Here we are well into 2004, and I want to review some interesting trends that are influencing everyone
who manages and/or interfaces with the data center.
Cost Pressures Drive Consolidation of IT Resources into Centralized Data Centers
Throughout the organization where I work, locations that formerly had anywhere from two to six servers
are having those servers, shutdown, packed up, shipped out and re-racked in our Data Center.
The sites themselves are then either being shut down, or are accessing their resources across a VPN.
What does this accomplish? The answer is centralized management, and therefore cost savings.
And the Future...
Yet, looking down the road, our data center itself will undergo a big change.
In the relatively near future (three years?) there will be consolidation of data centers
worldwide into just a few facilities now affectionately know as " megacenters", which will
provide everything that the data center I manage now does, except in a bigger way, and in an
even more secure, perhaps even sub-surface facility. And as you might guess, I hope to be
there, helping plan and manage it.
With all the emphasis on cost savings, this trend toward understanding and managing computing
has a new name.
Data Center Insider
Editor
William F. Slater
Director
Barbara E. McMullen
Contributing Columnists
William F. Slater III
David Meck
John F. McMullen
Guest Columnist
David Pultorak
Web Developer
Puneetasri Murthy
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IDCP News - Barbara E. McMullen
Editor's Desk - William F. Slater III
ECLECTrIC WORLD - David Meck
Wireless Connection - John F. McMullen
Guest Column - David Pultorak
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[Significant news and views on security, hardware,
architecture and certificate programs.]
The Mainframe IT Skill Crisis is Here
The Un-Graying of The System Programmer
- David Meck
The title for this short article is derived from a BOF (Birds Of a Feather) session at the August
2002 SHARE meeting in San Francisco. The focus of the BOF was concern over an impending
skills shortage of IT workers for the IBM eServer. The title of that BOF was
"The Graying of the System Programmer". Marist College, engaged in Joint Studies with
the IBM Corporation http://www.marist.edu/registrar/catalog03/general.html#ibm, is participating
in a program to provide education to help in the “un-graying” process. Marist College is
offering online z/OS and zSeries related education. The program is backed by
a z/OS 1.4 operating system running as a z/VM guest on a z900 at Marist College.
Marist is not the only institute of higher education involved in this z/OS education effort.
Courses are being offered at other institutions around the world to educate new programmers with z/OS skills.
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[A Diversion]
Outsource This!
John F. McMullen
Professor of Computer Science, Monroe College, Bronx, NY.
We are besieged constantly with talk of job loss through outsourcing to foreign lands.
The press, TV, and radio constantly bombard us with stories of IBM, AOL, American Express,
50 State governments, and many others moving help desk and programming tasks to India,
China, Ireland, and other foreign countries. Senator Kerry referred to CEOs moving work
offshore as “Benedict Arnolds” while an advisor to President Bush took great heat for
calling outsourcing a normal development of free trade – and the political conventions
haven’t even been held yet.
Many questions arise from these stories -- What are we to make out of all this?
Job loss is real – the economy is on its way back yet job growth is negative and
we have never in the US had a robust economy without job expansion. What are the
chances of our jobs being outsourced? What can we do to protect our livelihoods?
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While different vendors and research firms each put their own name and spin on it " the agile business,
organic infrastructure, utility computing, adaptive infrastructure, the adaptive enterprise" the
trend is clear: businesses need agility and are depending on the IT organization and IT infrastructure
to support that need.
To be clear, agility by itself doesn’t buy businesses anything.
The business must be agile and able to sense and respond to a continuous stream of necessary
change in order to survive. But its response must be appropriate and must include maintaining
stability and efficiency in the midst of continuous change. This ‘killer combination’ is known
as adaptivity and is the chief characteristic of the adaptive enterprise.
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Marist College is offering the 2-course sequence for the Data Center
Facilities Management Associate IDCP Certification beginning July 12.
The
two courses are offered sequentially, 12 weeks each/online. The IDCP
certification test is included in the sequence. The cost is $2,000
plus a $25 non-refundable registration fee.
Sign up Today! Click here
AFCOM NEW YORK METROPOLITAN REGIONAL MEETINGS
Date: April 27, 2004
Time: 11 A.M. - 2 P.M.
Place: 590 Madison Ave, NYC
"[The IBM Building]"
Room 306
Speaker: Paula Hunter
Business Development Director
OpenSource Development Labs
www.osdl.org
Topic: The evolution of Linux in the Data Center
Lunch
Sponsor: Deborah Maffettone
Sales Associate
DSA Encore
www.dsaencore.com
You must RSVP to Krystn Meier of AFCOM to gain admittance
(kmeier@afcom.com).
Picture ID required.
. FAQs and answers at
http://www.idcp.org/faq.htm
. A walk through of the
15-month program :
Click here
IDCP Certification tests currently available are:
. Systems and Software
. Networking
. Facilities Management
. Security
Sign up today!
IDCP discussion threads include John McMullen, David Meck, and Bill Slater on Data Center Insider topics.
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