InformationWeek: The Business Value of Technology

Server VMs create new switching and security problems.

Why are 29% of our 676 respondents demanding upwards of 65 GB of memory capacity in their typical x86 servers? Maybe because virtualization means each box is potentially home to dozens of applications. We’ll take the temperature of the server market: What are the 37% who are buying more servers really looking for, what’s new  and what’s shaking with each major subsystem? Hint: It’s likely not unified stacks, which are in use by a rarefied 12% of respondents.

Most companies don't have a strategy to deal with increasing volumes of digital information. Time for a content management plan.

Organizations are drowning in email, Office files, PDFs and more. All this unstructured information is expensive to store, hard to search, and may have regulatory or ­compliance requirements. Enterprise content management aims to help bring structure to data chaos, but it’s not a panacea. It requires a strategy and backing from the ­business. Our research looks at the state of ECM, describes challenges and offers a six-point plan to help you tame the data beast.

New SaaS productivity apps combine the best of browser access and traditional clients. Here's how to find the best fit for your company.

Google is aggressively pushing its productivity apps as an alternative to Microsoft’s Office/Exchange/SharePoint troika. Microsoft has responded with Office 365, a service that blends online and native apps. Adobe, Zoho and others also offer options. Is any SaaS office suite robust enough to meet your company’s needs? If so, what’s your best bet: browser-based, native or a mix? We help you find an answer, and provide pricing info.

Hardware vendors are competing to build integrated systems of servers, edge networks and pooled storage for virtualized workloads. IBM's aptly named entrée into the world of unified computing stacks is distinguished by application provisioning and service management software worthy of the cloud appellation.

Automation is notoriously complex, manual IT isn't scalable, and demand for new services is growing. Now what?

IT’s juggling frantically to keep current services running even as business customers pile on new requests. Automation is an important tool in helping us shift focus toward meeting unique business needs, but it should be coupled with judicious use of external services and portfolio management.

A service catalog is pivotal in moving IT from an unresponsive mass of corporate overhead to an agile business partner. Services enable usage-based pricing, which gives business units greater visibility and control over their technology budgets, while helping channel IT resources to activities with the greatest financial impact.