Posts Tagged ‘Infrastructure’

Fujitsu focuses on dynamic infrastructures at CeBIT 2010

March 4th, 2010

At CeBIT 2010, Fujitsu presents an overview of the company’s solutions and services on the theme of “Dynamic Infrastructures for your Success”.

The focus is on Infrastructure-as-a-Service for Server, as well as a comprehensive portfolio of managed services.
Rackspace Managed Hosting

Five halls at CeBIT represent the enterprise, showing how customers from all over the world can use Fujitsu’s IT solutions and services to create competitive advantages for their individual businesses.

Hall 4: Dynamic Infrastructures for your Success

Plug and play IT – Infrastructure-as-a-Service for Server

In hall 4, Fujitsu presents Infrastructure-as-a-Service for Server (IaaS), the flagship Private Cloud Services offering for enterprises. With IaaS, companies can purchase server capacity as necessary via a flexible billing model.

The required hardware is stored in Fujitsu high security centres built especially for this purpose. Customers can chose an individual solution and configure it through Fujitsu’s Infrastructure-as-a-Service portal. The server resources can be accessed via a secure VPN (Virtual Private Network).

Managed services – comprehensive answer to dynamic IT requirements

Just in time for CeBIT, Fujitsu presents in hall 4 the company’s new service package, ManageNow, for efficient IT infrastructure administration in data centres.

The ManageNow solutions simplify and optimise daily processes in data centres using standardised administration of heterogeneous infrastructures and automatised administration of operating systems, software and databases for servers and clients.

The packages contain additional features for the ManageNow software, implementation services, maintenance and support. ManageNow supports Fujitsu’s IT infrastructure products as well as heterogeneous environments. Enterprises can use ManageNow to consolidate different administration and surveillance tools, benefiting from a seamless integration with popular administration solutions, fast implementation and a cost reduction of up to 65%.

Fujitsu’s Managed Workplace services have been designed especially for Windows 7. Managed Workplace can be used to administer PC workstations throughout the entire life cycle. This frees enterprises from daily routine tasks so they can concentrate on their core business. The service is based on customer-specific service level agreements; a price per workstation model guarantees maximum cost transparency.

Managed Virtual Workplace comprises comprehensive services with a focus on the administration of the entire virtual workplace infrastructure. Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL) based services and options adapted to meet specific requirements guarantee customer satisfaction and increase productivity, flexibility, availability and security at the same time.

With Fujitsu’s own state-of-the-art Managed Storage offer, enterprises of all sizes can benefit from flexible data management, cost control and data security. Fujitsu administers storage solutions onsite as well as at its own data centres. Fixed costs are changed into variable costs and there are hardly any limits for extensive data growth.

Managed Server guarantees interruption-free server infrastructures. Proactive services such as Auto Immune Systems support automatic recognition and eliminate errors. At the same time, IT processes are immunised so business transactions are protected from interruptions.

Tape Virtualisation with ETERNUS CS800

Fujitsu also introduces the latest storage system in its ETERNUS family in hall 4. The ETERNUS CS800 is a ready-to-use storage solution with integrated deduplication, offering comprehensive data security within dynamic infrastructures. The solution is particularly suitable for medium-sized enterprises working with disk backup. Integrated deduplication reduces average capacity requirements for hard disks within the system by 90% and therefore helps reduce backup costs. The ETERNUS CS800 stores backup data in different locations throughout the company network, using deduplication. The required network bandwidth is reduced by at least 20%. The ETERNUS CS800 supports Symantec OpenStorage for Replication and Direct Tape Creation.

Hardware highlights: from Zero Client to server-star

With the first “real” Zero Client, Fujitsu presents one of the tradeshow highlights in hall 4 – tomorrow’s end-user device. The Zero Client is a frontend solution with all the advantages of a Thin Client – and even more. Designed as an intelligent display and available in 19 and 22 inches, the Zero Client comes with a single cable for power supply and LAN. It needs no operating system no processor, no applications, and no local data backup. The Zero Client merely establishes the connection to the virtual machine so there is no need for workplace management. This makes the “total cost of ownership” significantly lower than for the Thin Client.

Fujitsu also presents the latest additions to its notebook portfolio at CeBIT in hall 4. The new LIFEBOOK S710, for example, is equipped with Intel’s latest processor technology and offers excellent performance. At only 2.15 kilograms, it is one of the lightest modular 14-inch notebooks. The model offers integrated 3G/UMTS, WLAN and Bluetooth functionality. With a battery life of up to ten hours, it will last an entire working day without recharging. Fujitsu’s newest Tablet PC based upon the latest Intel platform, the LIFEBOOK T900, really stands out with its high processing power, multidirectional LED displays, and flexible electronic pen or multitouch operation.

Both LIFEBOOKS are equipped with Fujitsu’s Advanced Theft Protection, a modular security solution, which is also shown in hall 4. It especially caters to mobile users’ needs and offers maximum security for hardware and data; users can lock their notebooks in case of theft, erase sensitive data or locate the notebook and retrieve the notebook.

Fujitsu also presents a number of products in its current hardware portfolio – for example the fireball among its powerful PRIMERGY servers, the blade server BX900. Furthermore, client solutions such as the 0 Watt PC will be shown in action.

Hall 9: End-to-end solutions for the public sector

Federal and state authorities, municipal administrations and associations, universities and other public institutions are facing the challenge of balancing cost reductions and higher IT efficiency. In the Public Sector Parc in hall 9, Fujitsu and its renowned partners such as NetApp, Symantec, Brocade, EMC or CA demonstrate the capabilities of its powerful and energy efficient Intel-based infrastructure products, solutions and services. They will show how new supply and operating models within an “as-a-service” concept can change the IT in future administration models. Special topics such as secure eGovernment, Geo-Information, the White IT alliance or the new ID card or legally compliant online shopping offer plenty of issues to discuss for contracting authorities.

For the “Citizen meets The State” visitor’s day on Saturday, administrative solutions users once more take centre stage. The focus is on topics such as new forms of learning that integrate IT technologies, like the use of notebooks in classes.

Hall 15: Fujitsu’s premiere on Planet Reseller

This year, Fujitsu is represented for the first time at Planet Reseller in hall 15 booth F 15. The company uses the international gathering of the specialised trade to introduce tradeshow highlights such as Infrastructure-as-a-Service for Server, plus the latest additions to the client’s portfolio to the channel and distribution companies.

In the context of the new IaaS for Server offers, Fujitsu provides server capacities from its own data center on demand. At CeBIT, specialty retailers can test the new services themselves. For example, they can see for themselves how easy it is to provision new server capacities via the IaaS portal.

On Planet Reseller, Fujitsu shows a number of new products available through the channel program “Value4you”. Highlights are desktop PCs, notebooks, monitors and particularly the proGreen Selection.

Hall 8: Green IT

In Hall 8, Fujitsu is a partner at BITKOM’s Green IT booth – and presents its most important new developments in the areas of environmental friendliness and energy efficiency.

Environmental friendly and resource-conserving IT have played an important role at Fujitsu for more than 20 years. The green IT concept addresses singular aspects as well as the entire production process. For example, this means environmentally friendly materials are being used, or transport and packaging solutions are chosen to meet the best possible resource conservation conditions.

The “CeBIT green IT” – hosted by the hi-tech association BITKOM, the Federal Environment Ministry and the Deutsche Messe AG – offers Fujitsu an ideal platform to show its environmentally friendly concepts to tradeshow visitors and demonstrate, together with its partner Intel, how to implement environmentally friendly IT today.

SAP World Tour in hall 19

On the SAP World Tour in hall 19, booth 2.35, Fujitsu presents innovative dynamic It solutions and IT services for the SAP landscape. In more than 35 years of partnership and cooperation with SAP, Fujitsu has gained great expertise particularly in regard to service-oriented architectures with integrated virtualisation and automation technologies.

With time-tested solutions and services such as the FlexFrame for SAP, SAP BusinessObjects and the SAP Discovery System V4, Fujitsu nails the colours to the mast at the SAP World.

TDS at the CeBIT 2010

IT outsourcing, SAP services for medium-sized businesses and application management are the focus of TDS’ tradeshow appearance at the Fujitsu booth in hall 4 (booth E20).

Business Intelligence Packages for medium-sized businesses, tailor-made SAP offers for the process industry as well as for cosmetics and food manufacturers are only a few examples of the presented SAP solutions. Visitors also can learn more about medium-sized businesses at TDS and Fujitsu’s shared booth on the SAP World Tour (hall 19).

In the Public Sector Parc (hall 9, Fujitsu booth C60), TDS shows software and services for human resources departments. The portfolio includes the modular personal software TDS-Personal, as well as HR Business process outsourcing (HR BPO), covering all administrative processes in human resource management. This includes payroll accounting, travel expense accounting and applicant data administration.

Source:http://www.itweb.co.za/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=30986%3Afujitsu-focuses-on-dynamic-infrastructures-at-cebit-2010&catid=241%3Aservers-and-server-based-computing&Itemid=99

Post to Twitter

Comments »

Posted in News

Tags:

The ROI on outsourcing your IT infrastructure

February 26th, 2010

Return on investment is a common term, often used by the companies and marketing heads to describe profit. However, many struggle to define it when it comes to compare in-house versus outsourced IT strategies. And, when it comes to IT, almost all enterprises outsource at least some of the IT resources and activities necessary to support business operations.

“Outsourcing” is the process of contracting with a third-party to provide a selective list of business activities. ROI is the key consideration when deciding whether or not to outsource IT activities. Hostway Corp., a provider of domain name registration, Web hosting and e-commerce, colocation, managed dedicated hosting, and more, said that the availability of competitive outsourcing products from a diverse set of service providers should result in significant opportunities for cost reduction and improved IT performance.

Today, there are a number of companies that specialize in outsourcing, and enterprises should exercise care when selecting the right service provider to meet their needs. In order to effectively outsource, the enterprise IT and executive management should perform an accurate assessment of the business objectives. And, then determine the IT implications, and tangible and intangible costs of meeting those objectives through in-house and outsourced strategies.

Hostway (News – Alert) officials said that the decision to outsource should be an objective and financially driven initiative. The decision should be made after assessing capital requirements, business and operational risks, and the value of maintaining the enterprise’s focus on core business activities and competencies.

The white paper, “Outsourcing your IT Infrastructure,” explains that significant ROI can be achieved by outsourcing some or all of a company’s servers and data center equipment. It talks about ROI in details, and discusses about a simple tool for analyzing the relative merits of some types of outsourcing. The paper also talks about the benefits of outsourcing. And, it contains factors to consider when exploring outsourced strategies.

Source:http://www.tmcnet.com/channels/dedicated-server/articles/76915-roi-outsourcing-it-infrastructure.htm

Post to Twitter

Comments »

Posted in News

Tags:

Banks can make savings through virtualisation

February 6th, 2010

Among the many industries benefiting from new technologies such as virtualisation and cloud computing is the finance industry, with more banks across the UK seeing the advantages of outsourcing their IT infrastructure.

Banking on saving a net of £8 million from IT and energy costs, building society Nationwide recently announced it would work to virtualise 500 servers in its system. Savings for the firm will come from the consolidation of hardware assets by removing old hardware, and increasing the efficiency of existing physical servers.

Virtualisation – where multiple servers can be run off one physical unit – contributes to a lessened need for hardware space by companies. These initiatives also help to cut energy costs and contribute to a ‘greener’ approach to technology solutions.

As reported by Computer Weekly, the financial company has already consolidated an average of 12 servers onto each physical machine. Given this current rate, Nationwide should be able to whittle down its existing 500 servers to under 50, slashing its numbers by over 90 per cent.

“This reduction has not only saved space within the datacentre but has also significantly contributed to a decreased carbon footprint through a reduction in power and air-conditioning usage,” the company said.

The building society has inked a deal to move to SAP service-oriented architecture technology under a comprehensive £300 million transformation initiative to improve its business practices. Nationwide has also confirmed it will launch a voice and data convergence programme for its operations.

Nationwide has assets of over £200 billion as of April 2009 and over 13 million customers, and is the largest building society in the UK. By employing virtualisation solutions to such notable effect, it is expected to inspire other companies across the finance industry to look into the technology themselves

Source:http://www.rackspace.co.uk/rackspace-home/media-centre/news/article/article/banks-can-make-savings-through-virtualisation/?tx_ttnews[backPid]=63&cHash=0a9ebdd221

Post to Twitter

Comments »

Posted in News

Tags:

IT industry warns CRC could drive carbon-intensive datacentres offshore

February 2nd, 2010

IT industry experts are calling on the UK government to amend the imminent Carbon Reduction Commitment (CRC) energy efficiency scheme, warning that it will force participants to outsource energy-intensive IT infrastructure to offshore operators, which could drive up overall emissions from the sector.

The legislation comes into effect in April and will apply to about 5,000 large UK public and private sector organisations that consume more than 6,000MWh of electricity per year. As a result, many of the UK’s larger datacentres will be covered by the scheme and will be required to report on their energy use and attempt to improve their efficiency or face financial penalties.

The cap-and-trade scheme is intended to provide organisations with financial incentives to cut their carbon emissions by imposing financial penalties on those organisations that at least curb their energy use, and providing bonuses to those that successfully reduce energy use.

But according to Liam Newcombe, secretary of the British Computer Society’s datacentre specialist group, one of the legislation’s key flaws is that participants only purchase carbon credits under the scheme based on their own levels of in-house carbon emissions, not those generated by outsourcing providers on their behalf.

As a result, he is concerned that organisations will be provided with a ” perverse incentive” to outsource their IT infrastructure, potentially to overseas operators, to avoid additional charges imposed by the CRC. “I’m already aware of a couple of organisations that are very interested in managing their CRC league table positions by outsourcing their IT assets,” Newcombe said.

Such tactics could prompt accusations of “carbon laundering”, but Newcombe predicted that firms could adopt a “slow and more creeping” approach, designed to avoid any suggestion that they are deliberately outsourcing their emissions to third parties.

For example, he said he expects to see participants increasingly install new or upgraded equipment into co-location or other third-party facilities rather than run them in-house, with a view to quietly massaging emission figures to demonstrate year-on-year improvements in emission reductions.

“Even if you’re trying to play the game straight, you won’t be able to do it because you can’t report the CRC performance of your co-location sites,” he warned. “So even if you’re trying to be honest, you’re forced into an obscure game of carbon management accounting.”

The only real winners in this scenario will be the outsourcers and vendors selling carbon accounting software and services, Newcombe added.

Meanwhile, efficient and successful service providers that manage to grow their customer base could well end up being penalised under the initiative.
Newcombe observed that the more customer service providers take on, the more IT equipment they need to install and the higher their energy consumption/carbon emission rates become. “An organisation providing an efficient service could fall down the league tables because its net emissions have risen, while an inefficient supplier that has lost customers would rise,” he explained. “So you could see a situation where the good providers end up subsidising the bad ones. ”

A worrying by-product of this scenario could be an increase in the number of IT services being provided by offshore companies, as firms attempt to simply offload energy-intensive operations into jurisdictions not covered by the CRC.

Newcombe warned that this migration could result in a net increase in carbon emissions as countries in the developing world that provide IT services, such as India, routinely have more carbon-intensive energy infrastructure than the UK.

Brian Murray, a principal consultant at IT services provider Morse, agreed that the CRC could provide firms with incentives to move their IT operations offshore and as a result it poses “a serious threat to UK businesses and could even have little, no or possible negative effects on global emissions”.

Any increases in offshoring activity would inevitably cost the UK economy money in terms of lost business, lost IT jobs and lost funds that could have been generated under the CRC mechanism, he added.

He urged the government to “make amendments that take into account these potential risks”, warning that otherwise the CRC could simply “move the problem from one place to another”.

His fears were echoed by Newcombe, who warned that “we effectively offshored embodied carbon in manufacturing by moving it to China, India and the like and now, under this short-sighted legislation, people will choose to outsource inshore carbon too”.

Source:http://www.businessgreen.com/business-green/news/2257120/industry-warns-crc-drive-carbon?page=2

Post to Twitter

Comments »

Posted in News

Tags:

S. Korea, India to expand IT, software cooperation

January 26th, 2010

South Korea and India plan to expand economic tie-ups in the information technology (IT) and software sectors to improve the global competitiveness of both countries, the Seoul government said Tuesday.

The Ministry of Knowledge Economy said South Korean officials accompanying President Lee Myung-bak in India pointed out that Seoul’s strength in IT-related hardware and New Delhi’s leading position in the world’s software industry can create positive synergy for future growth.

South Korean companies such as Samsung Electronics Co. and LG Electronics Inc. are top competitors in the global IT sector, while the country’s high-speed internet infrastructure is one of the best in the would.

India is a software powerhouse, leading research and development in areas such as embedded software, and with companies like NASSCOM and Infosys making headway into the global IT business arena. The country is also a favorite outsourcing destination for multinational online companies seeking software support.

“Knowledge Economy Minister Choi Kyung-hwan pointed out at a meeting of both Korean and Indian businessmen in New Delhi that the two sides can greatly benefit from working together and learning from each other’s strengths,” a government official said.

The official added that Choi, who is part of the South Korean president’s entourage, met with Indian Commerce Minister Anand Sharma and called for streamlining India’s trade-related administrative processes, which investors say are inconvenient.

“He raised the issue of India’s current policy of restricting the types of business investments it accepts and difficulty in getting visas and general lack of transparency in policies,” the official said.

The South Korean minister was also present at the memorandum of understanding (MOU) ceremonies between the Korea Trade Commission and India’s commerce ministry.

On top of those tie-ups, the state-run Korea Export Insurance Corp. signed MOUs with the Steel Authority of India and the ICICI Bank, and the Korea Federation of Textile Industries agreed to expand cooperations with an Indian umbrella textile organization.

The Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency said it exchanged MOUs with Invest India and the Indian chamber of commerce.

The ministry, meanwhile, said representatives from South Korean small- and medium- sized enterprises are holding talks with Indian businesspeople on the sidelines of President Lee’s visit and are expected to reach commercial deals worth up to US$150 million.

Seoul is trying to expand economic ties with New Delhi after the two sides sealed a “Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement,” a de facto free trade deal, in August 2009. The pact took effect early this year.

Source:http://english.yonhapnews.co.kr/business/2010/01/26/23/0502000000AEN20100126007100320F.HTML

Post to Twitter

Comments »

Posted in News

Tags:

PaperlinX chooses Bull for data center outsourcing/consolidation contract

January 26th, 2010

European paper and signage distributor PaperlinX has decided to outsource its entire IT infrastructure to the French company Bull. As part of the agreement, Bull will consolidate the client’s currently scattered IT resources in its data center in Barnsley, UK.

PaperlinX currently houses all of its servers in 22 data centers located near or in its branch offices in 16 countries across Europe, according to a Bull statement. Using virtualization technology, Bull will shrink what is presently more than 700 physical servers down to about 80. The client’s infrastructure will be backed up at a secondary site in Netherlands.

“In an extensive pan-European organisation such as PaperlinX with customers in various industries, it is important that all business units work well together,” PaperlinX CFO Jeroen de Swart said in a statement.

“This step towards outsourcing allows us to build on a standardised infrastructure which forms a platform for the interaction between our people, businesses, customers and suppliers and supports our growth strategy.”

In addition to consolidating PaperlinX servers, Bull will centralize management of desktop computers in all of the client’s 22 branch offices. Using Citrix XenDesktop, all desktops will be managed from Netherlands.

Source:http://www.datacenterdynamics.com/ME2/dirmod.asp?sid=&nm=&type=news&mod=News&mid=9A02E3B96F2A415ABC72CB5F516B4C10&tier=3&nid=D1C133C8FFAA47A1AC9938D7ED8F26E3

Post to Twitter

Comments »

Posted in News

Tags:

Small firms benefit from VoIP, claims expert

January 19th, 2010

Small to medium-sized companies can gain significant benefits when they invest in VoIP technology, it has been suggested.

IP telephony firm voxclever told IT outsourcing for small business users that the technology allows companies to benefit from more features than traditional landlines at a cheaper cost.

Scott Goodwin, chief executive of the organisation, commented: “The use of VoIP for business purposes provides a multitude of benefits, including a huge financial one.”

He explained that the other advantages of the communications technology include reduced spending in IT infrastructure, lower monthly recurring fees and cheaper call charges, which will be especially valued by small firms in the recession.

The group also pointed out that VoIP tends to be easier to use and maintain than traditional landline phones.

Last week, George van Horn, a senior analyst at market research company IBISWorld, said that the substantial cost-savings and extra benefits that VoIP provides will mean the technology continues to be popular with businesses

Source:http://www.ihotdesk.com/article/19563220/Small-firms-benefit-from-VoIP,-claims-expert

Post to Twitter

Comments »

Posted in News

Tags:

UK IT departments still slashing costs, says NCC

January 19th, 2010

Eighty one percent of IT departments made cost cuts over the last 12 months, according to a study from the National Computing Centre (NCC).

The study on IT infrastructure, conducted by the NCC’s Evaluation Centre, showed that 28 percent of departments made very significant or significant cost cuts, while 32 percent made moderate cuts and 21 percent did minor cost cutting.

This year’s prospects are also bleak, with 31 percent of IT departments expecting their budgets to decrease in 2010 and two percent expecting a significant decrease. However, 47 percent expect their budget to remain the same, while only 13 percent expect an increase.

The Evaluation Centre interviewed more than 100 companies for the survey, ranging from those in the public sector to IT and Telecoms, and companies of all sizes ranging from those with £5 million turnover to more than £5 billion.

Despite the budget cuts, nearly half (47 percent) of companies are not stopping their infrastructure investment. However, 38 percent of the companies that were making cuts to their infrastructure investment were delaying hardware upgrades, closely followed by 33 percent who were delaying software refreshes. Twenty-nine percent were also delaying upgrades to their network.

Outsourcing has been adopted widely in an attempt to reduce IT costs, with website and e-business (25 percent) being the most popular to outsource and a further seven percent also planning to outsource this in the future. A third of companies also outsource the server infrastructure and another third network infrastructure, while applications support is outsourced by 32 percent.

The security management of IT operations has seen a growth in outsourcing due to the costs of employing highly trained staff to maintain the required protection levels. While 45 percent still manage all their security in-house, 30 percent use a third party to manage some aspects of their security and 11 percent have outsourced the whole of it.

Meanwhile, offshoring does not appear to be as popular as simple outsourcing. Twenty-nine percent of companies would not use offshore providers, while 24 percent have not considered it and seven percent have rejected it. At present, just 29 percent offshore and four percent are evaluating it.

Virtualisation technology has grown rapidly, however, with 83 percent of companies seeing server virtualisation as playing an important role in their IT operations. The reduction in infrastructure cost and physical hardware in the data centre has been cited as reasons for this growth.

In contrast, desktop virtualisation is seeing a slower uptake, though interest is growing. Over half (56 percent) see it as an important technology in the next few years, compared to sixteen percent that see it as of medium importance and fourteen percent as of little or no importance.

The study suggests that cloud computing is rapidly gaining interest, partly driven by suppliers such as Amazon and Google. However, at present, just 11 percent of companies are using cloud computing services. A quarter of companies are looking at the option, but 59 percent have no current plans to adopt it.

Cliff Mills, research manager for the NCC, said: “There are a number of organisations delaying upgrades. This will produce pent up demand [for infrastructure and software spend] and hopefully, when the economy recovers, we anticipate seeing a return in some of these areas.”

“Outsourcing may also be an option, to avoid the initial outlay and we see through 2010 people looking at the area of cloud computing much more seriously.”

Source:http://www.infoworld.com/d/networking/uk-it-departments-still-slashing-costs-says-ncc-313

Post to Twitter

Comments »

Posted in News

Tags:

IDC’s latest figures show emerging markets spearheading global recovery in ICT expenditure

January 18th, 2010

According to the latest research from IDC, the premier global market intelligence and advisory firm for the information technology and telecommunications industries, the world’s emerging markets are set to spearhead a recovery in global IT expenditure in the coming years, with the Middle East and Africa (MEA) leading the way.
Hosting a panel of global information and communication technology (ICT) experts today at Dubai’s iconic Burj Al Arab, the research firm revealed that IT spending in emerging markets is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 11.3% through 2012, compared to just 2.5% for the world’s developed markets. And the Middle East and Africa (MEA) will be at the forefront of this surge, with IDC forecasting year-on-year IT spending growth for the region of 11.0% in 2010, as opposed to 9.1% for Central and Eastern Europe, 6.3% for Latin America, 4.4% for Asia/Pacific, and just 1.2% for Western Europe.

Speaking at this morning’s gathering, IDC’s Executive Vice President for International Business Units, Mr. Philippe de Marcillac, stated that sentiment in the world’s emerging markets can best be described as ‘cautiously optimistic’ and that enquiries are increasingly becoming focused on what the recovery will look like rather than on how much worse the situation is going to get.

He went on to say that the Middle East and Africa is rapidly growing in terms of worldwide influence, revealing that while the region garnered just 6% share of global ICT expenditure in 2009, it will be responsible for 17% of the world’s net new expenditure over the coming two years.

Mr. Jyoti Lalchandani, IDC Middle East, Africa, and Turkey’s Vice President and Regional Managing Director, provided an executive-level view of the ICT landscape in the MEA region and assessed the impact the global economic crisis has had on the priorities of the region’s Chief Information Officers (CIOs).

He described the role of today’s CIO as a ‘balancing act’ centred around the need to optimize, grow, and comply as CEOs enforce almost conflicting demands to cut costs, optimize existing ICT infrastructure, drive business expansion, and ensure compliance with increasingly complex regulatory requirements.

Looking ahead, Mr. Lalchandani sees three key drivers characterizing the ICT landscape of 2010: cost reduction, business alignment, and risk management. These, he says, will lead to a significant increase in investment focus on areas such as datacenter consolidation, virtualization, cloud computing, outsourcing, business analytics, IT governance, disaster recovery, and security.

He also believes that the slowdown in adoption seen in 2009 will result in the release of considerable pent-up demand for infrastructure in certain sectors, positively influencing uptake in the coming 12 to 18 months.

The conference also included an insightful Q&A session with all the panel partners as well as a preview of IDC’s upcoming Middle East CIO Summit 2010. Running under the theme ‘From Pressure to Performance’, the much-anticipated third installment of IDC’s flagship conference will attract more than 100 of the region’s most influential ICT end users to the Madinat Jumeriah on January 24-25 as they gather to hear the views of the industry’s foremost global thought leaders.

Through a series of keynote addresses, authoritative presentations, real-life case studies, and panel discussions, expert speakers will tackle the topics of greatest importance to today’s CIO, such as datacenter efficiency, data and storage management, security, compliance, IT consolidation, automation, virtualization, and the forging of greater IT-business alignment.

Source:http://www.ameinfo.com/221426.html

Post to Twitter

Comments »

Posted in News

Tags:

voxclever Announces Benefits of Outsourced IT Support to SMEs

January 17th, 2010

Small companies and businesses can reap the benefits of outsourcing their IT and communications requirements according to voxclever, one of the leading providers of workplace solutions for SMEs.

By outsourcing IT support, SMEs can free up large percentages of their budgets previously reserved for investment in IT infrastructure
. By converting fixed costs into variable costs, the savings can then be invested into other parts of the company such as business development, facilitating expansion and helping the business to grow at a much quicker rate. For businesses starting from scratch, outsourcing provides the perfect opportunity to jump start a business without needing to worry about large expenditure in the early stages.

In addition, by outsourcing IT solutions, companies can avoid the unnecessary investment in hardware and software that is likely to depreciate over time, these facilities being provided by IT outsourcing companies such as voxclever, as well as the use of physical workspaces in locations all over the country. All of these factors serve to give SMEs a competitive advantage over their rivals, in terms of both efficiency and finance.

Scott Goodwin, CEO of voxclever, said: “Outsourcing IT support and functions can work wonders in boosting the growth of a business.

“By introducing a mobile working environment, SMEs can ensure that their workforce is connected to each other as much as possible, whilst also enhancing their availability to clients. As such, they will benefit from improved flexibility, and will be able to focus on their core objectives without being distracted.”

voxclever offers IT and telecoms services across four core areas – internet telephony, data and internet connectivity, virtual office and IT support – all designed to outsource the headaches that are associated with identifying, implementing and managing IT and telecoms services in-house.

Source:http://pr-usa.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=315062&Itemid=30

Post to Twitter

Comments »

Posted in News

Tags:

IBM delivers outsourcing services to Indian co-op

January 15th, 2010

IBM has gained a ten year outsourcing deal with Sardar Bhiladwala Pardi People’s Co-operative Bank (SBPPCB) in India. This is new client for IBM, confirms Neeraj Sharma, director, integrated technology services at IBM India/South Asia, and the company had to compete with ‘several local and multi-national companies’ for the contract.

IBM will provide managed continuity services to the bank, which include server management, network and security management, back-up and database management, says Sharma. It will also provide disaster recovery (DR) strategy with all relevant documentation, drills and activation. The project is divided into two stages – production set-up and DR set-up. The first phase is already completed, says Sharma, with the bank’s infrastructure requirements now being managed remotely by IBM’s Global Services Delivery Centre (GSDC) in Bangalore. The DR solution is to be delivered by the end of February.

The bank is also implementing a new core banking system, OmniEnterprise, from a local vendor, Infrasoft Technologies. ‘The bank was facing the challenge of having a small IT team manage an increasingly large and complex IT infrastructure,’ says Sharma. ‘The way forward for it was to replace some of the key activities with IBM solutions.’

He believes that the ‘pay as you go’ model of the agreement will allow SBPPCB to nearly halve its capital expenditure on IT infrastructure.

Sharma describes the regional banking market as ‘ultra competitive’ and adds that IBM is now working on packaging similar solutions and ‘talking to several co-operative banks in India’.

Source:http://www.ibsintelligence.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=13756:ibm-delivers-outsourcing-services-to-indian-co-op&catid=2:news&Itemid=12

Post to Twitter

Comments »

Posted in News

Tags:

IBM and Panasonic Ink Largest Cloud-Computing Deal

January 15th, 2010

In a new marker for outsourced IT services, Panasonic has announced it will adopt IBM’s LotusLive suite of collaboration Relevant Products/Services technologies. This is reportedly the largest cloud Relevant Products/Services-computing arrangement ever, involving support for 100,000 Panasonic workers that will eventually expand to more than 300,000 users, including partners and suppliers.

Mitsuhiro Aoyama, vice president of corporate information systems at Panasonic, said the deal will allow the company’s employees “to truly function as a globally integrated enterprise Relevant Products/Services” so everyone can work “as if they were in the same location.” The terms of the agreement were not released.

‘Strategic Right-Sourcing’

Panasonic said the move allows it to increase its IT infrastructure Relevant Products/Services without increasing its internal IT departments as it builds on a decision to unify its brands worldwide under the Panasonic name. The hosted LotusLive suite includes e-mail, conferencing, chat and file sharing.

James Staten, an analyst with industry research firm Forrester, said the deal is more significant as an example of “mix-and-match outsourcing,” rather than for its cloud-computing aspect.

He said Forrester is describing this trend as “strategic right-sourcing,” in which IT heads will outsource only the services they need when they realize they do not have enough internal resources.

“The old way,” he said, “would have been to hand the IT keys to a company” such as IBM, but now IT departments are being “much more selective” and are becoming more open to using hosted solutions. An enterprise can give e-mail to IBM as Panasonic is doing, he said, web operations to someone else, and so on.

In Panasonic’s case, Staten noted, handing e-mail to IBM is easier because the company is “already a Lotus shop.”

Day After Microsoft Relevant Products/Services/HP Relevant Products/Services Deal

While cloud computing can be part of a growing IT department’s solution, he said, it’s “unrealistic” that any major enterprise is going to “go 100 percent cloud.” Staten said key reasons are applications that don’t fit the cloud model, compliance issues, and, often, cultural issues about managing IT resources in a remote cloud.

With IBM projecting the global cloud-computing market will grow at a compounded annual rate of 28 percent to $126 billion by 2012, the deal marks a new level for the growing industry of outsourced, cloud-based services.

The IBM/Panasonic deal comes a day after Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard Relevant Products/Services announced they will spend $250 million over three years to codevelop cloud-computing systems. The goals are to develop a next-generation infrastructure-to-application Relevant Products/Services model, to advance cloud computing by speeding application implementation, and to lower costs by eliminating complexities of management through automation.

Staten noted that the announcement signaled “a market expansion” for Microsoft, which has “done well so far in hosted services,” as has IBM. He added that HP’s portfolio of such services has been “pretty minimal” up to this point.

Source:http://www.newsfactor.com/news/IBM–Panasonic-Ink-Largest-Cloud-Deal/story.xhtml?story_id=0320036VMSAO

Post to Twitter

Comments »

Posted in News

Tags:

ACS announces three-year IT contract extension with DCP Midstream

January 8th, 2010

Affiliated Computer Services has announced a $72 million, three-year information technology contract extension with energy company DCP Midstream.

According to Affiliated Computer Services  this new contract includes new scope of work and continues its existing relationship with the energy company through 2015.

ACS has said that it will continue to provide IT infrastructure outsourcing for: end user and desktop support; midrange and network services; messaging services; document management; security services; and application services and disaster recovery.

ACS will also assist DCP with evaluating and implementing new technologies such as virtual desktop, and provide additional IT services including, telecommunication expense management services, and provide additional application support and security services.

Derrell James, executive vice president and group president at ACS IT Outsourcing Solutions, said: “ACS is committed to providing our valued clients with customized IT solutions that will help them achieve significant costs savings, streamlined services and greater flexibility in the marketplace. By selecting ACS to continue on as their technology partner, DCP has recognized the depth of experience and strong technology expertise that we bring to our client engagements.”

Source:http://www.tradingmarkets.com/news/stock-alert/acs/acs-announces-three-year-it-contract-extension-with-dcp-midstream-683485.html

Post to Twitter

Comments »

Posted in News

Tags:

India’s IT services market to double by ‘13

December 24th, 2009

The domestic IT services market in India is estimated to grow from US$5.7 billion in 2008 to US$12.8 billion in 2013, representing a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 18.6 per cent from 2008 to 2013, according to the latest research from Springboard Research, an innovator in the IT Market Research industry.

The report predicts the Indian IT services market to be heavily dominated by infrastructure services, which are expected to reach US$7.2 billion in 2013 reflecting a steady 53 per cent market share, and a CAGR of 18.1 per cent from 2008 to 2013.

However, applications services with a CAGR of 19.6 per cent is to remain the fastest growing market segment, while IT Consulting Services remains the smallest with the expected market share of 5 per cent and CAGR of 16.4 per cent.

“The Indian domestic IT Services market is at par with international levels in terms of average gross margin and provides immense opportunity to the vendors,” said Sudip Saha, Senior Research Analyst for Services at Springboard Research.

“However, to meet high consumer expectations, vendors need to strategize around services delivery by implementing efficient processes, reusable tools and templates and replicable models,” Saha added.

The report reveals that infrastructure hosting services showed the highest growth over the period among the Infrastructure Services category with a CAGR of 23.4 per cent, closely followed by enterprise IT outsourcing, network integration and network management. Also, application hosting enjoys the highest growth momentum in the application service market followed by application management and infrastructure application integration.

In terms of vertical industries, banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) leads the Indian IT services market with 21.5 per cent market share, followed by the public sector (including education) and telecom industry. However energy and utilities, followed by healthcare remain the fastest growing vertical industries.

“With industries such as public sector, healthcare, energy and utilities, and transportation and logistics stepping up their IT spending, the appeal for the Indian domestic market has increased tremendously and is drawing the attention of domestic and MNC IT service providers,” said Phil Hassey, vice president of services research at springboard research

Source:http://www.ciol.com/News/News-Reports/Indias-IT-services-market-to-double-by-13/241209129329/0/

Post to Twitter

Comments »

Posted in News

Tags:

Think iT completes R40m IT environment migration for BAE

December 11th, 2009

Local systems integrator and IT implementation specialist, Think iT Solutions, has announced the conclusion of a complete technology upgrade for global defence, security and aerospace company BAE Systems’ local division in South Africa.

The project, which is valued at R40 million, covers every aspect of BAE Systems’ infrastructure in South Africa, and as such spans the company’s three local business units, each with separate focus areas, competencies and premises.
Click here

“It’s a complete upgrade,” explains Louis Botha, CTO of Think iT, “entailing the replacement and setting-up of BAE Systems’ LAN, WAN, data centre, software stack, client computing and disaster recovery infrastructure across its three South African business units.”

This substantial upgrade had to take place in order for BAE Systems’ business units across the globe to share information, intellectual capital, operational best practices and for the company to operate more efficiently.

With this urgency in mind, the project took just over 18 months to complete – 12 months of physical implementation time and six months for the scoping, planning, equipment sourcing and procurement exercises to take place.

“Because of the urgent need for BAE Systems’ South African business units to integrate with our USA-based headquarters and other subsidiaries around the world, we wanted a technology implementation partner that not only had the requisite skills and resources at their disposal, but was nimble and able to react to our requests in a timely manner,” explains Abri du Plessis, BAE Systems’ Group IT Manager.

“Throughout the entire project, Think iT proved itself to be the perfect choice,” he says.

Drilling deeper into the nuts and bolts of the project, as a starting point, Think iT had to replace all local and wide area network equipment, upgrade the network architecture to accommodate converged voice and data traffic, and implement a complete Cisco Unified network with the Cisco TelePresence solution being the epitome, which allows for intercontinental meetings to take place digitally without incurring the cost of travel.

“On top of that we completely upgraded each of the BAE Systems’ local data centres, utilising Sun Microsystems x64 servers and EMC storage solutions on the hardware front, with Microsoft’s Hyper-V and System Centre Suite virtualisation and management technology on the software front.

“This software choice allowed BAE Systems to run a number of disparate operating systems (predominantly Microsoft Windows server 2003 and 2008) and applications on a single consolidated and easy-to-manage hardware platform, thus reducing support and administration costs,” Botha adds.

“Building on the virtualisation theme in the data centre, BAE Systems required that we implement storage virtualisation so it was able to make better use of its storage resources, and application, presentation and desktop virtualisation, so that it could more securely manage applications exposed to its more than 600 end-users in South Africa,” Botha adds.

“All of this was rounded out by a high-end disaster recovery solution, which sees the three BAE Systems business units in South Africa having offsite business continuity capabilities,” Botha says.

“Because of the sensitive nature of our business and the information we deal with daily, outsourcing this competency to an external party would not be viable,” explains BAE Systems’ Du Plessis.

“By using our local infrastructure to create a sound business continuity environment, we not only comply with governance and risk requirements, but ensure our information is kept confidential,” he says.

Aside from the urgent need to integrate with and subscribe to BAE Systems’ worldwide technology standards, Du Plessis says the project was also driven by the need to build an architecture that was geared for growth.

“It was clear from the outset that we wanted to move from a reactive IT environment to one that was far more dynamic in nature – and in doing so, drive total cost of ownership down, return on investment up and eliminate vendor lock-in.

“We have succeeded on each of those counts,” he affirms.

“Think iT has firsthand experience of BAE Systems’ environment and has all of the skill and resource required to keep things ticking over like a well-oiled machine. We look forward to a long and prosperous relationship with BAE Systems over the coming years,” he concludes.

Source:http://www.itweb.co.za/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=28834:think-it-completes-r40m-it-environment-migration-for-bae&catid=349:industrysolutions

Post to Twitter

Comments »

Posted in News

Tags:

Get Adobe Flash playerPlugin by wpburn.com wordpress themes