Priority Projects

Keith Norbie - Vice President of sales and vendor management
Nexus Information Systems, Minnetonka
Originally published in Twin Cities Business Magazine

2010 looks to be the year of accelerating virtualization throughout the industry. I've recently seen companies adopt virtualization in anywhere from 30 percent to 60 percent of their IT environments, more than any year prior. Companies are also leveraging virtualization in entirely new ways for desktops and applications. 

Millions of corporate desktops are running Windows XP today. Organizations can probably go two to three years before they are required to migrate to Windows 7, but they are already looking for a way to do that migration in a manageable and cost-effective way. The answer that is emerging is desktop virtualization—desktops that are run and managed in the data center and then pushed to the user. I've already heard of a large Minnesota company that is virtualizing over 10,000 desktops.

Also, "storage efficiency" is surviving budget cuts. The old solution has been to just add more storage. Today, with new technologies in archiving and data de-duplication, a redesign in backup has become the answer to primary storage consumption. We can identify performance issues and optimize storage to reduce a backup footprint anywhere between three to one and 20 to one.

2009 reset the thinking on upgrades. Before, they were an automatic process. Now, IT has harsh justification criteria. Companies are looking to new technologies like netbooks with VPN acceleration, Windows 7, and virtualization as the kings of budgets and projects. Ironically, another king is emerging and is trumping technology—cloud services.

So far, PC refreshes and the advancement of applications seem to be hit and miss. Getting one more year out of those assets—or another year of limping by—is still attractive. Foundational items cannot wait, but everything else can. What good are great applications unless they have the needed computing, capacity, and networking resources? Yet, infrastructure always seems to lose out to applications. That's like buying a new car and not being able to afford gas.

Priorities have shifted to reflect new realities. "Must have" items like toner and storage are almost like electricity—they are part of a "lights on" operation. But the recession challenged more organizations to find out what the baseline of the organization could be; and as a result, they have re-assessed how they think about projects. This has made innovation take on greater importance. Eighteen months ago, organizations were still debating if servicer virtualization was valid. Today, that's like looking at a 747 and saying nothing that heavy can fly.

I'm often shocked by backup and recovery systems not getting enough storage and network resources. For some reason, organizations continue to think backup is a distant third-place finish for funding. What organizations don't always realize is that backup is 10 to 20 times more resource-intensive than some production environments.
As companies prioritize, they should start by leveraging existing investments wisely to achieve their strategic goals, but not at the expense of stifling innovation.

About Nexus Information Systems

Nexus Information Systems is recognized as a regional leader in data center solutions and services for small to medium businesses through large enterprise- wide clients. From architecture design to implementation, Nexus' focus on virtual infrastructure, business continuity, backup/archiving, networking, client computing, and managed services empowers their clients with the technology required to meet their ever-changing needs. Nexus is devoted to the core values of client satisfaction, integrity, and accountability to continue their long history of quality services and solutions.

Media Contact:

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