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Converged Infrastructure

Can you see YOUR forest for the trees?

rparker| July 20, 2010
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I was reading an interesting Forrester article (by Larry Dignan) this morning. Larry shares how technology executives may have finally reached the end of their rope with spending the majority of their IT budgets on simply keeping the lights on. As I read on, this familiar cliché popped into my head. Are the trees (as pretty as they are) obscuring the bigger view or compounding themself into an inevitable breaking point?

 

At HP we call this phenomenon IT Sprawl. It’s big. It’s nasty. And when you look at the numbers, they simply don’t lie:  Somewhere in the neighborhood of 70% of IT dollars are dedicated to merely running these legacy infrastructures – leaving only about 30% for the real important things like bringing out new innovations or new applications that can help generate more revenue and profit for the business. And as Forrester points out, along with most industry experts, infrastructure convergence is the path to flipping this ratio.

 

What makes this difficult is knowing how to get started. Thus, as you evaluate alternatives (and even vendors for that matter), start by taking a new perspective. It’s too easy to be allured in to the details of singular or piece-part technologies. In a way, it’s our comfort zone. But ‘technology for technology’ sake or ‘bolt-together technologies’ is a dangerous trap. Granted, the underlining technology is critical, but don’t get snagged in the branches. Rather, keep your eye on the forest. And today that forest is infrastructure convergence. It might be scary, but you'll see new IT heros emerge ... and others cast-off.

 

At HP, we deliver this with our Converged Infrastructure strategy and portfolio. In a way, we took the ‘forest first’ approach ourselves. I think it’s fair to say that HP has a legacy of making great products. But like great trees, it’s the forest that counts. So what did we do? We listened to you, our customers and our partners. We saw and heard about your largest problems. We took this all in, went back to our engineering magicians and applied our know-how to bring out solutions to solve the issues of IT sprawl. What’s really great is that by having an HP Converged Infrastructure foundation (build all at once with Matrix or at your own ‘building block’ pace), new doors of opportunity open – great economics, rapid deployment of new initiatives like Cloud, and investment protection for years to come. And as evident with our latest set of servers, storage, and networking announcements, we don’t ever stop.

 

Remember, overcoming IT sprawl is all about the forest. Can you see YOUR forest for the trees?

 

Thanks for listening.

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About the Author
  • More than 30 years in Sales and Marketing in IT services business. Currently managing global campaigns for Datacenter Care.
  • Chary Chigurala is HP’s Global Leader for IT Strategy, Transformation and M&A with 25 years experience in Strategic and transformational projects
  • Jan De Clercq is a solution architect working for the worldwide HP Technology Consulting IT assurance portfolio team. He focuses on cloud security, identity and access management, mobility security, and security for Microsoft platforms and solutions. Jan is based in Belgium.
  • My career international business, focus on foreign languages and communication. My passion music and traveling.
  • Don has held roles with the business and marketing of consulting for HP. Currently he supports HP's Client and Microsoft Solutions and the emerging Mobility Consulting services. He holds a MBA from UCLA's Anderson School.
  • Duncan Campbell is the Geo Focal Executive for Converged Infrastructure in the Enterprise Storage, Servers, and Networking (ESSN) Worldwide Marketing Organization at Hewlett-Packard. He is also at the helm for Converged Infrastructure for the Small and Midmarket Business for HP’s Enterprise Business Group. Campbell brings more than 25 years of enterprise and midmarket industry marketing experience to this leadership team, with a proven track record spanning software, networking, services, PCs and systems, as well as deep channel and regional expertise. Campbell’s prior appointments were vice president of marketing for Adaptive Infrastructure and prior to that, the vice president of marketing for HP StorageWorks. He was responsible for advancing the market position of HP’s storage area network, network-attached storage, information life cycle management, near-line and storage management software offerings through both direct and indirect channels for small, midsize and enterprise customers. Prior to joining the HP StorageWorks team, Campbell was vice president of marketing and business development for First Virtual Communications, a world leader in providing easy-to-use, integrated rich media communications solutions. Before that, he was the principal and a founding member of Adjunct Consulting, where he helped incubate a SAN-management-over-IP startup and developed transformational business strategies for his other client companies. Campbell was formerly with HP from 1986 to 2001 in various marketing director roles spanning workstations, software, networking, PC servers and Intel servers. He also served as worldwide director of marketing for channels, alliances and partners. Campbell holds a Master of Business Administration from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and a Bachelor of Science in chemistry from the University of California at San Diego. © 2010 Hewlett-Packard Development Company, L.P.
  • Hande has been with HP for over 10 years and held key consulting business and marketing roles based in New York and Boston US. Currently, she is the WW marketing lead for Cloud and Converged Infrastructure Consulting Services for HP Technology Consulting and living In Istanbul with her family. Hande enjoys spending time with friends, traveling, skiing and reading. Hande holds a M.B.A degree from Bentley College, MA.
  • More than 25 years in the IT industry, managing ITSM, service development and delivery projects in Technology Services. Specialized in end2end support for ISV based business solutions. Certified ITIL and project management expert.
  • Having joined HP in 2003 Ian Jagger is the world-wide marketing and program manager for HP Technology Consulting's Strategic Consulting Services, Critical Facilities Services and Energy and Sustainability Management Services, as well as emerging IT services Prior to his current role, he served as the HP Services Marketing Manager for Central and Eastern Europe, Middle East and Africa, having joined HP in a similar role in the Middle East. Prior to HP Jagger had a 15 year international sales career, culminating in being Sales and Marketing Director for Steelcase Inc addressing Northern Europe before focusing more specifically on marketing. His initial focus was consultancy and interim marketing management, primarily for small to mid-sized customers based or looking to expand in the Middle Eastern region. Immediately prior to joining HP he was a strategic marketing consultant addressing investment targets for a technology fund. Born in Rochdale, United Kingdom, Jagger holds an honors bachelor of science degree in economics and a degree in social psychology from Loughborough University, England. He also holds a Masters Diploma in Marketing from the Chartered Institute of Marketing, is a Member of the Chartered Institute of Marketing and a Chartered Marketer. He has one daughter and lives in Cary, North Carolina.
  • Title/Organization: Manager: WW Storage Consulting Portfolio Current responsibilities HP – Manager: WW Storage Consulting Portfolio WW Storage Consulting Service Development for the following areas… - Storage Cloud services - Big Data - Residency Services IT industry experience IBM – WW Product Manager: Storage Cloud/ Consolidation/ Virtualization IBM – AMS Engagement Manager – Storage Consulting and ILM IBM – Storage and Backup Architect Lead – Managed Storage Services Aware Systems – President/ CEO – Reseller, Integrator for prepress and publishing industry
  • Eduardo Zepeda, WW TS Social Media Program Manager & Internal Communications for WW Technology Services Blogging on behalf of HP Technology Services (TS_Guest)
  • HP Editor-Enterprise Group: ISS, BCS, Converged Infrastructure (CI), Converged Cloud, Converged App Systems (CAS), and ExpertOne
  • Broad mix of experiences developed in more than 20 years of technology-driven innovation. Fascinated by changes triggered by mix of behavior, needs and technology. Bachelor in Theoretical Physics.
  • Moira is a strategist who has done marketing for the technology industry for over a decade. She enjoys cycling and has ridden across America, down the Pacific Coast and along the Danube.
  • I've been working in HP since 2007 like IT agent, developer, Web designer and then like Web Project Manager
  • Steve Grumann has been in technology consulting for 18 years, nearly 13 of that with HP. He is currently a Strategy Consultant, focusing on Cloud and Service related IT delivery models.
  • I work with HP customers to help them create business value with strategic service management. I am a senior ITIL examiner and I have written many ITIL books and pocket guides. Find out more at www.hp.com/go/stuartrance or Follow me on Twitter @StuartRance
  • Greetings! I am on the HP Enterprise Group marketing team focused on Content Marketing for Business Critical Systems. Topics I am interested in include mission-critical computing, scale up x86, and Converged Infrastructure, Converged Systems.
  • Tom Clement has over 30 years experience in the areas of adult learning, secondary education, and leadership development. During this time Tom has been a consistent champion of “non-traditional” training delivery methods, including blended learning, virtual delivery (self paced and instructor led), the use of training games and simulations, and experiential learning. Tom has spent the past 25 years of his career at Hewlett Packard, focused most recently on HP’s global Virtualization, Cloud, and Converged Infrastructure customer training programs. Tom manages the strategic direction and overall performance of these training programs, ensuring these worldwide programs help HP’s customers capitalize on the business opportunities made available by IT advancements in each of these subject areas. Tom and his global teammates utilize best in class instructors, course content and supporting equipment infrastructure to deliver these training programs to HP’s customers. The team prides itself on providing the Virtualization, Cloud, and Converged Infrastructure content customers need when and where they need it, anywhere in the world. Tom is based in the Washington, DC suburbs and can be reached at tom.clement@hp.com.
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