BURBANK, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--It sounds simple. Using IT resources to get work done is good business. Using more than you need for the same result is waste. Today’s business environment has mandated that IT managers draw a clear line between the cost of doing business and wasteful expenditures. But it’s never as easy as it looks. IT budget lists are growing: Legacy hardware upgrades, software updates, network reconfigurations, personnel issues, overtime man-hours, adequate data storage, system performance -- where do “best practices” and inefficient wasteful procedure meet?
Corporations have always known that cutting overhead leads to more profit. But today’s post-recession companies have come to realize that achieving greater profitability and competitiveness depends heavily upon embracing efficiency as a way of understanding the processes, purposes and points of control in doing business.
This has never been more apparent than with the IT Manager who must ensure the ever-expanding IT stack of applications is on stable footing, generating productivity and that the systemic problems and hands-on management that absorb personnel is kept to a minimum.
Arguably the most basic area of inefficiency in the entire IT site is file fragmentation. A file is written to the hard drive in many pieces that are scattered randomly around the disk. Without defrag, there is a steadily increasing degeneration of the system’s ability to write and read data quickly. I/O speed is a major control point for workstation and server performance and its impact on an entire data center must not be underestimated. If it takes, say, 1000 I/Os to read a file and 900 I/Os are due to having to read the file in pieces, that’s 90% wasted resources right at the bedrock of the network. Besides losing productivity, excessive disk wear and cooling needs shorten disk life and increase energy costs. Slow workstations and servers bring about system hangs, time outs and errors that absorb system admin hours. It’s all waste.
Investigating the effectiveness of defrag software, Windows IT Pro Magazine recently published an article that surveyed customers of the leading performance and reliability technology provider, Diskeeper Corporation and its flagship product, Diskeeper® data performance software. They found that users get an average of three additional years of high productivity from their systems with some reporting additional longevity of over five years. Reported I/O reduction due to defrag ranged from 50% to over 75% for more than half of the customers surveyed. But Diskeeper goes beyond simple defrag. It prevents up to 85% of fragmentation before it can happen, making effective I/Os faster while minimizing disk wear. Diskeeper is completely automatic and able to function in real-time with zero resource conflicts. It requires no management.
This kind of efficiency, taken into the heart of a computer site, creates the kind of direct and reliable operation that cuts operating costs without sacrificing production. Clearly waste reduction begins at this basic level and any attempt to begin farther up the technology stack negates what efficiency is all about.