Managing Your Windows Infrastructure with Microsoft System Center
Monitoring and managing IT services consumes a large proportion of most corporate IT departments' resources, and in the last few years this workload has been increased by the need to comply with new regulatory requirements. As a result, many organizations have few resources left over to devote to the introduction of new, business-enhancing technologies and services.
» Virtualization is More Than Virtual Machine Software Virtualization is more than the use of virtual machine software. Virtualization can give your organization higher levels of performance, greater levels of scalability, greater agility, high levels of reliability and availability, and the ability to manage its physical and virtual resources in a uniform way.
» Better Together: Microsoft System Center and Windows Server 2008
Windows Server. 2008 is the most recent version of the Windows Server operating system. The Microsoft System Center family of solutions helps you implement Windows Server 2008 in your organization with less effort and complexity than previous versions of Windows Server.
» Controlling Costs and Driving Agility in the Datacenter
To help control costs, improve business agility, and remain secure and in compliance, many IT organizations are taking steps to transition to a truly dynamic infrastructure. At the same time, many organizations are also planning to implement the next line of server products from Microsoft, yet are challenged to find the fastest, least disruptive way to deploy this technology.
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Bandwidth On Demand
For the customer, there are many advantages to Metro Ethernet. The biggest is the capability to contract for only as much bandwidth as is needed and only when it is needed. That is, there's no need to overcontract capacity based on peak usage, since carriers can deliver bandwidth on demand. Moving to Ethernet technology also introduces many economies of scale and fits perfectly within industry moves to IP-based technologies such as Voice over IP (VoIP) and unified messaging.
Perhaps most importantly where the enterprise is concerned, Metro Ethernet is seen as an important tool as storage needs expand. Having a consistent Ethernet interface to all devices simplifies the whole storage infrastructure, which is why the future of Metro Ethernet is, to an extent, intertwined with the future of storage area networks (SANs).
“Metro Ethernet also simplifies network planning. Instead of doing it yourself, you can tap into the Metro Ethernet carrier to supply either a point-to-point or multipoint virtual private network (VPN).”
Metro Ethernet also simplifies network planning. Instead of doing it yourself, you can tap into the Metro Ethernet carrier to supply either a point-to-point or multipoint virtual private network (VPN). You can also use Metro Ethernet technology to bridge the gaps between LANs in different facilities in the same metro area — a not uncommon problem for corporations with multiple offices in the same metro area.
But this does raise an important issue for corporations evaluating Metro Ethernet technology. If you're an IT manager for a corporation that has most, but not all, of its critical facilities in a Metro Ethernet area, do you commit to Metro Ethernet or forge ahead with your own network planning? Chances are pretty good that you forge ahead with your own network planning to ensure that all your critical facilities are networked the same way. This is perhaps the greatest weakness of Metro Ethernet: It is limited to a one, single metro area at a time when most large corporations are not working under the same limitation.
Metro Ethernet Is Coming to Town
After years of false starts, the Metro Ethernet market is poised to expand significantly in the next few years. Chances are good that your local carrier will be rolling out Metro Ethernet if you're located in a larger metro area, so it will be up to you to decide if Metro Ethernet can help your corporation.
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