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HESI
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| Ever look at the amount of software on your PC, let alone in your organization? We accumulate tons of software, and tons of software problems. Eventually management curbs the spending for all this software, and you may find you are using old versions, but your colleague has the latest versions. He probably knows the IT staff better than you. Word gets around that not everyone is running the same version, so the IT department buys more software to track the software versions and licensing of every PC. It's not just the cost of tracking and managing software that frustrates business managers, it's the fact that most people use the software only a fraction of the day. Why give someone a full-blown office suite when they only use it 2 or 3 times a week? Wouldn't it be cost-effective to share the application among several users? One solution is for many users to share the same PC, but that is not always practical. The better solution is to run the software on application servers, and time-share the application. Time-sharing applications can save organizations thousands of dollars each month on man-hours alone, not to mention software licensing costs. Instead of each employee upgrading and troubleshooting applications, the IT department performs upgrades and troubleshooting on one or a few application servers. Software licenses are easier to manage on a few servers, rather than on every workstation in the organization. Some applications, such as office suites, will see heavy usage, so the number of licenses purchased will be greater than other applications that only see occasional use. It particularly makes sense to share expensive applications such as AutoCAD®. But even if we're not concerned about the cost of an application, think about the time cost involved in tracking and maintaining the application across multiple workstations. A few years ago, many technical pundits predicted a boom for Application Service Providers (ASP). That hasn't really happened, two reasons being: 1) ASPs are charging more for the service than users can stomach, and; 2) Companies are reluctant to relinquish control of their software. So if outsourcing your application sharing is not palatable, consider being your own ASP. One simple solution is setting up a pair of redundant terminal servers (see the article on Thin Computing), allowing each employee client access from their PC to the terminal server. Eventually you may find that many employees only need a terminal (or Thin Client), rather than a full-blown PC, thereby saving more money.
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Think Thin |
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