chief information officers are facing as 2008 gets rolling--or, in some cases, doesn't.
According to the respondents in the survey, many companies are already facing reductions in the IT spending for 2008 because of the adverse conditions in the U.S. economy. More than half of those taking part in the interviews said the economy was having a negative impact on their budgets, most of those in the other half who said there has not been any effects to date, said they expected a negative impact in the future. The respondents also said that companies are trying to consolidate their IT spending, with 70 percent of those polled saying they were in the process of centralizing IT budgets. (How much of the increase in IT spending for the past two decades has resulted from the ever-decreasing expense of servers and software, which can be acquired through general departmental budgets without IT approval but which end up being supported by the central IT organization even if they did not give approval for the purchase? I don't know the number, but I think it is probably quite high.)
As you might expect, the IT shops polled by IDC for its leading IT budget indicator said that data center consolidation, server and storage virtualization, and application consolidation were all key drivers in the area of improving infrastructure and cutting costs. Almost all companies--92.6 percent, or 25 out of 27--were engaged in legacy application modernization, with many of these applications being coded in COBOL, Visual Basic, and other older languages and having very industry-specific features that make it hard to just unplug them and start over. On the skills front, IT managers in the United States say that they are facing skills shortages for .NET and Java programmers, developers for SAP applications, and VoIP implementers; they also cited shortages in business analysis, security administration, and project management.
"These in-depth interviews show a significant shift towards cost reduction rather than revenue generation as a driver for IT investment," says Henry Morris, senior vice president of software and services research at IDC, who put together they survey and the resulting study. "Being able to deliver IT services more efficiently, as a response to the economic downturn and to recent mergers and acquisitions, is setting today's IT agenda. Responding to compliance and industry structural changes, such as the popularity of generics in the pharmaceuticals industry, are also key factors in deciding which IT projects get funded and which get deferred."
RELATED STORIES
Most CIOs Say 2008 IT Budgets Are Stable, So Far
IDC Tweaks Global IT Spending Estimates Downward for 2008
Gartner Looks at the Big IT Issues for the Next Few Years
IDC 2008: It's Post Disruption, the Aftermath of Webification
Worldwide IT Spending to Top $3 Trillion in 2007
Goldman Sachs Says IT Spending Will Soften a Bit in 2007
IDC Says Global IT Spending Will Kiss $1.5 Trillion By 2010
The IT Analysts Make Their 2007 Predictions
What 2007 and Beyond Might Have in Store for the System i
Forrester Predicts IT Spending Slowdown in 2007
 Post this story to del.icio.us
 Post this story to Digg
 Post this story to Slashdot
|
|
Why File-based System Backup is your Best Bet
File-based, Full System Backups Create Advantages Over Image-based Backups
File-based backups used for system recovery have been around for years. And, until recently, file-based meant a long, painstaking, manual process capable of turning off even the most meticulous system administrator. Image-based backups, then, seemed to solve this problem by eliminating the need to deal with recreating partitions, filesystems, volume groups or other details related to the system's storage configuration. In an image-based restore, the storage configuration and data from the original system are restored as a whole to the new system. While this method produced fast recovery times, Linux administrators began to realize disk image backup was more of an alternative method with its own set of problems and limitations than an answer to the challenges of manual, file-based backup.
Limitations to Disk Image Backup
Since disk image backups make no distinction between files and instead backup the hard drive as a group of sectors, bare-metal recovery can be quick and easy by simply rewriting a duplicate image onto a new, identical disk drive. A fine solution, as long as the old system and new system are indeed identical in types, sizes, locations- basically the exact same hardware. Any differences in hardware, however, could render an image backup unusable.
Many system administrators know first-hand the frustration caused by the inflexibility of image-based backup. "What I hear time and time again from clients is that they switched from image-based backup to file-based because of the limitations they encountered when trying to restore a backup onto different hardware." said Manuel Altamirano, Storix Software Director of Sales and Marketing. "Administrators assume they will have access to identical hardware after a disaster or for migration when the time comes. Unfortunately, so often this is not the case. Companies are left with unplanned, excessive downtime."
Even more advanced disk image backup products, that offer alterations to disk partition tables, still fail to understand more advanced and increasingly common storage configuration tools such as the Logical Volume Manager (LVM) or Software RAID (meta-disks) that also must be altered to match new hard disk configuration before data can be restored. In these cases, users must manually alter and build the configuration, usually through command-line utilities and manual editing of configuration files. This also requires users to have knowledge on how to make a system bootable. Rebuilding a system using a disk image backup requires experienced Linux administrators and could take days, weeks or longer resulting in crippling downtime for an organization.
Advances in File-based Backup
File-based backup tools today can automate the process of recording every aspect of a system separately such as disk, filesystem and boot loader configuration while supporting all popular Linux storage configuration tools (i.e. LVM and Software RAID). This detailed backup information is used to greatly simplify the recovery of a failed system from scratch, even if hardware differences are detected on the new system. Furthermore, systems rebuilt from the ground up using file-based backups often times operate better than the original because there is virtually no fragmentation when the restore is completed.
Flexible recovery based on file-based backup
File-based backup products have the ability to reconfigure disks, partitions, filesystems and other storage solutions to fit onto new hardware. This ability to adapt a backup to fit new hardware or alter the system's storage configuration is called "Adaptable System Recovery" or ASR. Only backup solutions that gather details about the original system have enough information and flexibility to make the ASR process of altering configuration so simple even novice Linux administrators can quickly perform the recovery. Once new configuration is completed, data files from the backup are easily restored onto the new hardware. Finally, the system is made bootable based on the new hardware.
The revolutionary adaptability of ASR found in file-based backup tools creates further added value for system administrators because these products can now be used for far more than just reactive tasks such as disaster recovery.
Applications for ASR:
Reactive
- Disaster Recovery- restore systems in minutes after a crash, even if hardware is not the same as the original
Proactive
- Provisioning/cloning- a single backup "golden image" can be used to provision different systems, even if disks, adapters or other elements are not the same.
- Storage software migration- change configuration on the same system for improved performance and availability
- Hardware migration- install the same system onto newer or virtual systems
New system backup management features
Products using file-based system backup have not neglected to consider a system administrator's daily backup responsibilities. These products now incorporate functionality for backup management as well as some of the most advanced features seen in backup and recovery solutions for Linux and AIX. Some advanced features designed to simplify daily backup management for system administrators include:
- Graphical, Web and Command line interfaces
- Local and remote backups to disk or tape devices
- Sequential and random tape autoloader support
- Support for SAN storage solutions
- Tivoli Storage Manager integration
- Oracle database backup support
- Backup data encryption
- Multiple compression levels
File-based Backup Solutions Provide Most Bang for the Buck
Inexpensive products exist that combine both file-based backup management and ASR in one program. Look for a file-based system backup product with advanced features like those mentioned above. In turn, regular backup responsibilities such as automatically verifying backups and encrypting backup data will become much easier. Additionally, combined ASR capabilities greatly reduce downtime and required expertise for both reactive (even bare metal) and proactive recovery projects. File-based system backup and recovery solutions are an economical and more comprehensive option than their image-based counterparts.
About the Author
Anne Stobaugh is an independent contractor working with Storix Software to educate Linux and AIX users on the advantages of file-based backup and recovery solutions.
www.storix.com
www.stobaughmarketing.com
|
Editor: Timothy Prickett Morgan
Contributing Editors: Dan Burger, Joe Hertvik, Kevin Vandever,
Shannon O'Donnell, Victor Rozek, Hesh Wiener, Alex Woodie
Publisher and Advertising Director: Jenny Thomas
Advertising Sales Representative: Kim Reed
|
IT Jungle Store Top Book Picks
Getting Started with PHP for i5/OS: List Price, $59.95
The System i RPG & RPG IV Tutorial and Lab Exercises: List Price, $59.95
The System i Pocket RPG & RPG IV Guide: List Price, $69.95
The iSeries Pocket Database Guide: List Price, $59.00
The iSeries Pocket Developers' Guide: List Price, $59.00
The iSeries Pocket SQL Guide: List Price, $59.00
The iSeries Pocket Query Guide: List Price, $49.00
The iSeries Pocket WebFacing Primer: List Price, $39.00
Migrating to WebSphere Express for iSeries: List Price, $49.00
iSeries Express Web Implementer's Guide: List Price, $59.00
Getting Started with WebSphere Development Studio for iSeries: List Price, $79.95
Getting Started With WebSphere Development Studio Client for iSeries: List Price, $89.00
Getting Started with WebSphere Express for iSeries: List Price, $49.00
WebFacing Application Design and Development Guide: List Price, $55.00
Can the AS/400 Survive IBM?: List Price, $49.00
The All-Everything Machine: List Price, $29.95
Chip Wars: List Price, $29.95
|
|
April 26, 2008: Volume 10, Number 17
April 19, 2008: Volume 10, Number 16
April 12, 2008: Volume 10, Number 15
April 5, 2008: Volume 10, Number 14
March 29, 2008: Volume 10, Number 13
March 22, 2008: Volume 10, Number 12
|
|
|
|
