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Since I wrote The Green and Virtual Data Center (CRC Press, 2009), I have had the
opportunity to meet and speak with thousands of information technology (IT) professionals
around the world, both in person and virtually via different venues. Even as
that last book was being printed, the ideas to be found in this new book were coming
together, as I refined my premises and identified new industry trends. One of those
trends is the result of hype and FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) about material from
various sources. However, there is a gap between the hype and the FUD, addressed by
a theme of this book: Don’t be scared of clouds and virtualization, but do look before you
leap. What this means is that you should do your homework, prepare, learn, and get
involved with proof of concepts and training to build the momentum and success to
continue an ongoing IT journey to enable agility, flexibility, scale, and productivity
while reducing costs and complexity.
Another notable trend today is that the amount of data being generated, moved,
processed, and stored for longer periods of time shows no signs of decreasing. Even during
the recent global economic crisis and recessions, there were few, if any, signs of a data
or information slowdown. In fact, there was evidence to the contrary: While financial
institutions were being plagued with record-breaking negative economic impacts, they
were also generating, moving, and processing record amounts of data that had to be
preserved. The only thing that has changed is that we need to do even more with less—
or more with what we currently have—to support and sustain business growth. This
means leveraging existing and new or emerging technologies and techniques to stretch
available resources, including budgets, people, floor space, and power, to support business
growth, new applications, and even more data and information. |
