Client Server Management HandiGuide®

Normal logic would cause a CIO to consider hunkering down and focusing on survival until business conditions improve. However, enterprises must continue to make strategic investments in Information Technology. Survival is clearly important, but by making survival your primary focus, you risk missing opportunities.

CIOs and IT organizations that position themselves for the eventual upturn will look at IT as an enabler of business efficiency and growth. In this turbulent economy, it becomes more critical to invest differently in IT. The key is to invest in areas that really improve IT efficiency and discipline. This focus will enable IT not only to survive this difficult financial period, but also to quickly shift its profile toward enabling true business growth.

Laptops can and do get lost or stolen. In studies conducted by several security firms, it has been found that over 50% of all lost or stolen laptops disappear at airport security checkpoints an departure gates. Unfortunately almost 70% of these laptops are never recovered.

The time to set the groundwork for the termination of an outsource contract is when the original contract is negotiated.  If it is not done then, the outsourcer has no reason to do more than the contract requires.

Key issues to consider are:

• Ownership of fixed assests
• Ownership and return of data
• Documentation and other intellectual property
• Staffing turnover from outsourcer to enterprise
• Support outsourcer is to provide in the turnover process

Janulaitis said, "CIOs need to act well in advance of the recovery, and the end of a recession is often recognized only months after the fact. The most progressive CIOs and enterprises will turn to recovery mode before competitors by implementing a recovery plan right now."

Janulaitis added, "...Most IT functions are operating at very high productivity levels and do not have any extra capacity to use when the recovery starts. Once the recovery occurs there were be huge demand for initiatives, projects, and staffing. CIOs who react too late will find they will not be able to meet the demands placed on them."

The CIO Infrastructure Planning Tool Kit directs CIO how to get there organization in order by helping them meet several key objectives. Updating the organization infrastructure with IT Service Management (ITSM) and Metrics in mind; updating the Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) and how it will be applied with new initiatives; defining all of the responsibilities of the IT staff and support staff members; creating current job descriptions in place; and identifying the resources that will have to be hire (employees) or retain (contractors) once the recovery starts.

The CIO Infrastructure Planning kit comes in three versions: standard, silver, and gold. The gold version contains the IT Infrastructure, Strategy, & Charter Template, the latest Janco IT Salary Survey, the IT Service Management for SOA Template, 220 IT Job Descriptions, the Internet and IT Job Descriptions HandiGuide , and a Functional Specification Template. These templates and job descriptions all come in MS WORD and are fully editable. More information can be found at http://www.e-janco.com/CIOInfrastructurePlanningToolKit.html.

The increasing flood of data can lead to a host of problems, like added time and system slowdowns due to the sheer volume of data; added cost, in new equipment and especially in management overhead, to provide for all this data accumulation; and the added business risk that comes with larger data stores.

The temptation is to accommodate added data by increasing the number of servers and disk drives. But simply adding servers is not the answer – in fact, without planning, the direct attachment of additional drives or servers can create islands of storage, resulting in greater management requirements. Such an unplanned and reactive approach to storage is inefficient, raising costs while limiting flexibility and the capacity to respond to new business opportunities.

• Employee access cards
• Logon codes
• Computers and laptops
• Routers and networking equipment
• Printers
• Cameras, digital or analog, with company-sensitive photographs
• Data - sales, customer information, employee information
• Company Smartphones/ PDAs
• VoIP phones, IP PBXs (digital version of phone exchange boxes), related servers
• VoIP or regular phone call recordings and records
• Email
• Logs of employees daily schedule and activities
• Web pages, especially those that ask for customer details and those that are backed by web scripts that query a database
• Web server computer
• Security cameras                                                
• Access points (i.e., any scanners that control room entry)

Turnaround time for copyright applications has slowed from six to 18 months and the Copyright Office is behind some 500,000 applications.

Workers say the "new" electronic system is slow and prone to crashing. Managers say the challenge has been retraining the staff to use the system. In addition, 45% of the copyright applications are still submitted in paper format, which must be painstakingly entered by hand into the "new" electronic system.

The staff is spending so much time handling the paper applications it does not have enough time to process electronic applications, which has created delays for online claims now. It now takes six months to process electronic claims when it should take one month.

Since the problem appears to be the volume of paper applications, the office plans to raise the fees for paper applications from $45 to $65 in August while keeping the fee for electronic filing at $35.

"If you're just starting your testing of Vista, with the [Windows 7] Release Candidate and the quality of that offering, I would switch over and do your testing on the [Windows 7] Release Candidate, and use that going forward," said Bill Veghte, Microsoft's senior vice president for Windows business.

That same day, other Microsoft managers said work on Windows 7 should wrap up in August, which would indicate availability on new PCs and at retail stores as early as mid-October if the company uses the same pace as Windows XP eight years ago.

Microsoft delivered Windows 7 Release Candidate (RC) to the public on May 4, but made it available to developers and IT professionals several days earlier.

In the current economic conditions the focus of the CIO's Metrics should be:

• Increase/preserve/accelerate revenue
• Decrease/avoid/delay cost
• Reduce business risk
• Enhance business capabilities