The Four Main TCO Solutions
The end goal of any TCO solution is to reduce costs as much as possible to improve the return on the initial investment. To that end, there are four main solutions promulgated by HP:
Management solutions
Simplification by Standardization
Of course, reducing the heterogeneity of your network of computers (moving away from a mixed network) is the easiest simplification remedy for end-user support. The Intel Itanium[21] processor family helps you with this aspect because the HP and Intel alliance set to design a microprocessor architecture that could become the new industry standard for enterprise servers and high-end workstations. If you can standardize on the architecture at the level of the microprocessor, you can immeasurably simplify the support systems you need to have in place to handle it. It also enhances effective systems management. If you have to manage many systems, it's a lot easier if they are more homogenous.
[21] Intel and Itanium are registered trademarks or trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries.
Systems maintenance also becomes much easier and less costly. More homogenous machinery and few servers (such as Itanium's solution) mean that you'll require fewer replacement parts. Furthermore, the ones you do need will more often than not be common parts, allowing swapping and replacement.
Standardization also reduces training expenditures in both dollars and hours, not only for the end users, but also for the IT departments that support the end users. This in turn reduces the cost of an IT department, which needs to hire fewer people, with a more core set of necessary skills.
Finally, it simplifies technology planning. When you have a single Itanium-based server that can support three operating systems, it's easier to plan how to grow and maintain your entire data processing resource, because you're only really working with one architecture from the desktop to the data center—the Itanium architecture.
Hewlett-Packard Management Solutions
HP provides a software-based management solution called Openview. Openview is a common set of management tools that provide the services listed in Figure 9-5.
Figure 9-5. Openview Services for Change Management
Most importantly, Openview allows you to have a common view across all three major operating systems. Whether you are running Linux,[22] Windows,[23] or HP-UX, you have management tools to work in each operating environment.
[22] Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvalds.
[23] Windows is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation..
The benefits of using Openview include:
Integrated management of Itanium-based, PA-RISC-based, and IA-32-based platforms.
Ease of use.
Access through a Web browser provides virtual presence and control anytime and anywhere.
Industry-leading server management tool since 1991.
Estimated over 1.5million servers managed.
Web-based event management, proactive notification, system software maintenance, and links to lights-out technology.
Best of all, Openview can be up and running in minutes on a desktop or server.
Business Protection
Itanium-based solutions protect your organization from loss of data and reduce the lost productivity associated with downtime. Aside from the lost revenue resulting from missed customer opportunities, this also keeps a major expense under control—the expense that results from tens or hundreds of highly paid information technology, industrial, or financial employees being idle at their desks when a major outage hits.
Life Cycle Management
With effective life cycle management, you can maximize the return on your IT investments. For example, your IT organization may run 30 percent of the company's network on Windows, 10 percent on Linux, and 60 percent on UNIX. Normally, any major shift in these percentages means a tremendous amount of upheaval and expenditure.
Not so with Itanium-based systems and Itanium's ability to support multiple operating environments, where you can simplify service and support management while creating seamless technology transitions. You can switch the operating environment as your needs change and redeploy systems throughout the life cycle of various machines and operating systems without replacing your server multiple times. For example, if all of your applications run on UNIX today, but in the future some new release comes out on Windows or Linux, an Itanium-based server can handle the OS change and allow you to manage the life cycle of your IT assets much more easily. Major capital investments are avoided, as you don't have to throw the hardware out—you simply repurpose it.