John,
You know that Information Technology is a vital asset to any business.
Imagine your own company without a functioning network, servers or business
applications. Chances are good that when any of these critical systems go down, business grinds to a halt. Technology is at the center of all business processes today. It opens vast opportunities for profitable growth but it’s critical for a company to assess its systems and server technology or it will become problematic to provide support and security – and the higher the risk of hampering a company’s agility.
Business can take advantage of numerous benefits from updated server technology including:
A more secure and reliable architecture
The opportunity to take advantage of virtualization
Reduced downtime which can negatively impact a business’ image in the eyes of customers
Preparing for the increased demand mobile requirements place on servers
Cost savings - older systems can actually cost more to operate than newer systems cost to procure
Current trends in technology (cloud computing, virtualization, etc.) make it possible to develop new uses and propel user productivity and organizational efficiency to new levels. However, these new opportunities and trends can thrive only with modern, efficient, and secure infrastructures and information systems.
This assessment has been designed to assist you with this process in order to meet new challenges. The document developed from your answers to the questionnaire contains three main sections:
Your IT dashboard
Your focus areas (strengths and areas for improvement)
Your IT Infrastructure dashboard…
You have80 personal computer equipment assets (desktop computers, laptops, and tablets),located at1 siteandare managed internally..
Your IT infrastructure is based on the following characteristics:
Information System are
managed internally
5 Servers
- Lenovo is the preferred brandThe oldest Server Operating System is
Windows Server 2003
Virtualization is not deployed
in your infrastructureApplications
are used through Cloud Computing infrastructure Within your organization, the IT infrastructureneeds to be developed.It limits you from enjoying all of the advances in IT in recent years, on both a technological and an economic level. Discussions about modernizing your infrastructure (operating systems, cloudcomputing, updated servers, outsourced management, etc.) can re-energize your infrastructure, boost user productivity, and lower risks.
Efficiency
38%
Performance
Improve
Security
Weak
Your focus areas…
In order to enjoy the full potential of the latest technical innovations, it is essential to analyze your organization's strengths and areas for improvement.
The following table summarizes the items that are advantages and the items for which a significant improvement can save time, improve efficiency for the organization, and increase productivity for all users.
Strengths Areas for improvement
You are already using cloud
computing applications or services
You have put a backup recovery plan into place to protect against a major incident
Your information system is
managed internally. You may want to look into outsourcing selected area to allow you to focus on key initiatives.
Part of your server infrastructure is obsolete: Strong impact on
performance and reliability
Aging operating system: Security and compliance risks may arise in the upcoming months
You have not had the opportunity to integrate virtualization within your infrastructure
Your applications and data are apparently not secure from the standpoint of effectiveness
You are only partially satisfied with the performance level provided by your IT infrastructure (server and
Best practices & recommendations…
With your organization and challenges in mind, several best practices should be applied to optimize your infrastructure.
Findings: Your server infrastructure is aging. Part of the infrastructure is 4 to 5 years old. You may encounter an increasing number of performance problems and risks in terms of reliability.
Best practices: It is strongly recommended to refresh servers every 60 months. This helps ensure an efficient infrastructure, optimal security, and better productivity for users. Think back five years. Few businesses were thinking about social media and the smartphone was just two years old. It’s hard to know what kind of technological
advances the next five years will bring, but new servers will help businesses prepare for new capabilities. New systems are more robust and provide maximum uptime for applications and data. For example, updating your infrastructure with the Lenovo ThinkServer server with Windows Server 2012 and the latest Intel Xeon processors can modernize and standardize your IT infrastructure and consolidate servers.
Findings: Your operating system will no longer be supported by Microsoft after July 2015. Under the Microsoft support policy, your servers will no longer receive new updates, security patches, etc. after that date.
Best practices: It is strongly recommended you prepare to migrate your current server
operating system to Microsoft Windows Server 2012. Migrating will give you a secure environment that is supported by Microsoft. Then, because your current environment is based on technology that is more than 10 years old, migrating will give you the
opportunity to enjoy major advances: the ability to be cloud-ready, greater business agility and the ability to adjust capacities as your business grows, greater uptime, the potential to implement backup and recovery solutions at the lowest cost, etc..
Best practices: Virtualizing some or the entire infrastructure presents many advantages. It lowers equipment purchase costs, simplifies server management, increases the flexibility of the infrastructure, and adapts IT resources to business needs. However, virtualization must use a high-performing environment. Installing the Microsoft Windows Server 2012 operating system is recommended to fully benefit from virtualization.
