Okay, this post is blatantly self-serving to EasyStreet. The topic is IT infrastructure consolidation and it contains observations from Riverbed Technology we feel are worth repeating.
First, the positive comment:
“Why consolidate?” a recent Riverside white paper asks. “The reasons to consolidate IT infrastructure, including email, applications, and databases as well as tape libraries, are wide-ranging. While most IT managers really focus on just the cost of the physical IT infrastructure, there are far greater benefits that can be derived from IT consolidation:
1. Reduced IT management overhead.
2. Eased revision control and
3. Ease of implementing data security.
4. The ability to scale systems more quickly.
5. Ease compliance.
6. Reduced server and software costs.
That’s the self-serving part. It actually sounds like a great argument for moving your IT to a Managed Services Provider (MSP) such as EasyStreet. In fact, we make many of those same claims to our prospective customers.
But Riverside Technology — a leader in wide-area data services (WDS) solutions — wants to sell their own expertise, not EasyStreet’s.
So here’s the negative comment, describing do-it-yourself IT consolidation:
“For most organizations today, the possibility of consolidating IT infrastructure out of remote offices and into the main data center is an idea that has been on the table to cut costs and boost productivity. After all, isn’t consolidation supposed to produce these benefits with nothing more than a small one-time effort of some time and money?”
“While consolidation can certainly bring a number of benefits to organizations — and by this point you’ve already created the ROI calculations that show a year or less payback period — it will take more than just a Friday afternoon to ensure that your consolidation project is truly successful. As far too many IT managers will tell you, a poorly-planned consolidation project will have your executives screaming, users threatening mutiny, and IT in the hot seat to quickly undo all the effort that went into the project in the first place.”