Rearchitecting IT: Simplify. Simplify

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Rearchitecting IT: Simplify. Simplify

6/26/2006

By Joseph C. Panettieri

Baylor University (TX), for instance, uses the LANDesk Management Suite to take inventory of all PC and Macintosh systems, according to Charlotte Lenox, IT business manager at the school. LANDesk allows the university to produce detailed software inventory reports for improved budgeting, and also cuts software installation costs because applications and utilities can be deployed automatically over the network.

Yet, some universities have found innovative ways to further reduce licensing costs. The University of Alaska, for instance, leverages software asset management (SAM) solutions from Sassafras Software. Sassafras’s flagship product, known as KeyServer, enforces software licenses and allows users to share licenses across approved university systems. The net result, in many cases, is lower per-user licensing costs, notes University of Alaska CIO Smith.

6 Secrets to Success

Audit your software infrastructure and eliminate unneeded licenses, to reduce overall costs.
Evaluate your current server applications and consolidate onto three or fewer major suppliers, in order to negotiate volume license discounts.
Centralize and automate help desk functions, such as password resets, in order to reduce personnel support costs.
Address convergence and storage challenges by planning adequately for voice over IP, video on demand, and other bulky applications.
Embrace virtualization software to improve server utilization, consolidate applications onto fewer servers, and free up room in your data center.
Adopt holistic security, making secure application design and deployment a top priority—rather than an afterthought— on every IT project.

Step 2: Evaluate Your Current Applications

As the software market continues to consolidate, so too should a university’s application platforms. In particular, keep close tabs on Oracle, which has acquired PeopleSoft and Siebel Systems in a bid to beat back foreign competition from Germany’s SAP AG.

Oracle has spent recent months evangelizing Fusion Middleware, a set of software products that improve information sharing between Oracle’s databases and myriad applications. Still, “Fusion Middleware is more than marketing hype,” says Mike Elgan, a technology consultant (and former editor of Windows magazine) who frequently moderates CIO events across the globe. “Universities should make sure their application architects are keeping close tabs on Fusion Middleware. If you understand where Oracle is heading, you’ll be ahead of the game as you strive to link your Oracle databases to online tuition payment systems, online giving, and other automated financial systems.”

Just ask administrators at California Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo. There, CIO Tim Kearns relies on Oracle Collaboration Suite (an e-mail, scheduling, and content management system), the Oracle database, and People- Soft applications. With a nod to a serviceoriented architecture-based strategy, Cal Poly is evaluating how to best integrate its Blackboard learning management system with Oracle’s collaboration tools. Moreover, the university is planning to use Oracle business- analysis tools to provide improved decision-support capability to end users.

Now is a prime time to weigh future application purchases. Locked in heated competition, Oracle and SAP are offering deep discounts to customers who make the leap from rival platforms to their respective offerings. In some cases, Oracle and SAP are waving up-front licensing costs, though annual maintenance costs can still run a large organization (such as a university) $100,000 or more, notes analysts at Gartner, the Stamford, CTbased market research firm.