Catapult Public Relations

EMA OUTLINES 12 HOT IT MANAGEMENT TRENDS TO WATCH FOR 2009

Tue, 20 Jan 2009 19:01:15 +0000

Hot topics for 2009 include emerging developments in CMDB, IT governance, virtualization, cloud computing and green IT, among others

BOULDER, Colo., January 13, 2009 - Enterprise Management Associates (EMA), a leading IT management research and consulting firm, today announced its take on the IT management trends and technologies that will have the greatest impact on enterprise computing during the coming year. Overall, EMA expects a strong focus on IT management initiatives that deliver measurable cost savings in a tight economy, the continued deployment of technologies that enable IT to be managed as a business and new management challenges introduced by the growth of emerging technologies.

"While there are obvious concerns surrounding the global economy, we expect that IT management initiatives will continue to gain corporate support and have a positive impact on the business performance of the enterprise," said Dan Twing, COO at EMA. "Emerging technologies like virtualization and cloud computing will certainly mature during the coming year, but don't count out the importance and business value of tried-and-true IT stalwarts like the service desk, IT security and IT governance."

The following are 12 hot IT management trends that the EMA roster of analysts has identified for 2009:

CMDBs will mature into integrated systems with a heightened focus on federation, resulting in faster time-to-value - look for maturing "CMDB System" deployments that encompass application discovery, provide better metrics and closely link to related architectures like process automation. These federated CMDB Systems will consist of components targeted at unique constituencies (e.g. network managers, asset managers), increasing IT flexibility and speeding the realization of benefits from a core CMDB investment.
Widespread proliferation of virtualization will continue to present formidable management challenges - following exuberant and largely under-managed virtualization deployments, EMA predicts that comprehensive management of virtual systems will be the most important success factor for virtual environments in 2009.
Increased adoption of technologies that facilitate management of IT as a business - IT organizations are moving beyond technology management and expanding into the business of IT, including strategy, marketing, staffing, suppliers, service portfolio and investment. EMA expects an increase in application of service catalog, service portfolio, business service management (BSM) and other technologies that help companies manage the business of IT to deliver greater value at lower cost.
Role of the service desk to transform and gain importance - the pressure to run IT as a business will further move the help desk front-and-center as a key customer-facing discipline. EMA expects traditional help desks to evolve into modern service desks that will shoulder broader responsibilities and become part of companies' larger IT Service Management (ITSM) strategies.
Forecast for cloud computing calls for rough weather - perhaps the most hyped technology of 2008, cloud computing will undoubtedly continue its reach into the enterprise during the coming year. However, EMA predicts that savvy IT professionals will demand credible answers to growing concerns around reliability, security and compliance before adopting cloud computing as a viable approach for mission-critical applications.
Green IT investments will be fueled by cost savings vs. environmental altruism - although some won't admit it publicly, "Green IT" is not purely about environmental sustainability and corporate altruism. More so, employing Green practices and technologies will be driven by ROI and reductions in IT power consumption in both the data center and on the desktop. With spiking energy costs and a tight economy, EMA predicts that Green IT will be all about dollars in 2009.
IT governance initiatives will help enterprises weather the economic storm -IT is rightly seen by many as a potential savior for organizations trying to weather the economic storm. Along those lines, EMA predicts that organizations will increasingly turn to IT governance initiatives, such as project and portfolio management (PPM), resource management and financial control to create an edge in these tough economic times.
Significantly increased threats, new approaches to IT management and economic pressures will keep IT security in the forefront - an explosion in threats, organized cybercrime, unresolved questions about the security of virtualization and cloud computing and the global economic crisis will keep IT security front and center in 2009. EMA predicts that these factors will put new pressure on business executives to recognize IT risk management as a central aspect of IT governance, with new emphasis placed on improving the effectiveness of complementary IT management and security operations.
Solid state disk to emerge as new first tier of storage in the data center - with breakthroughs in nano-technology, Solid State Disk (SSD) solutions promise to deliver greater capacity at much less cost. In 2009, EMA predicts that SSD will emerge as the new first tier of storage in the data center.
Economic pressures to drive strategic (but quantifiable) investments in automation - with the economy facing challenges of historic proportion, IT organizations are under intense pressure to reduce expenses while continuing to improve the strategic value of IT by providing flexible, dynamic and efficient IT services that drive business success. EMA believes that organizations will increasingly turn to automation as a means of doing more with less - especially in the data center and storage arena .
Video growth will push unified communications management to the forefront - with several major industry players pushing video for operational cost savings with green upside, accelerating growth in video traffic will expose service delivery infrastructure issues that had only started to appear with prior deployments of VoIP, ICT and mobility. EMA expects that IT operations and planning professionals - especially those focused on the network - will need to re-tune and optimize their environments to handle this demand in 2009.
Changing organizational roles will escalate demand for new management technologies - as IT silos become more integrated along a service management model, the need for new technologies to support cross-domain collaboration and more cohesive views of infrastructure-to-service interdependencies will become paramount. The politics of collaboration will reach well beyond finger pointing to higher levels of automated diagnostics, process automation and shared access to information that will in turn reduce IT operational costs.

"The role of IT management continues to rise in value and importance within the enterprise as organizations turn to technology as a means of driving business success and competitive advantage," said Twing. "In 2009, EMA will continue to deliver in-depth research and actionable advice that IT professionals can rely on to keep abreast of all issues related to IT management."

NOTE TO EDITORS

For more information, or to arrange an interview on any of these topics, contact Guy Murrel at gmurrel@catapultpr-ir.com at 303-581-7760 x17

About Enterprise Management Associates
Founded in 1996, Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) is a leading industry analyst and consulting firm dedicated to the IT management market. The firm provides IT vendors and enterprise IT professionals with objective insight into the real-world business value of long-established and emerging technologies, ranging from security, storage and IT Service Management (ITSM) to the Configuration Management Database (CMDB), virtualization and service-oriented architecture (SOA). Even with its rapid growth, EMA has never lost sight of the client, and continues to offer personalized support and convenient access to its analysts. For more information on the firm's extensive library of IT management research, free online IT Management Solutions Center and IT consulting offerings, visit www.enterprisemanagement.com.

EMA SAYS U.S. GOVERNMENT COULD SAVE $1 BILLION ANNUALLY WITH IMPROVED DESKTOP POWER MANAGEMENT PRACTICES

Fri, 19 Dec 2008 00:13:24 +0000

New EMA research reveals that the government is the least energy efficient of any industry

BOULDER, Colo. Dec. 9, 2008 -Enterprise Management Associates (EMA), (www.enterprisemanagement.com), a leading IT management research and consulting firm, today announced the availability of a new EMA Advisory Note titled, "U.S. Government Wastes $1 Billion Annually on Poor Desktop Power Management Practices." The data for this advisory note was compiled as part of an extensive primary research project performed by EMA on quantifying the "True Value of Green IT" and specifically addresses the varying state of desktop power management practices within a range of industries. The study reveals that the U.S. government currently wastes as much as $1 billion each year due to poor desktop power management practices. According to EMA, if the federal government utilized the same practices as high technology organizations, it could drastically reduce the electrical costs to power more than 6.7 million PC workstations.

According to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), the federal government is the largest energy consumer in the nation. The cost of powering a single desktop in government jobs is $266.58 each year. This may not seem like a lot, but the U.S. federal government alone has an install base of 6.7 million workstations. The resulting cost could reach $1.7 billion in annual power costs. Other industries that have focused on cutting back on energy, such as the high-tech industry, see a much lower annual powering cost of about $121.29 annually per desktop. This recent EMA research indicates that this huge power savings is a direct result of better system power consumption practices. For example, an estimated 48 percent of government desktop systems were kept on during non-work hours compared to 19 percent in high technology organizations.

"Several energy efficient Green IT Solutions are available and many more powerful deployments are in the development stage," said Steve Brasen, EMA analyst and leader of the study, "Green IT solutions are designed to be simple for both implementation and management, and have proven to be successful in several industries, especially in the high-tech sector."

The problem in cutting energy costs begins when government institutions create their budget. They estimate operational costs, based on past consumption and expected growth. This number is then set aside from the overall budget as an operational necessity. The result leaves little to no incentive to reduce costs and streamline operations. Other enterprises have greater motivation to cut costs as a way to improve overall profitability. EMA believes, however, that the renewed interest in reducing the environmental impacts associated with excessive power consumption helps create a political climate more open to achieving greater IT efficiency. EMA also believes that Green IT solutions will be increasingly in demand, as regulatory compliance initiatives are increased to meet the demands for saving energy and money.

To purchase a copy of this advisory note visit: http://www.enterprisemanagement.com/research/asset.php?id=1004

The complete EMA research paper, "The True Value of Green IT," is available at: http://www.enterprisemanagement.com/research/asset.php?id=945

For more information, or to speak with Steve Brasen contact Guy Murrel at gmurrel@catapultpr-ir.com or 303-581-7760 x 17.

About Enterprise Management Associates

Founded in 1996, Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) is a leading industry analyst and consulting firm dedicated to the IT management market. The firm provides IT vendors and enterprise IT professionals with objective insight into the real-world business value of long-established and emerging technologies, ranging from security, storage and IT Service Management (ITSM) to the Configuration Management Database (CMDB), virtualization and service-oriented architecture (SOA). Even with its rapid growth, EMA has never lost sight of the client, and continues to offer personalized support and convenient access to its analysts. For more information on the firm's extensive library of IT management research, free online IT Management Solutions Center and IT consulting offerings, visit www.enterprisemanagement.com.

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ENTERPRISE MANAGEMENT ASSOCIATES ANNOUNCES IT MANAGEMENT WEBINARS FOR OCTOBER

Fri, 07 Nov 2008 21:49:03 +0000

EMA analysts will share insight on Green IT, service catalog trends, ITIL in security and risk management, network management and ITIL v3

BOULDER, Colo., Sept. 30, 2008 - Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) (www.enterprisemanagement.com), a leading IT management research and consulting firm, today announced it will host a number of free Webinars focused on IT management during the month of October 2008.

The EMAWebinars set for October include:

Tuesday, Oct. 7, 2008 - 2 p.m. EDT
The True Value of Green IT: Quantifying the ROI of Energy Efficiency
http://www.emausa.com/ema_lead.php?ls=greenitwebpr1008&bs=greenitweb1008

Steve Brasen, EMA analyst, will share highlights from EMA primary research on power management practices in the data center and on the desktop. Topics will include: determining actual energy costs associated with traditional computing models, evaluating cost savings that can be achieved by reducing power consumption, identifying the most popular green IT implementations and exploring the primary business concerns inhibiting green IT deployments.

Tuesday, Oct. 14, 2008 - 2 p.m. EDT
Service Catalog 2008: Trends and Tips
http://www.emausa.com/ema_lead.php?ls=scconstwebpr1008&bs=scconstws1008

This Webinar, led by EMA senior consultant Stewart Cole, will explore findings from a recent EMA study on service catalog best practices in the enterprise. Key issues he will discuss include reasons to implement a service catalog, real-world benefits from service catalog implementations and how to measure the success of your service catalog.

Thursday, Oct. 16, 2008 - 2 p.m. EDT
How to Apply ITIL to Security and Risk Management
http://www.emausa.com/ema_lead.php?ls=bomgaroctwebpr1008&bs=bomgaroctweb1008

EMA research director Scott Crawford, Bomgar co-founder and vice president of product strategy Nathan McNeill, and BMC solutions architect Doug Bagley will explain how to apply ITIL to security and risk management initiatives. They will cover the gaps in IT management disciplines that plague security, what ITIL is and why so many are adopting it and how ITIL best practices improve security.

Wednesday, Oct. 22, 2008 - 2 p.m. EDT
Network Management 2008: Megatrends in Technology, Process and Organization
http://www.emausa.com/ema_lead.php?ls=nmwebpr1008&bs=nmweb1008

EMA vice president Dennis Drogseth and EMA senior analyst Jim Frey will share key results from the latest EMA research study on network management. Drogseth and Frey will explore how networking organizations are changing to support systems management and the management of remote locations. They also will provide answers to popular questions, including what are the top issues with network management today, where should companies look for help, what are top priorities in network management, and what types of organizational, cultural and process changes are occurring in parallel with changes in technology.

Tuesday, Oct. 28, 2008 - 11 a.m. EDT
ITIL V3: Making Business Services Serve the Business
http://www.emausa.com/ema_lead.php?ls=asgitilwebpr1008&bs=asgitilweb1008

ITIL version 3, the latest version of the IT Infrastructure Library (ITIL), represents a significant advancement for the practice of business service management (BSM). During this Webinar, EMA senior analyst Paul Burns and ASG senior vice president of marketing and product management Brent Brightwell, will highlight ITIL v3 changes relevant to BSM, explore how BSM and CMDB technology can be used to help transition from ITIL v2 to ITIL v3, and review how ASG BSM products, including its metaCMDB, support the move to ITIL v3.

For more information, contact Guy Murrel at gmurrel@catapultpr-ir.com or 303-581-7760 x 18.

About Enterprise Management Associates

Founded in 1996, Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) is a leading industry analyst and consulting firm dedicated to the IT management market. The firm provides IT vendors and enterprise IT professionals with objective insight into the real-world business value of long-established and emerging technologies, ranging from security, storage and IT Service Management (ITSM) to the Configuration Management Database (CMDB), virtualization and service-oriented architecture (SOA). Even with its rapid growth, EMA has never lost sight of the client, and continues to offer personalized support and convenient access to its analysts. For more information on the firm's extensive library of IT management research, free online IT Management Solutions Center and IT consulting offerings, visit www.enterprisemanagement.com.

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NEW EMA RESEARCH SHOWS GREEN IT INITIATIVES ARE THE NORM FOR MID- TO LARGE-SIZED BUSINESSES

Wed, 08 Oct 2008 19:47:28 +0000

Survey results show Green IT solutions reduce energy costs by an average of 19 percent

BOULDER, Colo. Oct. 6, 2008 -Enterprise Management Associates (EMA), (www.enterprisemanagement.com), a leading IT management research and consulting firm, today issued findings from new research focused on the advancement of "Green IT" initiatives. The study reveals an astounding 100 percent of surveyed IT professionals indicated plans for new Green IT deployments during the coming year. The complete results of the research are discussed by EMA study leader, Steve Brasen in the new report "The True Value of Green IT: Quantifying the ROI of Energy Efficiency."

"It's telling that 100 percent of our respondents have Green IT programs in the works or planned for the future, showing companies are looking to Green IT as a means of cutting expenses while increasing the energy efficiency in their IT departments," said Brasen. "The research that we've compiled shows not only are companies interested in the social and environmental benefits of Green IT, but that actual cost and power savings make good business sense."

EMA defines Green IT solutions as products, services and practices designed to improve the efficiency of computing resources in such a way as to reduce the environmental impact of IT utilization. Some of the more popular Green IT deployments include server consolidation, automated power management and virtualization. The study confirmed that benefits achieved by implementing Green IT solutions occur in four key areas:

Sustainability and social responsibility
Cost savings and revenue generation
Regulatory compliance and power availability

Marketing

According to the EMA survey, 57 percent of all organizations have already implemented a Green IT initiative. In addition, the organizations that have implemented Green IT solutions have seen, on average, a 19 percent decrease in energy costs. The research also indicates that the larger the organization, the greater likelihood it has implemented a Green IT solution. Results showed that of smaller companies with less than 2,500 employees, 39 percent have deployed Green IT solutions. On the other hand, 73 percent of companies with 10,000 or more employees have implemented Green IT solutions. In addition, the study found that companies with the largest annual revenue use, proportionally, the least amount of weekly desktop power consumption. For example, companies with revenues of $1 billion or more had an average weekly desktop power consumption of 25.61 KwH, while companies that had revenue of less than $100 million had an average weekly desktop power consumption of 34.04 KwH. This finding indicates a clear correlation between those who have implemented a Green IT solution and those who have lower weekly desktop power consumption.

An EPA study conducted in August 2007 indicated that within the last five years, the total amount of energy utilized by all domestic U.S. data centers has doubled. Power facilities are also over-burdened - by 2011 the increased demand for power could require the addition of 10 more baseload power plants. This increase in power usage comes with a price. When factoring in real-world workstation utilization practices, Enterprise Management Associates' research reveals that the average annual power cost of a single desktop is $149.10. With a company that uses 10,000 desktops, that puts desktop power expenses at over $1 million per year.

EMA analyst Brasen says many companies need to know where to look for energy cutting options. On average, desktops are kept powered on during non-work hours 43 percent of the time. Datacenter servers also are kept fully operational, on average, 88 percent of the time. The top reasons for keeping datacenters operational during weekends and evenings include: the business production environment is utilized 24-7, the need to perform data storage back-ups and the requirement to accommodate out-of-hours maintenance windows. Introducing Green IT solutions such as server consolidation, automated power management and virtualization can provide significant cost savings and achieve quantifiable return on investment.

Brasen will share highlights from the research study during a free 1-hour Webinar on Tuesday, October 7, 2008. To register, visit: http://www.emausa.com/ema_lead.php?ls=greenitwebpr1008&bs=greenitweb1008

To purchase a copy of the report, "The True Value of Green IT: Quantifying the ROI of Energy Efficiency," contact sales@enterprisemanagement.com or +1.303.543.9500.

NOTE TO EDITORS:

For more information on this topic or to arrange an interview with Steve Brasen, please contact Guy Murrel at mailto:gmurrel@catapultpr-ir.com or 303-581-7760 x17

EMA ADDS TWO MORE IT MANAGEMENT WEBINARS FOR APRIL

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 22:02:31 +0000

Webinars on business service performance and the business case for green IT jump on board this monthBOULDER, Colo., April 9, 2008 - Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) (www.enterprisemanagement.com), a leading IT management research and consulting firm, today announced it will host two additional free Webinars focused on IT management during the month of April 2008. The new EMA™ Webinars set for April include:Tues., April 15, 2008 - 11 a.m. Eastern
The Business Case for Green IT
http://www.emausa.com/ema_lead.php?ls=tidewaywebpr0408&bs=tidewayweb0408
Increasing data center energy costs and expanding power utilization needs are having a direct impact on business profitability. Fortunately, solutions exist today for optimizing power consumption in today's data centers. The key is having a deep understanding of data center conditions to empower a more energy efficient utilization. Steve Brasen, EMA analyst, and Kosten Metreweli, Tideway vice president of product marketing, will teach the audience how to get a precise view of all server hardware in the data center. They will also help attendees understand which servers support which business applications, find decommissioned and unused resources for removal, identify opportunities for consolidation and virtualization, and utilize Green IT solutions to reduce costs and enhance profitability
Wed., April 30, 2008 - 2 p.m. Eastern
Managing Business Service Performance in Complex, Distributed Environments
http://www.emausa.com/ema_lead.php?ls=asgwebpr0408&bs=asgweb0408EMA senior analyst, Paul Burns and ASG vice president of marketing, Jimmy Augustine will discuss how IT can best manage the end-to-end performance and availability of services in support of business needs. During this webinar they will also cover performance management challenges in complex environments and how this approach enables IT agility and business performance.To see the complete line-up of EMA's April IT Management webinars go to http://www.emausa.com/web/ema_events.php.NOTE TO EDITORS:For more information, contact Guy Murrel at gmurrel@catapultpr-ir.com or 303-581-7760 x 17.About Enterprise Management Associates Founded in 1996, Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) is a leading industry analyst and consulting firm dedicated to the IT management market. The firm provides IT vendors and enterprise IT professionals with objective insight into the real-world business value of long-established and emerging technologies, ranging from security, storage and IT Service Management (ITSM) to the Configuration Management Database (CMDB), virtualization and service-oriented architecture (SOA). Even with its rapid growth, EMA has never lost sight of the client, and continues to offer personalized support and convenient access to its analysts. For more information on the firm's extensive library of IT management research, free online IT Management Solutions Center and IT consulting offerings, visit www.enterprisemanagement.com.# # #