The guide starts with the basics of troubleshooting networks, then steps into troubleshooting the physical layer, troubleshooting the network layer and troubleshooting switches.

Be sure and look around the rest of their web site as they offer a wealth of information on a lot of network related topics. You will find whitepapers, on-demand webcasts, featured topics and a helpful “Learn About” section. Sign up for their “Eye On Networks” monthly E-Newsletter for find out about new products and technologies, expert technical advice and industry updates.

The Fluke Networks Solutions Center

They have a great  “Solutions Center” for nine types of network specialties.

• Network Engineer
• Cabling Designers and Consultants
• Cable Installation Technician
• Network Technicians
• Service Provider Technicians
• Managing Service Provider Networks
• Designing and Implementing Application Services
• Industrial Ethernet
• LAN System Integrators

Fluke makes great network tools for testing, monitoring and analysis of enterprise and telecommunications networks. Their Etherscope Series II Network Assistant is an excellent example for quickly troubleshooting LAN and Wi-Fi installations. They even offer a free 5-day evaluation of the product.

When you purchase the Etherscope Network Assistant and the DTX Cable Analyzer you get 25% off. Two very useful tools for a network technicians toolkit.

The Free Frontline LAN Troubleshooting Guide

This 115 page, comprehensive guide provides frontline network troubleshooters with practical advice on how to maintain LANs and solve common layer 1 and 2 problems. This guide outlines eight key steps every technician should know to aid in successful troubleshooting. Learn how to troubleshoot physical layer problems, quickly resolve common network user complaints – “can’t connect, connection drops and network is slow” and get an in-depth overview on troubleshooting switches.

Visit the Fluke Networks web site to download the free E-Book “Frontline LAN Troubleshooting Guide”

The Gartner survey of users and prospective users of SaaS solutions indicates that while the SaaS model is more widely accepted now 58 percent of companies plan to maintain their current levels of SaaS over the next two years. Only 32 percent said they will expand while 5 percent say they will decrease levels or discontinue.

“Our research findings did not exactly provide a ringing endorsement of SaaS, in fact I would go as far as to say that satisfaction levels among SaaS users are little more than lukewarm,” said Ben Pring, research vice president at Gartner. “Although macroeconomic factors would seem to favor SaaS providers, almost two thirds of respondents said that they planned only to maintain their current levels of SaaS in the next two years.”

When asked why they decided not to use SaaS 42 percent cited the high cost of service, 38 percent said it was the difficultly with integration and 33 percent said the solution did not meet their technical requirements.

Twiggy Lo, the Gartner principle research analyst said “The underwhelming customer satisfaction” cited by the survey point to issues that still need to be addressed and resolved before SaaS customers are more satisfied.

Points cited that SaaS vendors need to improve on include:

• Truly delivering lower total cost of ownership. Not just the up-front costs, but the costs to maintain and support the deployment.
• Easier deployments that do not require expensive consultants to support and maintain. These cost eat away at the savings incurred.
• Better integration that recognizes how customers run now and will run in the future. The needs of the business are and will continue to change. SaaS solutions must be able to grown and expand with the business.
• Reaffirm that SaaS solutions are lighter, simpler, more intuitive, and more agile.

Other concerns such as security and privacy issues, ease if integration and not being able to meet the technical requirements keep many potential customers sitting on the sideline. With security issues at the top of most IT department agendas this is not surprising.

While the Gartner findings indicate customers and not totally satisfied with their SaaS solutions I think it opens the door for some SaaS vendors to make the improvements needed and corner their niche of the market. SaaS is still a relatively new model that obviously still has growing pains.

A recent survey commissioned by Microsoft and done by Harris Interactive reveals that American IT departments plan to spend only 29 percent of their budget on innovation in 2009. This compares to 41 percent in Japan and the U.K.

In the report 55 percent say the economy has changed the role of IT and 51 percent say that budget constraints are the biggest barrier to their innovation. Clearly the recession is hitting many IT departments hard.

Driving Business Efficiency

Most of those surveyed reported that they are focused on driving business efficiency rather than on simply reducing IT costs. About two-thirds plan to increase their planned investments in at least one infrastructure technology.

IT is looking to invest in areas such as virtualization (42 percent), security (36%), systems management (24%) and cloud computing (16%). All of these investments will help IT better streamline operations and delivery more business value. But is this enough?

Security is Still Number One

Security still seems to be the number one issue in managing infrastructure. Protection of customer and company data heads the list of security priorities with 73 percent saying they plan to make security investments in the next one to three years. Considering the risk to the business, this is a wise investment in any economic climate.

Considering a recent report from Symantec showed that 88 percent of the 1,000 enterprise security experts they surveyed reported cyber attacks with nearly all of them experiencing some form of loss it is clear why security is still at the top of the list.

Symantec also reports that in 2008 they created more than 1.6 million new malicious code signatures. That is a 165 percent increase over 2007. Yes it is a dangerous world out there so investments in security have become a strategic necessity.

When Does the Squeeze Hurt Too Much?

Given the ever increasing demands on IT from the business now and in the future, is it wise to cut so deeply that companies risk loosing their competitive edge?  Granted there are some companies that have no choice but to cut. However I think many are doing so as a defensive measure with the uncertainty of the economy.

To remain competitive and meet the growing needs of the business IT must continue to innovate and invest. By making smart and targeted investments in IT companies can maintain their competitive edge, secure their infrastructure against damaging losses and eventually improve their bottom line with increased efficiency and productivity.

To simply sit on the sidelines totally focused on cutting IT costs while your competitors position themselves with new capabilities and technologies companies are putting themselves at risk of further pain once the economy does turn around.

One does not have to make wholesale changes or massive investments to improve. Using targeted investments in IT along with a Kaizen approach of slow, but continuous change IT can help position their company to remain competitive in the present economic environment as well as give the company a firm foundation on which to build growth in the future.

The best way to ensure your department is producing quality software is end-to-end management of the testing lifecycle. A comprehensive test management system gives you the tools to manage every aspect of the testing lifecycle.

Zephyr v2.5 Software Test Management

Zephyr v2.5, the latest from the Zephyr family comes armed with new capabilities to meet the requirements of the global Test and Quality Assurance departments. Zephyr’s dynamic platform enables organizations to manage their test departments more efficiently while boosting productivity and visibility into the quality cycle.

Zephyr Dashboard (click to enlarge)

It provides end-to-end management of the testing lifecycle in a test department while focusing on all aspects of real time reporting and metrics via live dashboards. It’s an indispensable tool for the QA test management team.

Take a quick look at its most exceptional features:

• Only Zephyr allows customers to brand the product with their own information thereby making it a lot more professional.
• True windowing capabilities within a browser window allows the Test Leads and Testers  to juggle multiple projects, releases and tasks very easily without losing context.
• Improved productivity via improved tester efficiency in requirements creation and mapping, test case management, authoring and maintenance, rapid large scale executions and defect lifecycle tracking.
• Zephyr provides the highest level of management visibility into every aspect of the quality lifecycle.
• Multi lingual support besides English
• Enhanced personalization to improve productivity with increased UI accessibility
• Integration to API to auto-update automation execution results

Zephyr is cost effective and its optimized qualities make this cloud based test management system faster, affordable and has advanced test management capabilities compared to on-premise models. Also, customers across all industry sectors can now avail of the benefits of its flexibly deployable Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) platform.

For more information visit the Zephyr web site.

For many this means difficult challenges to try and balance the two. Organizations can make savings in their operating costs by making relatively inexpensive changes to and how their data centers are run.

Gartner has identified seven important ways to cut data center costs:

1. Rationalize the Hardware

Hardware rationalization will result in savings in several areas. First, it will help with asset and inventory management and provide a clear picture of the boxes that are being used effectively and those that are not. Second, server rationalization should lower maintenance and support charges. Third, server rationalization will lower energy costs, typically more than $400 per server, per year. Finally, hardware rationalization projects usually yield savings of 5 percent to 10 percent of the overall hardware costs, when measured post project.

2. Consolidate Data Center Sites

Most organizations still have multiple data centers for their IT operations, ranging from large complex installations to small machine rooms. Consolidating these multiple sites into a smaller number of larger sites will often result in financial savings. Such economies go beyond real estate savings and include getting rid of redundant IT assets, software, maintenance and support, and disaster recovery contracts.

While these projects often result in reducing the number of data center operational staff needed, Gartner advises users not just to get rid of people but to retrain them to fill skill gaps in other parts of the data center or wider IT organization. Site consolation can typically result in savings of between 5 percent and 15 percent of the overall data center budget.

3. Manage Energy and Facilities Costs

Energy costs are rising for most data centers because the energy consumption of the underlying hardware continues to increase as new technologies, such as blade servers, are more widely used. As floor space runs out, more hardware is crammed into the space, thus requiring higher levels of cooling.

Gartner recommends employing the following tools and techniques to manage the energy cost curve: raise the temperature of the data center to 24 degrees Celsius to reduce the level of cooling required; use outside/free air as an alternative to expensive air conditioning; use hot aisle/cold aisle configurations, blanking panels and economizers; and use server-based energy management software to run workloads in the most energy efficient way, such as taking advantage of lower energy tariffs.

4. Renegotiate Contracts

Data center managers must work with finance and procurement teams to revisit all hardware, lease, software, maintenance and support contracts. In some cases, it may be appropriate to terminate a contract because it’s too expensive, while in others, new terms and conditions may secure a lower payment schedule. Vendors are used to reviewing contracts during downturns.

5. Manage the People Costs

People costs still form the largest single cost element for most data centers, sometimes running as high as 40 percent of the overall costs. Gartner advises users to review staffing levels and the types of skills needed for the next 24 months and to make maximum use of labor arbitrage benefits by using skills in regions with cheaper labor rates, such as India, Brazil, Poland and Romania.

6. Sweat the Assets

Delaying the procurement of new assets should be considered a necessary step for all data center managers. Upgrading based purely on the book value could incur unnecessary costs earlier in the life cycle. This may result in a performance disadvantage and possibly an energy use increase but will defer the capital expense of a new acquisition. Users should negotiate on maintenance and support costs in such instances, as well as ensuring that software is still supported on servers whose working life is being extended.

7. Virtualization

Virtualization of hardware should be encouraged to improve operational efficiency, as well as to support consolidation, decommissioning and cost management programs. For most users, the net benefits will include a smaller hardware estate, which, in turn, will mean lower operating depreciation costs and less-expensive maintenance and support.

Virtualization is also a good way to control energy costs. Although virtualization requires license and project costs, users can expect to see net savings within 24 months, and the effective use of virtualization can reduce server energy consumption by as much as 82 percent and floor space by as much as 86 percent.

Additional information is available in the Gartner report “How to Cut Your Data Center Costs.” The report is available on Gartner’s website .

Verdiem, the leading provider of enterprise PC power management software solutions has released its Power Management Pack for Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager2007. Utilizing Verdiem’s Power Management Pack, IT administrators can seamlessly integrate Verdiem’s Surveyor PC Power Management Software with Configuration Manager to both reduce PC energy consumption while gaining insight and control over IT processes related to PC administration and management.

According to Gartner, Inc., in its March 2009 report, “When to Consider Commercial PC Power Management Tools,” by Terrence Cosgrove, PCs and peripherals consume more energy than any other information and communications technology group and by 2012, more than 50% of midsize and large organizations will centrally manage desktop power states, up from less than 10% today.

“Increasingly organizations are turning to PC power management solutions to reduce PC energy costs and meet the requirements of their Green IT initiatives,” said Terrence Cosgrove, Senior Research Analyst, Gartner, Inc. “As adoption of PC power management continues, organizations should consider comprehensive solutions to best meet enterprise requirements for software distribution, desktop and patch management.”

“As energy prices continue to rise and environmental concerns reside as central concerns to the global economy, PC power management is a simple, cost effective and highly quantifiable implementation of Green IT practices,” said Brett Goodwin, Vice President of Marketing, Verdiem. “With the release of the PC Power Management Pack, Verdiem extends the power of Configuration Manager with effective control of PC power states for more reliable patch management and software distribution while enabling significant reductions in PC energy costs.”

“With the System Center suite, customers have a powerful set of integrated management capabilities enabling them to have deep insight into their operations and helping them to drive down costs and improve operational efficiency across their entire IT infrastructure,” said Christian von Burkleo, Director, Operations and Business Development, Management and Services Division, Microsoft. “The integration of Verdiem’s SURVEYOR with System Center Configuration Manager delivers extended PC administration and power management capabilities, providing customers with the opportunity to further extend the System Center benefits within their operations.”

Verdiem’s Power Management Pack provides seamless integration for Microsoft Configuration Manager with Verdiem’s Surveyor, providing the following key benefits:

• Automatically wake machines with pending updates: This includes an option to “force policy refresh” upon wake as well.
• Real-time power control: Manually wakeup/shutdown/restart individual machines or collections from the ConfigMgr console.
• Throttle PC wakeup for large patch updates: Spread out the PC wakeup process to assure maximum energy savings and reliability of network maintenance and updates.
• “Set It and Forget It” integration with Configuration Manager: No additional management burden, since SURVEYOR activity is logged as Configuration Manager status messages.

About Verdiem Surveyor

SURVEYOR is the industry’s most comprehensive PC energy management solution, enabling businesses to reduce PC energy consumption and costs by up to 60 percent. SURVEYOR intelligently places PCs and monitors into lower power states when idle and enables IT departments to centrally control power states of large-scale PC networks with an elegant set of policy and usage-based tools.

About Verdiem

Verdiem is an enterprise software company focused on PC Power Management & Green IT. Verdiem’s flagship SURVEYOR software enables customers to centrally control and reduce the energy used by PCs on their network by up to 60 percent without impacting end users or IT. Over 300 corporations, government agencies, and universities have deployed SURVEYOR to have a positive impact on the environment—reducing PC energy waste and carbon footprint. Based in Seattle, Washington, Verdiem is a leader in Green IT solutions and backed by Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byer

To meet the growing need for information technology (IT) skills that span the full spectrum of data center technologies, Cisco introduced two new IT career certifications.  Cisco also announced an expansion of the Unified Computing System Family with the new C-Series of Rack-Mount Servers designed to help accelerate the adoption of unified computing and data center virtualization solutions.

Key Facts/Highlights:

Cisco announces new channel programs for its expanding data center partner channel

• To motivate channel partners to invest in building a unified data center practice, Cisco has expanded its existing Value Incentive Program (VIP) offering for all of Cisco’s data center technologies, including unified computing, storage networking, and WAN optimization, as well as for its existing offering for data center switching. VIP is Cisco’s flagship profitability program that rewards partners for investing in architecture practices around collaboration, data center virtualization and borderless networks.
• Cisco also announced the new Data Center Channel Solutions Program, designed to help enable and accelerate the sale of tested, validated reference IT solution designs that incorporate products from industry-leading data center vendors, including EMC, Microsoft, NetApp, Red Hat, and VMware.
• Cisco today announced it is opening the Unified Computing opportunity to a broader range of its channel partner community. Cisco is announcing an Authorized Partner Program (APP) to support the new Unified Computing C-Series Rack-Mount Servers.  All Cisco DCNI Specialized Partners will be able to sell the new rack-mount servers after completing online training  and exam from Cisco.
• The Cisco Advanced Data Center Network Infrastructure Specialization (DCNI) is the fastest-ramping specialization in Cisco’s history.   Despite the economic downturn, partners have rapidly invested in the specialization since its launch a year ago because of its strategic significance to their business.

Transforming the Data Center with Unified Fabric

Expansion of the Unified Computing System Family to include the C-Series Rack-Mount Servers

“Cisco’s comprehensive Unified Computing System architecture allows us to easily offer new form factors that respond quickly to our customers’ needs. With the UCS C-Series Rack-Mount Servers, we are opening the Unified Computing opportunity to a broader range of our channel partner community while providing our customers a migration path to the unified computing approach of the future.” said Prem Jain, senior vice president, Server and Access Virtualization

• Cisco announced a product line extension to the Cisco Unified Computing System (UCS) with the addition of a new form factor, the C-Series Rack-Mount Servers.
• The Cisco UCS C-Series Rack-Mount Servers extend the standards-based innovation, reduced total cost and increased business agility of the Unified Computing System to customers who require rack-mount servers; together with the UCS blade servers, Cisco’s Unified Computing System addresses the broad spectrum compute requirements for next-generation data centers.

The UCS C-Series Rack-Mount Servers will offer several innovations including:

• Access to unified fabric through a low-latency lossless 10-gigabits-per-second Ethernet foundation that enables a “wire-once” deployment model.
• Cisco patented memory extension technology that yields more than 2.5 times the addressable memory of currently available two-socket rack-mount platforms; this provides the ability to support significantly more virtual machines per server and to deliver the scalability to run large memory applications.
• Cisco virtualized adapter that provides adapter consolidation and virtualization optimization capabilities by enabling each virtualized adapter to define up to 128 Ethernet or Fibre Channel connections.
• Based on Intel Xeon 5500 series processors, Cisco UCS C-Series Rack-Mount Servers will adapt processor performance to application demands and intelligently scale energy use based on utilization.
• The Cisco C-Series Rack-Mount Servers are scheduled to be available in the fourth quarter of calendar year 2009.

Cisco Announces New IT Career Certifications in Data Center Management:

A study conducted by Forrester Consulting found that 65 percent of IT managers surveyed indicated that within the next five years, technical certification would be somewhat or absolutely critical in determining whether an individual should be assigned responsibilities in a network operations control, a central data center role.

• Cisco today announced two new IT individual certifications targeted at customers and channel partners with job roles such as data center architect, data center builder, and data center technical operations professional.
• The new individual certifications, Cisco Data Center Unified Computing Design Specialist and the Cisco Data Center Unified Computing Support Specialist, build on foundational skills including storage networking, data center networking infrastructure, data center application services and virtualization.  These certifications validate design and support expertise across multiple data center technologies that make up the unified computing architecture.
• Cisco is committed to the development of skilled IT professionals as part of its Learning@Cisco program.  Information about courseware and exams is scheduled to be available from Learning@Cisco in the third quarter of calendar year 2009 at www.ciscolearningnetwork.com.

Gartner acknowledged that many countries are experiencing ever-increasing levels of unemployment, rising home mortgage payment delinquencies and business bankruptcies while also seeing reductions in consumer confidence, business earnings and overall economic performance. However, in recent months, analysts have observed that many organizations are reporting that their staff are working at near- or full-capacity levels.

This demand level will almost certainly increase when businesses start detecting a resurgence in demand from customers, a more stabilized economic climate and a far-healthier lending environment from which to access credit.

“As these improvements translate into new IT project demands to help businesses identify new revenue and profit opportunities, companies will need a way to manage the already high project load with a new wave of projects,” said Ken McGee, vice president and Gartner fellow.

“However, waiting until that new demand arrives will be far too late to appropriately meet it, and we are recommending that companies start preparing for business growth now with a view to having these plans completed as soon as possible.”

“We’re not trying to predict when the end of the recession will take place, nor are we trying to speculate when credit market stability will occur, or when we will see consistent investment appreciation return to the world’s equity markets,” said Mark Raskino, vice president and Gartner fellow. “What we are saying is that due to the lag in time between the point at which the economy begins to grow again, and when it’s officially declared to be growing again, companies simply can’t wait for an ‘official’ declaration before they begin planning for better times.”

While Gartner’s recommendations call for the resolution of key preliminary cost optimization and governance-related issues before the era of business growth returns, Gartner said that it is not necessarily advocating that organizations automatically revert to the same management techniques they were using in the years leading up to the recession.

Gartner said that it plans to present an array of new cost-optimization-related actions that its clients should take during future technology selection, vendor selection, procurement, contract negotiation, asset management, and other post-recession efforts as they enter the next chapter of supporting business growth.

“Since no one knows when business growth will resume, organizations may need to file away their completed return-to-business plans for up to a year or more. The plan in waiting should be reviewed on a monthly basis and revised according to changes in the business climate,” Mr. McGee said. “Having a completed plan will enable the near-immediate allocation of funding and staffing for IT projects, thus avoiding the need to take weeks to devise a plan after senior executives mandate the need to support business growth initiatives.”

Mr. McGee’s Comments

Mr. Raskino’s Comments

“We have developed a more comprehensive, flexible, scalable BlackBerry Technical Support Services program that can help small-to-mid-sized businesses and large enterprises keep pace with their evolving mobility needs,” said Alan Panezic, vice president, platform product management at RIM. “The new program includes new levels of support and a range of add-on services, allowing customers to select the right mix of technical support resources to meet the specific needs of their organization.”

The enhanced program features:

• New levels of support – designed to provide the right level of service at the right price for both small-medium businesses and large enterprises. Three support levels are available for each BlackBerry Technical Support Services program, including Basic, Enhanced and Advantage Support for small-medium businesses; and Standard, Premium and Elite Support for enterprise customers.
• Comprehensive programs – extending beyond standard customer support to include access to support professionals for planning, management and preventative maintenance, as well as web-based training, instructor-led webinars, certification, online newsletter, and access to the BlackBerry® Expert Support Center for informational resources, self-service tools, and account monitoring and management.
• Direct access to advanced support professionals – available with select service levels or purchased as add-on services, with options for direct access to Support Service Specialists, Direct to Level Two Support Resources, designated Support Account Managers, the Direct Advanced Response Team (DART) or full-time, on-site technical assistance.
• Preventative maintenance services – including Health Check Services and Change Management Planning Services, as well as optional Performance and Load Testing Tools to help maximize uptime.
  Application development support – included with select service levels or as an add-on service, providing assistance with custom application development, application coding and the use of application development tools.
• Add-on support options* – offering customers who selected lower-tier support service levels the option to purchase advanced support services incrementally, including Direct to Level Two Support Resources, Health Check Services, Change Management Planning Services, Tech-to-Site Assistance, and Application Development Support.
• Access to customer support 24 hours per day, 7 days per week – available with all service levels.

BlackBerry Technical Support Services programs are available on an annual subscription basis, with the option to upgrade to the next support level at any time as customer needs evolve. For more information about BlackBerry Technical Support Services, visit www.blackberry.com/btss.

The data points to a shift from implementing “green” technologies primarily for cost reduction purposes, to a more balanced awareness of also improving the organization’s environmental standing.

Ninety-seven percent of respondents state they are at least discussing a green IT strategy, while 45 percent have already implemented green IT initiatives. IT decision makers are increasingly justifying green IT solutions by more than cost and IT efficiency benefits.

Respondents cited key drivers as reducing electricity consumption (90 percent), reducing cooling costs (87 percent), and corporate pressure to be “green” (86 percent). Furthermore, 83 percent of respondents are now responsible or cross-charged for the electricity consumed in the data center—bringing visibility and accountability to bear on the ultimate consumer of these resources.

“Over the past 12 months, IT has emerged as a new driving force in implementing green initiatives – not only for energy savings benefits, but also as a result of widespread desire to implement environmentally responsible practices,” said Jose Iglesias, vice president of Global Solutions at Symantec Corporation.

“The pendulum has swung both ways and IT is now taking a balanced approach that is more integral to an organization’s ‘green’ strategy, proven by the fact that the vast majority of respondents are now responsible for the energy costs of their data center.”

Budgets, Spending on ‘Green’ Solutions Increase

IT executives report a significant increase in green IT budgets. Seventy-three percent expect an increase in green IT budgets over the next 12 months, while 19 percent expect increases of more than 10 percent. The typical respondent reported spending $21 to 27 million on data center electricity.

At the same time, IT is willing to pay a premium for energy efficient products. Two-thirds of respondents said they would pay at least 10 percent more, while 41 percent are willing to pay at least 20 percent more. Additionally, 89 percent of respondents said IT product efficiency is either important or very important.

IT Central to Enterprise Green Efforts

As organizations continue to adopt programs and practices to drive environmental responsibility throughout the enterprise, IT is increasingly important to the broader enterprise “green” efforts. Perhaps the strongest indicator, 83 percent of IT departments report they are now responsible or cross-charged for electricity, providing a strong motivator for IT to reduce energy costs.

Furthermore, 89 percent think IT should play a very or extremely significant role in ‘green’ efforts and 82 percent have a corporate green advocate, with more than one-fifth focusing exclusively on IT initiatives.

Core Green IT Initiatives

IT professionals are regularly deploying several key initiatives for green IT purposes. Replacing old equipment was the most popular strategy, with 95 percent reporting new energy efficient equipment as part of their strategy, followed by monitoring power consumption (94 percent), server virtualization (94 percent), and server consolidation (93 percent). Additionally, more than half (57 percent) of respondents see software-as-a-service offerings as “green” solutions.

About Symantec’s Green IT Report

Symantec’s Green IT Report is the result of research conducted in March 2009 by Applied Research, which surveyed enterprise IT executives, including vice presidents, directors, and C-level IT executives. The report was designed to gauge respondents’ interest in and plans for deploying strategies and solutions to help reduce e-waste associated with computer hardware, software, facilities, and planning, and ultimately reduce the organization’s footprint. The study included 1,052 respondents in the United States, Canada, France, Italy, the U.K., Brazil, Mexico, Australia, India, Japan, Singapore, Malaysia, South Korea, New Zealand, and China.

Symantec helps IT decision makers to reduce energy consumption and increase space utilization by providing solutions that increase desktop, server, and storage efficiencies. Symantec software enables IT organizations to undertake server and storage consolidation and utilization initiatives while providing a software infrastructure that enables IT managers to select the server and hardware of their choice.

By increasing storage utilization and by helping customers with storage-tiering to reduce the need for power-hungry premium storage hardware, this software helps organizations reduce power consumption and floor space.

Additionally, data deduplication technology can reduce the disk-based requirements for backup, while other software helps to manage server consolidation and storage resources. Power management software provided by Symantec enables IT professionals to better control desktops’ energy usage by enabling power-down settings. Finally, Symantec offers services to help companies optimize and streamline their data center through data center design consulting services.

Relevant Links

To read additional key findings or obtain information on recent Symantec research or Symantec’s green IT initiative and green solutions, visit the following resources:

• Symantec 2009 Green IT Report
• Symantec 2009 Green IT Report online press kit
• Symantec’s green IT initiative and solutions
• Symantec’s Green Data Center Guide whitepaper
• Symantec’s second annual State of the Data Center report
• Podcasts on the State of the Data Center
• Symantec’s 2007 Green Data Center report