RE: [SAGE] Build versus Buy IT

["John Arrasjid" <johna@johna.com>]

Have you considered virtualizing your servers to cut costs in the following
areas?
1) Total number of servers.
2) Reduced maintenance costs due to reduced servers.
3) Reduced power and AC consumption.
4) Reduced rack space and server room space.
5) Reduced rollout costs.

FYI: I have been using VMware products now since about 1999 and am currently
working for VMware. I have seen many IT groups reduce their operating costs,
reduce the time and cost of new server rollouts, and help minimize the
impact to the IT staff.

FYI-2: You still need to pay for licensing if you are using licensed OS's.
You also still need to maintain the number of OS's rolled out.
Virtualization puts the IT group in a more proactive, reduced cost
environment.

john

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-sage-members@usenix.org [mailto:owner-sage-members@usenix.org]
On Behalf Of Scott Burch
Sent: Tuesday, December 30, 2003 7:57 AM
To: sage-members@usenix.org
Subject: [SAGE] Build versus Buy IT

Hello,

Currently where I work the IT organization is faced with the task of
building a new data center (large significant expense..the data
center(s) currently are at capicity in terms of space and power..we have
thousands of servers and about 30,000 employees globally) or potentially
outsourcing the entire corporate IT infrastructure (data center, UNIX,
Intel (Windows), etc.) organization to a vendor such as IBM. I am not
directly involved in the project, however I know that cost ways heavily
in the decision. The general consensus is that if a vendor can claim to
do things cheaper then that is probably how the company will go. There
are already certain projects that have been outsourced, and those
projects have not gone as well as planned (in terms of cost and time to
completion). One of the main people responsible for this project has
asked that if anyone has had negative experiences with outsourcing on a
large scale he would like to speak with them...so am asking if any of
you would be willing to speak with him about this or point me to some
good articles.I don't think many people take the outsourcing idea very
seriously, but I think they are mistaken. Unfortunately I think many
have grown complacecent do to the overall success of the company they
work for. The company does very well financially, but IT is not their
core business, so I can see whay outsourcing would be strongly
considered. Currently the IT organization is heavily employee weighted,
however some larger projects are outsourced, and there continues to be
heavy use of offshore support for application support/development.

I'm just trying to look out for my fellow employees. I had been a
consultant/contractor for 4.5 years before becoming an employee of this
company about 3 years ago. I also was on the job market in early 2001
when things were really bad, so I don't envy anyone entering the IT job
market. Looking around at the IT organization here I see groups that
have been locked into job responsibilites that are simply
reactive/repetitive tasks..these people I believe are in jeopardy of
losing their jobs to outsourcing first. I work in the group that
deploys/supports the UNIX infrastructure. I believe we provide lots of
value add, so I think we would be retained even if outsourcing is the
decision. Any input and thoughts you could provide would be greatly
appreciated. The guy heading up this project from the IT side would be
willing to speak directly with anyone who has been involved with this
type of decision before.

-Scott

--
Scott Burch <scott.burch@camberwind.com>