For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

Driving Multitenancy In Your Virtual Environments

How To Get Business Units To Share Your Consolidated Infrastructure

by James Staten, November 18, 2009

As you continue to consolidate your server infrastructure and make it more cloudlike, a key hurdle you and most enterprises must overcome is the sharing of physical infrastructure between business units (BUs). While some organizations have a centralized . . .

For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

Charging Back For Your Virtual Infrastructure

How To Allocate Costs For Virtual Machines And Drive Greater Adoption

by James Staten, November 18, 2009

As you continue to consolidate your server infrastructure and make it more cloudlike, a key hurdle that you must overcome is cost allocation for the virtual infrastructure. While most enterprises are not yet charging back or tracking virtual machine (VM) . . .

For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

TechRadar™ For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals: Cloud Computing, Q3 2009

As Much Diversity Of Maturity Across Categories As Confusion Among Them

by James Staten, October 2, 2009

The No. 1 challenge in cloud computing today is determining what it really is. What categories of services exist within the definition and business model, and how ready are these options for enterprise consumption? Forrester defines cloud computing as . . .

For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

Case Study: USA.gov Achieves Cloud Bursting Efficiency Using Terremark's Enterprise Cloud

by James Staten, September 25, 2009

USA.gov, one of the busiest US government Web sites, has achieved significant cost savings by embracing cloud computing. The US General Services Administration (GSA) has migrated all of the core resources of the USA.gov Web portal to Terremark's IaaS . . .

For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

Case Study: CryoPort Turns To Cloud Computing To Develop Tomorrow's New Vaccines

by James Staten, September 9, 2009

New-vaccine and pharmaceutical delivery is a very time-sensitive application to say the least, especially when uncertainty can skew test results. CryoPort and KLATU Networks teamed up to build a biological package tracking system that leveraged Amazon . . .

For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

Best Practices: Infrastructure-As-A-Service (IaaS)

by James Staten, September 9, 2009

It seems as if every CIO comes back from a conference cocktail party demanding IT "move to the cloud." While this can mean many things, including using software-as-a-service, managed hosting, or application service providers, the demand often centers . . .

For Application Development & Program Management Professionals

A Surprising New Java Platform Option: VMware

Acquiring SpringSource, VMware Targets Java And Clouds

by John R. Rymer, Mike Gualtieri, James Staten, Jeffrey S. Hammond, August 26, 2009

VMware's ambition is to expand up the stack from its franchise in systems virtualization software into application platforms. The company's decision to buy Java frameworks specialist SpringSource is a first step toward realizing this larger ambition as . . .

For CIOs

Q&A: By 2011, CIOs Must Answer The Question, "Why Not Run In The Cloud?"

But Finding A Good Place To Start Is A Challenge For Most Shops

by James Staten, Ted Schadler, John R. Rymer, Chenxi Wang, Ph.D., August 14, 2009

At Forrester's IT Forum in Las Vegas in May 2009, we hosted an analyst panel about saving, making, and risking cash with cloud computing. The session sparked a lot of interest — and a lot of questions. With the buzz still strong, and a few more months . . .

For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

Forrester's Infrastructure Virtualization Maturity Assessment  (146 KB XLS)

by James Staten, Galen Schreck, Rachel A. Dines, July 10, 2009

Through over 200 client interviews and inquiries, Forrester has determined that the use of virtualization follows a pattern of experience that breaks down into four stages of maturity. Most organizations most pass through each stage of maturity in order . . .

For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

Assess Your Infrastructure Virtualization Maturity

Here's How To Move To The Next Stage

by James Staten, Galen Schreck, July 10, 2009

Why are most organizations not achieving more with infrastructure virtualization? They just aren't ready to. Through more than 200 enterprise interviews, correlated with survey data, Forrester has identified four clear stages of infrastructure virtualization . . .

For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

IBM Delivers On Its Cloud Marketing

Smart Business Solutions For Cloud Deliver True Enterprise Value

by James Staten, June 18, 2009

After two years of concerted effort to engage enterprises in a dialogue about cloud computing, IBM has delivered substantive solutions based on these discussions. Its offerings are a cross-business-unit set of workload-focused solutions that bring cloud . . .

For Application Development & Program Management Professionals

Perform Realistic Web Testing To Ensure Blazing Fast Web Site Performance  (5.9 MB PPT)

by Mike Gualtieri, James Staten, June 16, 2009

This workbook discusses the importance of realistic performance Web testing, what it is, and recommendations.

For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

Server Trends: Intel Xeon 5500 Creates New Server Differentiation

by James Staten, May 28, 2009

Every new processor introduced comes with significant hype. The Intel Xeon 5500 may indeed live up to the hype; it not only provides a faster server processor option but also enables a greater level of differentiation for the server and storage vendor . . .

For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

The Forrester Wave™: Blade Server Systems, Q2 2009

HP And IBM Lead, With Dell And Sun Close Behind

by James Staten, May 28, 2009

In Forrester's 44-criteria evaluation of blade server system vendors, we found that HP and IBM lead the pack because of the maturity and breadth of their offerings. Dell is a Leader as well that debuted a greatly improved new chassis in 2008 and is building . . .

For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

Inquiry Spotlight: Cloud Computing, Q2 2009

by James Staten, April 21, 2009

Over the past year it has been nearly impossible to have a conversation about IT without discussing the economy and cost savings for business. But the economy hasn't been the only hot topic in these conversations; cloud computing has evolved from being . . .

For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

Are Open Source Hypervisors Viable For You?

Red Hat And Citrix Ratchet Up Open Source Virtualization Relevancy

by James Staten, April 14, 2009

The open source hypervisor landscape has become much more interesting following the latest announcements from Red Hat and Citrix Systems. Both announcements were clearly aimed at virtualization juggernaut VMware, but Red Hat's move may only further fragment . . .

For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

Which Cloud Computing Platform Is Right For You?

Understanding The Difference Between Public, Hosted, And Internal Clouds

by James Staten, April 13, 2009

Cloud computing platforms are more than just shared, multitenant infrastructures on the public Internet. There are actually three infrastructure-as-a-service cloud deployment options available to enterprises today, each with unique characteristics and . . .

For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

Deliver Cloud Benefits Inside Your Walls

Economic And Self-Service Gains Are Within Reach

by James Staten, April 13, 2009

While the excitement about cloud computing centers on Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) and other public infrastructure-as-a-service products, many enterprise infrastructure and operations professionals are taking this concept in-house and building their . . .

For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

Hollow Out The MOOSE: Reducing Cost With Strategic Rightsourcing

Operationalizing BTaaS And Determining What Infrastructure Services Not To Do Yourself

by James Staten, March 19, 2009

Leading IT shops are leveraging today's recessionary climate to transform their organizations and the portfolio of services they manage and maintain. A new business-technology-as-a-service model, put forth by Forrester in July 2008, established a strategic . . .

For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

Server Trends: The Hypervisor Wars Heat Up

Segment Your Virtualization Portfolio To Maximize Value And Performance

by James Staten, March 16, 2009

Consolidation and virtualization are top priorities for nearly every infrastructure and operations professional, especially when budgets are shrinking. The recent release of Hyper-V, Microsoft's entry into the hypervisor space, provides a significant . . .

For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

Cisco's Big Blade Server Bet

Cisco Moves To Become A Complete IT Infrastructure Supplier

by Galen Schreck, James Staten, March 16, 2009

After months of rumors, Cisco officially entered the server business with a modular system it calls the "Unified Computing System." This blade server system goes one step beyond its predecessors by starting from a unified network foundation on 10 gigabit . . .

For B2B Market Research Professionals

Cloud Computing, Compute-As-A-Service: Interest And Adoption By Company Size  (220 KB PPT)

by Frank E. Gillett, James Staten, February 27, 2009

Enterprises and SMBs report on their interest and adoption of cloud computing.

For Infrastructure & Operations Professionals

Inquiry Spotlight: IT Consolidation, Q1 2009

by James Staten, February 20, 2009

Forrester has recognized consolidation as a success imperative for IT infrastructure and operations professionals for some time, and the recession has only increased that interest. In 2008, Forrester fielded more than 100 client inquiries on various aspects . . .

For Application Development & Program Management Professionals

Case Study: How Orbitz Takes You Places Faster

Tuning Pages, Code, And Infrastructure For Performance Is The Key

by James Staten, Mike Gualtieri, February 4, 2009

In the highly competitive online travel business, the leading Web sites are under constant pressure to improve customer loyalty by delivering a richer, more interactive experience with lightning fast page loads and booking speeds. Orbitz holds onto its . . .

For Application Development & Program Management Professionals

Best Practices: Attaining And Maintaining Blazing Fast Web Site Performance

A Multidisciplinary Approach Is Key

by Mike Gualtieri, James Staten, February 4, 2009

Customers have great expectations when they visit your Web site. They increasingly want a rich, interactive experience, and their tolerance for latency is approaching zero. If you cannot achieve these often diametric goals, your customers may take their . . .