PerfectDisk Blog from Raxco.com| Defrag Software

IT Service Management -- get proactive

IT Service Management (ITSM) deals with the customer's perspective to business problems, rather than the technology itself. Just as disciplines like Total Quality Management (TQM) and Six Sigma are focused on customer outcomes and overall processes, ITSM is a discipline for managing IT systems.

As Foster-Melliar, our leading PerfectDisk reseller in South Africa, points out in a new paper, while a process approach is vital in ITSM, software components are also essential, especially when it comes to managing and controlling IT operations. In an ITSM environment, defragmenting with PerfectDisk can play an important role as the organization moves from a reactive to proactive mode. From automated operations via AutoPilot Scheduling and the advanced and exclusive alerting capabilities of the PerfectDisk Command Center, PerfectDisk improves the overall system and drive health of the organization. With the Command Center's tailorable alert and warning system, PerfectDisk can be an integral part of a proactive ITSM environment.

Foster-Melliar has built a fantastic consulting and training organization in South Africa, and ITSM (and PerfectDisk) is a big part of what they do. And this strategy has led to South Africa being yet another country where PerfectDisk is experiencing phenomenal growth.

There's a lot more going on in South Africa than just the beautiful scenery.

                   

Cubs out, Red Sox in -- Exchange administrator watching it all (and "working")

Our Exchange administrator is a big baseball fan. And as the Major League Baseball playoffs kicked off last week and moved into full throttle last weekend, he was able to avoid a potential devastating (to him) conflict. It was time for for Raxco's regular compaction and defragmentation of our Exchange data stores, where we recapture several GB of valuable (and until we do this, wasted) space on our Exchange server. The daily online Exchange defrag doesn't do it - it creates a bunch of white space. To really recapture space, you need to do an offline compaction and defragmentation of Exchange.

Now, there are debates as to whether it's really worth it. For example, you can read Microsoft MVP Brien Posey's article on the possible risks and potential benefits of doing an offline Exchange defrag. Then decide for yourself. I can tell you this. At Raxco, we do it like clockwork every few months and recover lots of space every time. We've never had a problem. Of course, just in case, we have a backup. But for us, it's very much worth it, and our Exchange administrator is always happy with the regained space.

Every Friday is our busiest day for PerfectDisk for Exchange downloads, presumably as Exchange administrators around the world pick it up so they can do their Exchange defrags over the weekend. If you do defragment your Exchange data stores, it's a huge time saver. Which is why our administrator runs it while sitting home watching baseball, instead of heading into the office.

Whatever your weekend interest, sporting or otherwise, you can enjoy it more and worry less with PerfectDisk for Exchange. In Red Sox Nation, or any other nation around the world.

         

GUI-less installation for secured environments

Some of our large enterprise customers have a secured, "locked down" environment where users are kept on a short leash. With PerfectDisk, these users are able to install PerfectDisk across the organization without the GUI present on the users' machines. In these scenarios, the enterprise receives the benefits of automated, single-pass defragmentation and free space consolidation, without any GUI exposure to the user community. In these environments, only administrators can schedule or initiate defragmentation. No other enterprise defragmenter offers this capability.

Not for everyone, but very powerful and important for some.

             

Data center automation is coming; automated defragmentation is here

IT automation of the data center is all over the news these days, including in this week's Information Week cover story. HP buying Opsware. BMC acquiring RealOps. IBM is also in the automation game. CIOs and IT managers, as well as hardware and software vendors, have been talking about automating the data center for years, but it hasn't really taken hold in a big way. But those that have embraced it have benefitted greatly. Information Week points out that Visa, with its $1 trillion in annual transactions, has reduced its average time to detect and respond to some events from 20 minutes to one minute. At Visa, it's become a way of business. Automation in the data center brings benefits such as fewer mistakes, less downtime, smaller staff, and the ability to focus on only the bigger issues and problems.

                  

Of course, defragmentation is rarely, if ever, at the top of automation projects. But when enterprises implement defragmentation projects, automation and simplicity is a key component. Which is why we have made automation a key part of PerfectDisk. The flexible automation capabilities is one reason why the United States' largest regulator for all securities firms uses PerfectDisk. Another is the wide range of warnings and alerts available in the Command Center. When we designed the Command Center, we talked with some of the largest companies in the world and they told us that the ability to provide alerts is important - and a key part of automation and reducing the amount resources expended.

As data centers get automated, we'll be there with them.

                  

Defrag -- "simple"; the work of the Alzheimer's Association -- hard -- and very important

Sometimes the IT world, while full of challenges and excitement in its own way, seems a long way away from issues and people that are so important. Certainly, there is technology that is directly related to life-altering issues and events. When you can watch a video of a friend or family member half-way around the world, that's cool, fun and exciting. But when a team of medical students can watch an expert physician save a life in an operation - telemedicine - that is really exciting - and important. There are thousands of examples of leading-edge technologies saving lives or providing other huge life-altering advancements to important causes in our world today.

And then there's defragmentation and PerfectDisk. Generally kinda boring in the scheme of things. We know well the benefits it provides - faster systems, faster backups for large enterprises, fewer help desk calls - all so people can either do their jobs better, play their games faster, or do whatever fun they do on their computers more easily and with a better experience. But even to us, it's often hard to equate defragging to life-altering issues. But we know there are.

Recently, the Alzheimer's Association selected PerfectDisk and PerfectDisk for Exchange for its defragging and storage management needs. It's now using PerfectDisk for Exchange to manage over 2,500 mailboxes, and using PerfectDisk on 100 servers and hundreds of workstations. The tools have allowed the Alzheimer's Association to automate much of its Exchange maintenance and greatly enhance productivity of its IT staff and employees.

Paul Inboriboon is the Director of Technical Infrastructure for the Alzheimer's Association, and he has a limited (in terms of numbers) IT staff. Paul says that with increased automated capabilities provided by these tools, his staff "can now better focus on other projects to help fulfill our Association's mission." The staff is also more productive, and that also benefits the entire organization.

I have seen all too close the results of this terrible disease, so this PerfectDisk success story really hits home for me. I know there are many, many people around the world doing a lot more important work than the seemingly boring work of defragmentation. So it is nice to be able to see a story like this, and think that in a very small way, PerfectDisk is helping a much bigger cause. I don't want to overstate it - I know the Alzheimer's Association would carry on and still do its important work without defragmenting its drives and Exchange data stores. We're just glad PerfectDisk can help even a very little bit. I want the association to fulfill its mission.

                                                      
   

Fill your cooler, grab your laptop, defrag and GO!

Warning -- summertime divergence. There might have been a time when I thought this was a good idea!  And obviously, for many it is now, as these things are selling. A cooler and wheels all in one -- a scooter -- no, a "Cruzin Cooler" that makes for a handy gadget for the summertime. Yes, it is a cooler that you can ride, as well as fill with your favorite beverage. Or "coolagons" that you can pull just like that little red wagon you used to have. You can check them out here.

             

The Cruzin Cooler  is protected under patent law. Just as PerfectDisk's SMARTPlacement optimization technology is -- (5,398,152). 

By the way, today we launch our free Optimize Now newsletter for the enterprise IT professional. It focuses on performance, productivity and storage issues. We've had a huge signup since we announced it in late June. To register and receive Optimize Now, click here.

            

Announcing Optimize Now -- a new newsletter for enterprise IT professionals

Around mid-July, Raxco Software will launch a new newsletter for enterprise users -- Optimize Now. This newsletter will focus on performance, productivity and storage management issues for those of you in an enterprise environment.

The goal is to bring you informative and topical information to help you in your jobs - by either providing specific how-to information or a perspective on a particular topic or issue. Information will be provided in a variety of media, including articles, podcasts and more.

So if this sounds like it's for you, I encourage you to sign up below. If not, you can continue to look here for PerfectDisk, Raxco Software and industry news and opinions. 

  Click here to sign up.

Save your job, be a hero -- defrag now!

Partners in IT, a United-Kingdom-based service management company, recently reported, after a study, that business managers in the UK lose 31 working days - more than 10 percent of the year - putting out fires that result from bad management of IT systems. I learned of this from an article in eWeek Careers.

Almost 75 percent of non-IT business managers surveyed said they spent, on average, 12 percent of their time each week dealing with problems caused by their IT systems. Eighty percent said that IT system downtime was a productivity issue, and 90 percent of survey respondents in large companies said downtime was a big issue.

Paul Cash, managing director of Partners in IT, said "globalization of successful businesses coupled with more flexible and mobile work forces have driven innovation within even the largest of companies. Technology has played its part in helping to drive this innovation but, just as any other resource in an organization, technology needs to be maintained and managed - it needs time devoted to it to ensure that the most benefit is gained."

Do fragmentation problems cause all the 31 lost working days? Surely not. But I would bet that a great deal of down time, help desk calls, general frustration and more is the result of fragmentation problems. That's why, despite its lack of visibility in the press, many forward-thinking companies and companies that pay great attention to optimal performance and user productivity, deploy enterprise defragmentation software. They know that without it, there can be decreased end-user productivity, wasted system admin and help desk resources, increased backup times, hanging applications, and in extreme cases, even worse.

I agree with most of what Cash says, although I would say that with a product like PerfectDisk, you can gain a lot with very minimal time devoted.

If you're an IT professional drowning in fire-fighting, free up some of your time with enterprise deframentation. Or be the forward-thinking person and help reduce fire-fighting with defragmentation so you and your organization can spend more time on strategic initiatives.

It's a good move for your company -- and for you.

                                          

Tidbits - Part 2

A couple more items that caught my eye this week:

• The number of floor traders on the NYSE has dropped by a quarter in the last year. The drop is being driven by powerhouse brokerage firms such as Merrill Lynch and Credit Suisse, as they look to shave milliseconds off transactions that can result in an extra $100 million a year to a brokerage firm - wow! Floor traders are moving out, being replaced by human traders that are working on these super fast systems. By the way, many of these large brokerage firms also use PerfectDisk for their defragmentation needs. Business At Light Speed is Information Week's cover story this week.
• No surprise here, but Information Week has a new survey out that says 30% of businesses have no plans to upgrade to Vista - not ever. We'll wait for Microsoft's response to this latest shot. What Microsoft really needs is for some day for some survey with real street cred to come out with better news. Haven't seen it yet. Of course, some day XP support will go away, and then maybe there will be an attitude change.

Until next week...

Tidbits - Part 1

A few items that have caught my attention over the last few days:

• Computerworld had an interesting article on how virtualization is cutting storage costs for some large firms. As storage demands continue to grow seemingly unabated and the technology matures, real companies are realizing real technology and management cost savings. For example, Banc of America Securities has cut its storage administration costs by 95%. So, I'd say despite the hype that can be bothersome to people, virtualization is real and here to stay.
• As reported by eWeek and just about everyone else, Microsoft has released its first public beta of Longhorn and is on track to release to manufacturing late this year. Time will tell whether current dates hold up, but thousands of testers are working with the Beta product now. Like Vista, at some point, its day will come.

And finally, as a reminder - Raxco Software will be making an exciting announcement on May 8th.

There are a couple more -- I'll share those later.