There has been a paradigm shift in IT purchasing decisions that has slipped under the radar of many organizations.
Traditionally, strategic decision making has been isolated within the Database, Server, Storage, and Network administration teams. Rightfully so, strategic decisions should be made by those with the required expertise in the technology at hand. Where organizations are starting to run into trouble is in the “areas of overlap”.
Consider storage as one example.
Your storage administrators likely have a “go-to” vendor – typically EMC or NetApp. They are well trained in their technology of choice and can manage the storage infrastructure to ensure excellent performance and uptime – not to mention the trust they have in the equipment provided by the current vendor. Obviously, when new storage is required, or a hardware refresh occurs, they will look at the latest-and-greatest from their preferred vendor to see what meets the needs of your organization over the next few years and then simply look for the best deal. Herein lies the problem…
Recently, your Oracle DBA’s have learned about the tremendous advantages that Oracle ZFS Storage can provide to the database infrastructure. With Hybrid Columnar Compression, your database storage needs can be dramatically reduced. This has tremendous impact on “mean-time-to-recover” – the smaller the database… the smaller the backup… the faster the restore from failure. In addition, with Oracle specific I/O processing logic and hardware features built into the ZFS appliance, significant performance gains can also be achieved when your Oracle database resides on ZFS rather than EMC or NetApp.
BAM!
Bam… you’re organization has just been hit with a “silo problem”. Your DBA’s are not storage experts and your Storage Administrators are not database experts. If these two groups work well together, they may well advise IT executive management that ZFS Storage is a strategically sound investment. If they don’t, your organization may be missing out on achieving improved Oracle storage management, database performance gains, and enhanced database recovery advantages.
What’s a CIO To Do?
Clearly, the management structure that sits atop the individual silo’s is critical. Being well informed of the options available and the changes that need to be incorporated into the decision making process will help ensure that you are providing your organization with the best IT services possible.
The Right Technology Reseller can Help
A technology reseller who understands the demands of applications, the software solutions that support these demands, and new hardware features that optimize the underlying software infrastructure can help guide you during the decision making process.
IT is a world where change is constant. Changes in technology naturally result in changes in business and procurement processes as well.
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