Every Company Has Its Own Secret Treasure

There are plenty of businesses where the majority of employees speak a different language and follow a different set of regulations than the people working in information technology or computer services. Because of ingrained cultural norms about the exclusive use of technical expertise, this division is at least partially artificial and actively maintained by those working in IT. Strange as it may seem, the folks in IT really want the same thing as any other businessperson: to achieve personal and company success via collaborative efforts.

However, those of us in business rely on the IT department to keep us apprised of the status of our most precious asset: our IT systems, software, and hardware. In order to achieve their daily objectives, most medium- to large-scale organizations rely on extremely powerful computers or a network of interconnected computers.

 

Your company's computer systems undoubtedly consume a substantial portion of the annual budget for upgrades and upkeep. Nevertheless, the investment is justified in order to guarantee the timely completion of the mission-critical tasks performed by those strong systems on a weekly and monthly basis. This is because these systems are the key to your competitiveness in the marketplace.

Any indication that a computer is struggling to handle the amount of work we're throwing at it may be a major headache for any company. If your company's model predicts that system resources or traffic will eventually exceed the capabilities of your computers, then any hole in your IT infrastructure poses a serious threat to your operations in the event that your systems crash under the weight of an excessive amount of work.

The fact that your IT resources may contain an unrealized treasure trove of computing power is something that not all businesspeople are aware of. If your company is expecting a significant uptick in business, your IT department will likely inform you that your systems are currently operating at 80 to 90% capacity and will need an upgrade.

A discipline that has been around for a while but is rarely used in today's corporate world is that hidden goldmine. "Capacity planning" describes that field of study. With the right resources and expertise, you can set up a capacity planning office and monitoring function to determine, with scientific precision, whether your computer systems are fully utilized or if they simply require tuning or scheduling adjustments to make the most of what you already have.

A major Midwest oil firm recently discovered that its computer systems were overcrowded and desperately needed an expensive and time-consuming upgrade, which was delaying the processing of numerous mission-critical activities. It was discovered that the work priorities of new functions were not adjusted to the system load during crucial time frames after capacity planning measurements and a system diagnosis were conducted to identify the actual problem. Talented system administrators made the necessary adjustments, and the IT infrastructure kept running at peak performance. As a result, the delays were eradicated without the need for any extra hardware or upgrades.

In order to maximize the use of computer resources and advance corporate objectives, businesses can benefit from capacity planning software tools and empower their IT teams to leverage this scientific method of computer measurement and prediction. Because of that, everyone wins. 

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