End-of-the-year holiday shopping for IT

The end of the fiscal year us upon most of us - and for some that means spending any remaining dollars on some quick-hit (read: fast ROI) initiatives.

So in the spirit of the holidays, here are some interesting links:

1. Bridget Botelho at SearchDataCenter writes "Servers get no rest during the holidays" -- that most enterprises (and especially small/medium businesses) leave all servers on during the holidays, even if the company is closed. It's a waste of power/money, even though many solutions abound. (And did you even think about the security risk of keeping your IT on but essentially unsupervised?)

2. And, for those of you with money left in your budget, Rick Vanover from TechRepublic chimed-in to suggest 10 good ways to use your remaining IT budget before the end of the year - I particularly like the following:

• #3: Purchase power management: Many new power management devices are available now that can be a good replacement for your limited power distribution units (PDUs). These PDUs can add management layers to individual power sockets for power consumption, naming, grouping, and power control. The new devices can also add more ports should you need to power more computer systems in your racks.
  

I would only add that in addition to switched PDUs, you should consider purchasing policy-based software to control them.

3. And, Rick went on to also cite an earlier blog of his, 10 things you should know about advance power management - another topic near-and-dear to my heart, especially:

• #7: Turn off retired or unused devices: This will reduce your power consumption — and possibly accelerate your removal of the device so as not to overprovision power unnecessarily...
  

The net-net is the following: If you need a quick-hit, easy-to-implement (and money-saving) and pragmatic solution, pursue intelligent operation of your IT - no need for a technology refresh, no need to re-architect anything.