Capacity Management for System z and License Charge Reporting

Capacity Management for System z is not a silo activity within an enterprise. 

Every Capacity Management decision is a business decision, and with that in mind, there are either positive or negative cost implications with each decision made. 

Capacity Management reports are visible to all the stakeholders within an organization from the C-Level down to the Lines of Business and the Analysts. 

In order to be successful, one needs to take an enterprise view in all aspects of Capacity Management and with all the cost implications involved with various licensing models, there needs to be an understanding of the current (and future) ways in which licenses can be allocated.

I'll be presenting at our next webinar and will be discussing:    

• Capacity Management from an Enterprise level
• MLC & WLC (Monthly and Workload License Charges)
• Explanation of Country Multiplex Pricing (CMP) and how it may affect your enterprise
• Reporting necessary to understand the license charges
• Forecasting for future changes

Join me on February 17, register for your place now

http://www.metron-athene.com/services/webinars/index.html

Charles Johnson

Principal Consultant

Capacity Management Maturity, Assessing & Improving (4 of 4)

Our Capacity Management Maturity Survey helps you to see where your organization scores on the Maturity Scale.

Capacity Management Maturity is not easy to achieve.

Most organizations that have dedicated Capacity Management functions or teams typically score either a 2 or a 3 in this model. Organizations that do not have dedicated teams or functions normally score between a 1 or a 2.

Our survey is a perfect discussion point between the Capacity Manager and management. The results of the survey provide quick feedback on areas to improve.

Using the survey to compare the results for your organization against others in your industry or geography gives an opportunity for you to see where you stack up….possibly identify where you are behind others so that you can catch up.

Take our survey now http://www.metron-athene.com/_capacity-management-maturity-survey/survey.asp

It’s the perfect opportunity to put processes in place that give your organization a competitive advantage over others in your industry.

If you missed my recent webinar 'Capacity Management Maturity, Assessing & Improving' catch it on-demand now http://www.metron-athene.com/_resources/on-demand-webinars/login.asp

Rich Fronheiser

Chief Marketing Officer

Capacity Management Maturity, Assessing & Improving - 5 levels of process maturity (3 of 4)

As promised today I'll discuss the 5 levels of Capacity Management Maturity.

They are:

Level 1 – Initial

Processes are undocumented and in a state of dynamic and chaotic manner. They tend to be driven in an ad hoc, uncontrolled, and reactive manner. Processes at this level tend to be unstable.

Level 2 – Repeatable

Some processes are repeatable, possibly with consistent results. Discipline is unlikely to be rigorous, but where it exists it may help to ensure existing processes are maintained during stressful periods.

Level 3 – Defined

Sets of defined and documented standard processes are established and subject to some degree of improvement over time.

Level 4 – Managed

Using process metrics, management can effectively control processes and identify ways to adjust and adapt the process to particular projects without losses of quality.

Level 5 – Optimizing

The focus is on continual improvement through both incremental and innovative changes / improvements

If you missed my webinar on Wednesday then you can listen to the live recording here

https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/recording/6380037538496672001

The final part of my series will be on Monday.

Rich Fronheiser

Chief Marketing Officer

Capacity Management Maturity, Assesssing & Improving - Setting the Landscape (2 0f 4)

What is Capacity Management?

A fairly standard definition of Capacity Management is:

An IT process that helps ensure capacity meets current and a future business requirements in a cost-­‐effective manner.

A well-­‐defined Capacity Management process will focus on four subprocesses:

Business Capacity Management – translating business needs and plans into capacity and performance requirements for services and infrastructure.

Service Capacity Management – managing the capacity of live, operational IT services. This includes both proactive and reactive activities to ensure SLAs are met.

Component Capacity Management – managing the performance, utilization, and capacity of IT resources and individual IT components

Capacity Management Reporting – To provide other ITSM processes and management with information related to service and component capacity, utilization, and performance

In order to support the process, specific activities (monitoring, analysis, tuning, modeling, etc.) are undertaken in both proactive and reactive ways.

What is Maturity?

A maturity model is a set of structured levels that describe how well the behaviors, practices, and processes of an organization can reliably produce desired outcomes.

Various models exist. For the purposes of this survey, we’ll focus on the Capability Maturity Model, which consists of five levels of process maturity.

I'll tell you the five levels of process maturity in the Capability Maturity Model on Friday.

Come along to my webinar today 'Capacity Management Maturity -Assessing and Improving'

http://www.metron-athene.com/services/webinars/index.html

Rich Fronheiser

Chief Marketing Officer

Capacity Management Maturity - Assessing and Improving the Effectiveness (1 of 4)

Many organizations have a Capacity Management process or function in place, but no practical way to assess the effectiveness or even the strengths and weaknesses of the process or function.

This led to our development and refinement of a Capacity Management Maturity Assessment, consisting of 20 carefully chosen questions that help an organization assess maturity and effectiveness.

Once completed, the results will allow the Capacity Manager to better communicate the importance of Capacity Management and also create a plan to fill identified gaps going forward.

     Applying this assessment to multiple organizations allows comparisons to be made

between organizations and between an organization and others sharing characteristics such as type of business, geographical location, organizational size, among others.

This blog series will discuss the concept of Capacity Management Maturity, how the concept of maturity is defined and what are the building blocks that reflect a mature process or function within an organization.

Don't forget to register for my webinar on Wednesday Jan 20 'Capacity Management Maturity - Assessing and Improving the Effectiveness'

http://www.metron-athene.com/services/webinars/index.html

Rich Fronheiser

Chief Marketing Officer

Capacity Management Maturity - Assessing and Improving the Effectiveness

Many organizations have a Capacity Management process or function in place, but no practical way to assess the effectiveness or even the strengths and weaknesses of the process or function.

This led to the development and refinement of a Capacity Management Maturity Survey, consisting of 20 carefully chosen questions that help an organization assess maturity and effectiveness.

Our Capacity Management Maturity Survey is available to complete on line. http://www.metron-athene.com/_capacity-management-maturity-survey/survey.asp

Once completed, the results will allow the Capacity Manager to better communicate the importance of Capacity Management and create a plan to fill identified gaps going forward.

Applying this assessment to multiple organizations allows comparisons to be made - between organizations and between an organization and others sharing characteristics such as type of business, geographical location and organizational size, among others.

I'll be running a webinar on January 20 where I'll be discussing the development of the Capacity Management Maturity Assessment, walk attendees through the survey and present some findings gathered over the last year.

You can register for your place now
http://www.metron-athene.com/services/webinars/index.html
Rich Fronheiser
Chief Marketing Officer