For enterprises looking to save money and increase efficiency through IT consolidation, one place they should focus on is the branch office, according to an analyst with Forrester Research.
In a recent report, analyst Chris Silva said branch offices can account for about 20 percent of the infrastructure of a company, and should be a prime candidate in a company's consolidation plans. However, that hasn't always been the case.
"The branch office is a latent pain point in the battle to streamline IT," Silva said in his May 26 report. "While the data center has likely reaped the benefits of power, cooling, physical space and operating expense gains from the adoption of technologies such as virtualization, consolidation of storage and server infrastructure, and increased use of software as a service (SAAS), branch offices have largely been ignored."
That's going to have to change, because IT's role within companies is changing, he said. No longer viewed as simply a group within the company that rolls out technology services and support, now IT is being tasked with helping to bring costs down and increasing efficiency throughout the company. This is all helping fuel the push for consolidation, and in "most large companies, the branch office is a source of considerable opportunity to consolidate," Silva said.
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Eventually branch office consolidation is going to take one of two paths, he said. One is what Forrester calls "branch office in a box"-or BOB-in which a base piece of networking gear, such as a secure router, is used as the foundation. Put on top of this are services such as file and print, as well as local identity management controls, remote access capabilities and WLAN management tasks.
The problem with the BOB model is that most offerings lack enough variation to suit a wide range of needs, Silva said.
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