I had never heard of a cloud forest before I went on vacation this past June to Costa Rica where I spent time at the Villa Blanca Resort.  Even when we arrived at Villa Blanca, I have to admit I was a little confused.  I had expected to see a forest in the clouds, however, I saw a beautiful hill side scattered with a few trees.

However, when we went on our walking tour the next morning, our tour guide walked up to one of the larger trees and says “Welcome to the Cloud Forest.  This tree is a perfect example of a cloud forest”.   As I looked more closely at the tree, I was amazed at what I saw - this single tree was host to thousands of species of both plants and animals.

Nature is extremely efficient in it’s use of a cloud forest.  Likewise, Cloud Computing is an extremely efficient use of computing resources.  It is for this reason that Intel IT has developed an enterprise cloud computing strategy focused on building an internal cloud to boost efficiency and flexibility inside of our IT infrastructure.  This internal cloud strategy is closely linked to our current use and accelerated plans for virtualization. In addition Intel IT uses the external cloud services selectively for certain applications.

Additionally, we are exploring using rich mobile clients with cloud computing models moving forward to better meet the needs of an ever changing user base, consumerization trends and the need to maintain highly efficient, secure information and application delivery to employees.

To find more discussion, blogs and content relating to cloud computing – in the enterprise or corporate client solution areas – take advantage of these resources.

And .. if you ever have the chance to visit Costa Rica .. visit the cloud forest. It was worth the trip.

Chris Peters, Intel IT

Twitter

I have been working in servers for almost 10 years with intel and in the last 4 years, much of my job had me focused on how IT uses server technology to create business value.  It was an awesome experience where I learned new things every day from OEMs, Intel's customers, sales force and with social media ... many extended.

During my role as an end user product marketing manager, I found that Intel IT was an extremely valuable source of learning for me to understand the end customer of the products that Intel makes and enables.   I also found that end user IT organizations valued hearing how Intel IT was approaching business challenges and deploying technology solutions to create value.  So when I was given the opportunity to move into Intel IT and be part of that team and learn from the inside out, my decision was easy.

I'm excited about seeing all aspects of technology (client, server, storage, network, facility, pc companions ... ), how IT aligns to business goals, makes investment trade-offs, implements new projects without disrupting business processes, and a host of other topics.  My learning curve is steep and fast (just the way I like it).  So as I transition and learn about Intel IT from the inside out, I will continue to share my experiences and learnings as i go

If you'd like to follow along real time on my Journey to the Center of IT, follow me on twitter (@Chris_P_Intel) as I will share the things I find, learn and explore.  Let me know if there is something you want to know.

In the mean time, check out the various resources available from IT@Intel including technical / business whitepapers, tools, videos and blogs.  Many of these are already on my required reading list.

Chris

In my blog titled “why buy for the little guy”, I shared that I was in the market for a new home desktop to replace my existing one.  Well, today I spent my 2009 tax refund check on a new computer – an iMac. 

So why the secrecy?  ... The iMac is a surprise for my wife’s birthday.  My wife has wanted a Mac since we left college and I’ve always been a PC guy (grew up with one, always used them at work, etc.) and when I started working at Intel almost 10 years ago, I could not justify a Mac given my corporate loyalties and who was paying the bills.  When Apple adopted Intel architecture a couple years ago, my options were now opened (really my old excuses were not longer valid).  

I’m very excited to install the new iMac as the challenges of my old technology and the limitations and headaches they were giving me will be gone - and I think I’ll finally get some good-guy points with my wife.

Chris

Every morning we hear about the staggering job losses mounting up in businesses around the world. Hundreds of thousands of jobs have been lost so far. Unfortunately, no one seems immune from the impacts of this recession. In fact, the recession is now impacting the data center and a new segment of the work force is at risk – your servers!

Would you keep an employee who worked less than 4 hours per day, over-spent valuable resources and was someone you had to manage constantly – obviously, the answer is NO! That is the situation today with install base single-core servers.  Aging servers are a perfect target for downsizing in this tough economy. Industry analyst IDC estimates that there are approximately 30 million servers installed in businesses around the world and about 40% of those use single-core processors (4 years old or older).

Let’s look at the 2008 performance review of these single core servers.

ð       Excessive Spending Habits: For the performance they deliver, these servers take up too much space and over-consume power and cooling resources.

ð       Lazy Work Habits: A typical non virtualized server runs at only 10-15% utilization – meaning they sit idle a majority of your work day.

ð       Needs Excessive Management: Aging servers require more maintenance. Extended warranties are expensive (estimated $600-1200 per server depending on the type of server) and if you don’t extend the warranty, the risk of downtime is on IT and the business. While the costs to maintain a server vary widely , during a recent discussion with Forrester research, they indicated that an aging server can cost up 3x the costs of an in-warranty server (under standard 3 yr manufacturer support).

Continuing to use these old servers is not a wise business strategy. But if you fire your existing infrastructure, who can you hire to do the work? Simple, you hire fewer new multi-core servers running virtualization to replace a large number of install base servers.

But, is replacing them worth the effort … I mean, why fix what ain’t broke? About 2/3 of IT’s budget is consumed maintaining existing infrastructure (source Gartner), leaving a measly 1/3 for innovation and value add business capability. So in this recession, unless you are focused on reducing OpEx, the IT budget that you are cutting is likely restricting your business competitiveness and new service delivery - the value of innovation.

Replacing old servers with new offers both cost and productivity advantages for IT in addition to improved services and competitiveness for business. Read some of the success stories from businesses in 2008 where proactive IT investment commonly resulted in 30-40% reductions in total costs, enhanced business services, improved competitiveness and rapid financial ROI. In fact, the business ROI on replacing an old server with new is staggering and in many cases can pay for itself in less than 12 months, by reducing power / cooling costs, avoiding new construction, simplifying and reducing maintenance costs, reducing applicaiton and OS licensing costs and more.

What characteristics should you look for in a new server hire? (to maximize this savings and accelerate ROI)

ð       Versatile Performance. Consider a wide range of benchmarks and application usages when evaluating capability of the server you intend to hire.  Servers hired today for a specific task may likely get re-purposed over their lifetime.

               Also ... if your workload is specialized and data demanding (like database / enterprise resource planning / business intelligence) consider a specialized

               server with unique skills, like larger compute, I/O and memory scalability to handle these larger workloads with increased reliability and headroom for peak loads.

ð       Energy Efficiency. Newer multi-core servers feature nearly 10x the performance / watt of single core servers. Use the SPECPower benchmark to assess which servers are the most energy efficient.

ð       Virtualization. When virtualizing servers, hire servers that can support robust consolidation ratios and built for flexibility and versatility. Many new hardware-assist technologies help boost the ability to migrate virtual machines (application/OS combination) from one server to another.

ð       Standardization. Unlike hiring employees where diversity is valued and encouraged, using a smaller number of reference designs in your IT environment, can lower operating and support costs.

A final consideration for hiring new servers is total cost of ownership. Just like hiring people, you must consider the incidental or hidden costs behind the salary and sign-on bonus (do these still exist today?). The average life for a server is 4 years. Buying an inexpensive server for your needs today may optimize today’s budget but may end up costing you over the long run in software licensing, power/cooling. Intel IT recently did an ROI analysis on buying higher end processors and found that using higher end processors reduced TCO significantly – by doing more with less.

Last year, Intel IT fired about 20,000 servers and more are expected to receive pink slips in 2009 - read more about this in the 2008 Intel ITannual perfomance report

If your goals are to lower costs, improve services and boost revenue while increasing business competitiveness, then replacing aging server infrastructure is an Intelligent Investment. Learn more at www.intel.com/go/xeon

Are your single core servers at risk of losing their jobs?  If not, they should be!

So the Question is ... Will You Cut IT Costs and Boost Business Competitiveness by downsizing your Server Infrastructure in 2009?

Chris

Working in High Tech means that most of us don't ever slow down - if we do, we risk falling behind. As a result, I usually find myself more more stressed than relaxed (just ask my peers or my wife).

So when I find good humor, I like to share. I found this video snippet about virtualization at www.talesofitutopia.com and it put a smile on my face. It is a little scarry that i can relate to more than one of the characters (the boss, the IT guy and even to some extent the JINX). Which character do you relate to?

*Virtilization anyone?*