Friday, April 10, 2009

Windows 7: Enterprise Features Add Value for IT?

A recent article on CIO.com outlined some of the enterprise features that Microsoft product management believes Windows 7 provides. After reading the article and some of the posted comments I wanted to outline my thoughts on the features mentioned in the article and how they could have a positive impact for enterprise IT.

While I don't drink the MS kool-aid, I believe there are some advantages to the Windows 7 release for enterprises to consider.

For enterprise level endpoint OS management, MS has the most mature stack out there. If you're a doubter, look at how Red Hat and SUSE are playing catch-up on the Linux enterprise management front and Apple on the Mac front. Because its a mature stack you will likely continue to see incremental improvements as opposed to ground breaking advances. (the reality of mature products)

The incremental security functionality provided by BitLocker to Go and AppLocker, if it's not administratively burdensome, will help IT organizations to narrow the threats introduced by end user ignorance of maleware\spyware (which according to some security surveys is the #2 security incident within enterprises) and their propensity to leave intellectual property unprotected (especially when traveling - mobile device theft is the #3 most often occurring security incident). DirectAccess could help to protect the corporate network\infrastructure from the proliferating use of open WLAN access points that enterprise employees utilize when working remotely. If BranchCache improves MS's implementation of DFS (which still isn't ready for enterprise use), it could help to eliminate the capital outlays required for WAN acceleration and\or WAN bandwidth. All of these features, if they work well, could result in real capital savings for IT organizations. Desktop search - we'll see if they can beat the performance of the google search appliance.

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Example of Why Cloud Based Computing is Smart

This Google Data Center YouTube video gives a great example of the attention to detail that Google has paid to data center infrastructure (HVAC, power, etc) along with the advantages of scale they have, provides efficiency levels most organizations could only dream of.

The way Google (along Amazon, IBM, Microsoft, etc) is much more efficient and cost effective than most of us can provide\justify for our own organizations. This is an example of why cloud computing begins to make sense and maybe the realization of Carr's vision of IT just being similar to the power grid - it just works.