*Consolidate desktops*
A desktop per user can be a big wast of hardware, energy and IT managers time. In an location (e.g. office, class room, home) where users are (can be) relatively close to each other, a desktop can easily serve two, three, or four users, if the extra monitors, keyboards, mouses, headphone, microphone and other necessary hardware are provided. Consolidated desktops are significantly less wasteful than single user desktops (obviously) and also can have an advantage over one user thin clients, both in terms of hardware cost and energy consumption.
*Upgrade to OpenOffice instead of MS Office 2007*
From my experience, user have a smother upgrade moving to OpenOffice than MS Office 2007, and the present and future saving are ... so nice!
*Lock down the user's work station to prevent malware and configuration changes*
If the user needs any configuration change or software install let them call an administrator that will make the change, if adequate obviously. This is a BIG time saver for the IT team. Linux and FreeBSD are very easy to look down with little (or no) loss of functionality. Windows 2K/XP/Vista are much more difficult to lock down because of badly written software requiring administrator privileges for no good reason.
Warning: If you are a member of the IT team you may want to ignore this advice, depending on your work load.
*Don't stop using it just because it's old*
Old computers (and not just computers!) can be very effective & efficient for the right work with the right software. If it stopped being useful to you consider giving it to others that can put it to good use.
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GenesisGlobalInc.com recycles old equipment fixes and resells at a fraction of what you normally pay
800-908-9665 x107
800-908-9665 x107
I agree with almost all of these except for the comments on server consolidation. We are a VM shop and we have saved money in cooling and power. However, there are no savings in administration. I consolidated 40 servers into seven VM physical servers. We still have to administer the 40 servers (patching, monitoring applications, etc). In addition to the administration of the 40 servers, we have to administer the VM servers, including backups with is an additional cost.
MSP (Management Service Providers) is another key initiative that will provide significant cost savings for many small enterprises. MSPs can efficiently handle a lot of administrative functions remotely such as system & network administration, DBA functions (database setup, configuration, security and tuning). MSP firms share resources across multiple clients, so they cost a lot less for smaller firms than hiring full-time personnel, since they are often under utilized
This is a good list. Thanks!
If you're a drudge fan: drudgetracker.com
If you're a drudge fan: drudgetracker.com
Unfortunately, and all too often, the first thing CIO's think of regarding 10 ways to trim their budgets is - fire 10 employees!
No matter how many times the business world proves that you can't save your way to prosperity, CIO's demonstrate that destructive mind-set.
Of course, there's very often poetic justice involved. How so? Fire people, and the word gets out. The good ones won't work for the "fire 'em" CIO, who quickly finds him/her/itself looking for a job.
As the classic song goes, when will they ever learn?
No matter how many times the business world proves that you can't save your way to prosperity, CIO's demonstrate that destructive mind-set.
Of course, there's very often poetic justice involved. How so? Fire people, and the word gets out. The good ones won't work for the "fire 'em" CIO, who quickly finds him/her/itself looking for a job.
As the classic song goes, when will they ever learn?
My current employer has approximately 8500 users and several hundreds of applications of all sizes (from single user to internet applications). It is a permanent mission of a computing service to optimize its costs. But some opportunities are not real ones and, beyond a given limit, there is no such thing as a free meal.
#1: Put off unnecessary upgrades
For me, this is the most problematic of all the suggestions, at least as long as servers, OS, RDBMS software, and middleware are concerned. Mostly because of time pressure, there
are cases where we must delay software upgrades and there has always been problematic consquences. One of them is that getting patches to correct some serious bugs is slower and the corrections are of lower quality. another one, is that there comes a moment where upgrades are madatory and cannot be delayed any more. this is where big problem begin, especially where several upgrades must be done in order to put a system up to date.
#3: Consolidate servers
As someone else mentionned, virtualizing servers saves money in the hardware department. But it doesn't in server and application management. It may also have a serious drwaback: hardware maintainance are likely to impact much more applications and people and urgent operations may become very problematic. So the consolidation of servers must be carefully planned.
#4: Virtualize applications
Well, all applications are not compatibility with virtualization. But, IMHO, deploying n-tier applications which only need thin clients make a lot more sense. In addition, many n-tier applications have very important qualities (scalability, robustness, and so on).
#5: Use thin clients
Several years ago, a department of my employer with 1000 users chose to use thin clients and it proved a failure. using thin clients means that there must be servers behind them. the licence costs for them are far from negligible (even for large organizations) and they must be managed. Things get worse when the business need applications with incompatible software requirements, or, even worse, applications wich are uncompatible with thin clients. At least in our situation, the TCO of thin clients (with all the required infrastructure) proved higher than the cost of traditionnal PCs.
#6: Consider selective deployment of open source software
We have deployed quite a few Open source applications (Server OS, web servers, appplication servers, LDAP servers, WCMS, Electronic Document Management software and so on). Many of them are excellent and work very well. But they are not a financial miracles. In this domain, their interest is that they eliminate the "entry cost" and there are cases where this cost may be a blocking factor. But there is no miracle when on needs urgent patches, services and so on. All of this exists, but come for money. On the other hand, OSS software helps a company spending its money on what it really needs (and uses).
#1: Put off unnecessary upgrades
For me, this is the most problematic of all the suggestions, at least as long as servers, OS, RDBMS software, and middleware are concerned. Mostly because of time pressure, there
are cases where we must delay software upgrades and there has always been problematic consquences. One of them is that getting patches to correct some serious bugs is slower and the corrections are of lower quality. another one, is that there comes a moment where upgrades are madatory and cannot be delayed any more. this is where big problem begin, especially where several upgrades must be done in order to put a system up to date.
#3: Consolidate servers
As someone else mentionned, virtualizing servers saves money in the hardware department. But it doesn't in server and application management. It may also have a serious drwaback: hardware maintainance are likely to impact much more applications and people and urgent operations may become very problematic. So the consolidation of servers must be carefully planned.
#4: Virtualize applications
Well, all applications are not compatibility with virtualization. But, IMHO, deploying n-tier applications which only need thin clients make a lot more sense. In addition, many n-tier applications have very important qualities (scalability, robustness, and so on).
#5: Use thin clients
Several years ago, a department of my employer with 1000 users chose to use thin clients and it proved a failure. using thin clients means that there must be servers behind them. the licence costs for them are far from negligible (even for large organizations) and they must be managed. Things get worse when the business need applications with incompatible software requirements, or, even worse, applications wich are uncompatible with thin clients. At least in our situation, the TCO of thin clients (with all the required infrastructure) proved higher than the cost of traditionnal PCs.
#6: Consider selective deployment of open source software
We have deployed quite a few Open source applications (Server OS, web servers, appplication servers, LDAP servers, WCMS, Electronic Document Management software and so on). Many of them are excellent and work very well. But they are not a financial miracles. In this domain, their interest is that they eliminate the "entry cost" and there are cases where this cost may be a blocking factor. But there is no miracle when on needs urgent patches, services and so on. All of this exists, but come for money. On the other hand, OSS software helps a company spending its money on what it really needs (and uses).
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