As a government IT decision-maker, you have more than enough responsibilities to fill your schedule. That's why consolidating your tech footprint and minimizing your daily task list can be a such a major relief for you and your in-house teams. Data center optimization is a top priority for CIOs across the government landscape, and many of these efforts have been geared toward chopping down the number of tech resources in agencies' domains.
The virtual age
It may seem paradoxical to reduce the quantity of IT systems at your disposal when facing increasing workloads and application requirements, but CIOs at the federal level have long been looking for ways to accomplish this daunting task. Thankfully, virtualization has proven effective in many of these initiatives, according to CIO.com, allowing agencies to consolidate their data center footprints while boosting app performance and better utilizing assets. This technology is designed to make the most out of your hardware by adding a layer of software that taps into unused resources.
Don't worry - you are far from the only decision-maker struggling with data center sprawl and inefficiency. At the Broadcasting Board of Governors, an independent federal agency responsible for overseeing all U.S. civilian international media, director of global operations Andre Mendes has helped his IT team come a long way in terms of data center efficiency. CIO.com explained that when he first came to the BBG, IT was in shambles, and the makeshift data centers it relied on left much to be desired in the way of accessibility and efficiency.
"When I came on board we had 11 data centers. Some of them really shouldn't have been called that, but they were," Mendes reportedly said during a panel discussion this week. "Trust me: The environment was a little bit chaotic. If a closet had servers in it, we called it a data center. Those no longer exist."
According to the news source, Mendes was able to turn things around thanks to virtualizing his shop's systems. This let his team better integrate cloud applications and allow end users to achieve greater mobility in the field without compromising performance and security.
Mission-critical
In many instances, your virtualization strategies will need to be executed under pressure, raising the stakes even further. Federal Times noted how virtualized systems have aided the military in providing more consistent access to crucial applications in combat and patrol zones. This has reportedly made a major difference in terms of the communication efforts between teams in critical situations.
"These are soldiers, they are not always 20- or 30-year IT veterans," said Chris Howard, vice president of federal and FSIs at Nutanix, as quoted by the source. "The complexity of the traditional infrastructure is often unsustainable in the field - there is not the necessary expert - and so you have to eliminate the complexity of what they are managing."
You may not be the head of a military organization, but the advantages of virtualization are clear enough. Are you ready to embrace these forward-thinking methods and bring your IT into the next generation of efficiency and performance?
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