Operations Management

ITM 436 Operations Management and Operations Systems

Module 3 Case Study

Professor

13 April 2012

Abstract

The flexibility and cost alternatives provided by new technologies such as virtualization, internal and external cloud computing, and different types of cloud-based solutions such as software-as-a-service (SaaS) present IT organizations with a choice of platforms to run an application or a business service. As IT efficiency remains a top priority for IT, cloud and virtualization appear as the ultimate solution that will both resolve capital expenditure and operational expenditure issues while still providing the right service quality. The reality is that while these computing models may provide enabling technologies in the pursuit of efficiency, they only epitomize the need for a better and more reliable capacity management process that would help take full advantage of these computing models. With that said, computer capacity evaluations are still very much needed to optimize using cloud computing as a solution.

In today’s economic climate CIOs are being asked not only to do more with less but also to do it with lower headcount while delivering higher IT service levels. By wringing out more performance without adding huge IT infrastructure line items to the budget, virtualization and cloud computing seems to provide the more-bang-for-less-buck solution that IT organizations are looking for. But these new computing models come with their own issues of selecting the right platform and maintaining the service levels expected by business users. As these new computing models become more widespread, more sophisticated tools are needed. Managing capacity not only provides the ability to monitor performance and quality of service; it also supplies a template to evaluate the costs of different solutions and a guide to selecting the optimal one.

Cloud computing models offer the means to orchestrate the...