Why Capacity Management’s still exciting to me…

Why Capacity Management’s still exciting to me…

Every once in a while I run into someone who tells me that Capacity Management isn’t that important anymore – that hardware is cheap and it’s cheaper to buy kit than it is to properly manage an environment.

You know, I almost believe this until I hear the story about the latest performance disaster or the major outage that the company had…and that they “fixed” it by throwing hardware at it.

Capacity Management is so much more than making sure companies aren’t drastically overspending on kit and other resources, such as software licenses and floor space.  It’s about having a firm handle on headroom and knowing that upcoming business demand will be met without merely crossing fingers and saying prayers.

Almost 20 years ago when I got my start in this area, I felt that IT and the business enjoyed not having to deal with each other.   You know, we probably did enjoy that.  But today, that’s just not possible.  

My distaste for process methodology and what I saw as soft skills (and not hard core techie skills) gave way as I grew older and got a better appreciation for the business that IT was supposed to underpin.The ability to present ideas well and communicate well are more important than many obscure technical skills that few people have.

Lately we’ve been working with some companies that have experienced some really healthy growth over the past few years.  Some forward thinking managers in those companies have engaged us to help them implement processes along with athene® and SharePath to help them manage this growth in a sensible way. 

It’s an investment that has paid dividends already as some of the planned purchases have been scrapped as unnecessary and pockets of spare capacity have been reallocated to other areas of the company.

Do you feel your IT services can handle everything the business is planning?  Do you know how much headroom you have with your current IT investment?  How can you get a handle on your IT infrastructure?

Come talk to us.  We’ll be at events in the UK and the US in the next few months.  In the UK we’ll be at Ovum in London on September 23 as well as GSE in Northamptonshire the first week of November.  In the US, we’ll be at the regional CMG in St. Louis on October 7 and at the International CMG in Atlanta the first week of November.

Even after 11 years at Metron I still get incredibly excited talking to people about how we can help companies implement an effective Capacity Management process and use our expertise to make that process quicker and easier.  

Contact me at rich.fronheiser@metron-athene.com if you’d like to talk more about your own situation. 

Rich Fronheiser

Chief Marketing Officer