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"Recycling" Blogs - okay, technically I can't take Green cred for recycling these because I'm pretty sure I can't quantify an environmental benefit from this (byte reduction??), but I CAN tell you what this is for: You've got an idea for sustainability, a good one, and you know your shop/plant/facility needs it, but you're having a hard time getting the various other departments on board, namely IT and "the Suits". So what do you do??
That came up the other day, so since we did some blogs back in March about it, I thought I'd re-post these here - they are our Infor-branded stuff from the corporate site, so forgive the shameless-ness of it, but there's some good info in here for those of you having a hard time getting your other departments to "get" why it's important to be on board with your green initiatives.
Once you get the IT dept. on board, the next one is about trying to communicate "tech talk" to the "Suits", i.e. the CFO's, the CIO's, etc. also from March. i.e. they dont care about bits and bytes (and let's be honest, you've encountered it before - how often do they care about green until you show them $$ savings), so it's the same deal. How to take your cause & turn it into something they can understand.
But, here's to walking before we run...
Green is the new black
(Original Post date: March 26, 2008)
By: Jeremy Suratt [Infor Blog Staff]
I probably spend too much time reading trade publications. It seems like every time I pick up an IT magazine, there's a big story on green. Al Gore might not have invented the Internet, but you gotta hand it to the guy, he was ahead of the curve on this one.
One of the things I've noticed is that most of the focus is on energy consumption in the datacenter. This makes sense because, obviously, this audience spends a lot of time playing with server racks. However, I think they're really missing the boat on the bigger opportunity, which is enterprise software. With the right software, the IT department can play a strategic role in helping implement sustainable practices and energy cost savings throughout a company's entire operations.
Infor announced a new product today designed to do just that – Infor EAM Asset Sustainability Edition. This is based on our asset management software, but it takes it a step further by integrating data on the energy consumptions of the assets. You can read about it in more detail here, but essentially it allows companies to monitor the energy consumed by their assets – HVAC, boilers, manufacturing systems, and basically any other energy-hungry asset – and then use event triggers to identify assets that are using more than their fair share.
For those of you who are focused on datacenter energy consumption, here's something you might be able to relate to. We can use mesh network wireless sensors to submeter datacenter assets, like the UPS systems, diesel-fueled backup generators, or even the servers themselves. Once that's done, you can get a precise handle on where the money's going in terms of energy.
One of the coolest aspects is the software's ability to compare an existing asset's energy consumption to the cost of a newer model and then do a cost-benefit analysis. It can account for the energy savings you get from a new energy-saving server from IBM, for instance, and tell you when it makes sense to replace the older power hog.
How cool is that?
</Shameless Promotion>
On a personal note, if you are interested in monitoring your electricity usage at home, pick up a Blue Line Powercost Monitor. I use one at home to optimize my energy consumption. I haven't hooked up our EAM product to it yet…maybe next weekend. ; )
Explaining the value of SOA to "the suits"
(Original Post date: March 18, 2008)
By: Massimo Capoccia [Infor Blog Staff]
Hello – I'm Massimo Capoccia, Director of Product Management for Technology at Infor. I'll be blogging here from time to time alongside Jeremy, Bruce and my other colleagues. Ironically, in my first blog post one of the things I would like to talk about is the challenges we technical people have in communicating!
I talk to a lot of CIO's and IT managers in my role and a common topic with them is how they can explain SOA to the CEO, CFO and their other non-technical executives. What seems like an intuitive and simple concept to a techie can sound like nonsense to a top executive who comes from Finance or HR.
Explaining it to business management is necessary because, well…. they sign the checks! Seriously, it's important because SOA is fundamentally about enabling business agility. It's not just part of the IT strategy, it's about the corporate strategy and how fast you can respond to changes, threats and opportunities. Business people understand that.
So what's the best way you can start? Begin by asking them about the future of the business. How much will the business change in the future or, if there's a chance it does change, how quickly will they need to respond? Is there a new business model or essential business process in the works for the future?
For companies with dynamic businesses, the ability to quickly reconfigure the enterprise architecture is an important competitive advantage. Even more important for CFO's, an SOA helps reduce the time and costs of implementing change when compared to a more traditional and rigid IT architecture.
For instance, I visited a customer recently who inherited a large number of ERP systems through their various acquisitions over the years. The C-level executives of this company understood the pains of integrating these businesses. They recognized the enormous time and cost of bringing these businesses together. Surprisingly enough, they even referenced the costly integration challenges they were having in IT.
When I explained that SOA could help them speed-up this process, it clicked for them. They didn't care about the bits and bytes – that's up to the IT staff to validate. For the executives, it's all about improving the bottom line, and now it was clear what SOA could do for them.
Once they understand that SOA is not about technology for the sake of technology, but delivers real world business advantages, then they become its biggest fans.
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