As 2009 comes to an end in a few weeks, eWEEK's Eric Lundquist is contemplating the 10 technology strategies that IT managers and administrators can use to help cut costs and improve their company's business outlook for 2010. Some of the technologies and strategies that Lundquist sees making a big impact next year include cloud computing and virtualization, social networking, and whether or not to upgrade to Microsoft Windows 7.
The end of the year approaches, and you have spent way too much time on
Facebook and Twitter and worrying about little things like keeping your
company in business in 2009. However, despite a once-gloomy economy now
showing some sun around the edges and an interest in social media bordering on
fixation, the technology world has continued to move forward. Here
are 10 steps you should take between now and the end of the year to get your
business in technology shape for 2010.
Build a Business Intelligence Strategy
Survey after survey show that business intelligence is at the top of every CIO's
priority list for 2010 projects. Why is that? Business intelligence is just a
fancy term for accomplishing what all that technology investment is supposed to
do in the first place: provide an accurate picture of your company, your
competitors and the marketplace. Too often, business intelligence has been the
province of a separate group of "BI experts" and programmers. In 2010, you
should be able to play "what-if" scenarios based on real data from your
company.
Build a Virtualization Strategy Around Your Entire IT Infrastructure
Sure, you can reduce the number of servers in the data center by
virtualization. But you know what happens to items like I/O and storage when
you focus on one area of virtualization and forget the others? Right, you only
start moving around inefficiency from one area to another if you think point
products. Lean on your vendors and IT staff to come up with a virtualization
model for your whole company. There are big benefits here in 2010.
Windows 7: Upgrade? Downgrade?
Server-side refresh at the same time as you get your creaky clients in
shape? Try something new altogether? Whatever you decide, make it a top to
bottom review of where you want to take your aging infrastructure.
Stop Thinking of Mobility as an Add-on
Your company's work force will soon see mobility as the norm rather than a
nifty set of applications when they happen to be on the road. The dispersed
work force and the end of the commuting to a cubicle era will soon be upon us,
and you should build out the IT plan to accommodate mobility as the rule rather
than the exception.
The Cloud
Right off, I'll tell you the cloud is not the answer to every computing
problem the world has ever seen. But cloud computing is quickly moving from a
curiosity to the real thing. You really need to get some experience moving some
apps to cloud-based providers and evaluate what the cloud can offer in terms of
uptime, security and disaster recovery.
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