ML
    • Recent
    • Categories
    • Tags
    • Popular
    • Users
    • Groups
    • Register
    • Login

    How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs

    IT Discussion
    departments planning scheduling storage servers backup backup and disaster recovery
    10
    82
    7.3k
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as topic
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with topic management privileges can see it.
    • scottalanmillerS
      scottalanmiller @DustinB3403
      last edited by

      @DustinB3403 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

      Looking for some general advice on how you might address this so you can formulate a real business plan

      Bill backs.... if a department pays for what they request, you don't care if they use it or not.

      DustinB3403D DashrenderD 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 1
      • DustinB3403D
        DustinB3403 @scottalanmiller
        last edited by

        @scottalanmiller said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

        @DustinB3403 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

        Looking for some general advice on how you might address this so you can formulate a real business plan

        Bill backs.... if a department pays for what they request, you don't care if they use it or not.

        How do you bill back a department who doesn't have a budget? (honestly asking)

        scottalanmillerS 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • scottalanmillerS
          scottalanmiller @DustinB3403
          last edited by

          @DustinB3403 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

          @scottalanmiller said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

          @DustinB3403 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

          Looking for some general advice on how you might address this so you can formulate a real business plan

          Bill backs.... if a department pays for what they request, you don't care if they use it or not.

          How do you bill back a department who doesn't have a budget? (honestly asking)

          By not billing based on projects, base on orders.

          Example:

          Dept A demands 100TB of storage. IT has a TB cost for storage (maybe by performance tier.) Let's say 1TB of storage costs $1/mo. So if a department orders 100TB of storage, they have to pay $100/mo whether they use it or not.

          THis is a standard model that pushes real costs to departments, and puts the onus on the departments to justify their expenditures. It also provides the CFO a look into profits and losses that they lack otherwise.

          DustinB3403D wirestyle22W 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 4
          • DustinB3403D
            DustinB3403 @scottalanmiller
            last edited by DustinB3403

            @scottalanmiller said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

            Dept A demands 100TB of storage. IT has a TB cost for storage (maybe by performance tier.) Let's say 1TB of storage costs $1/mo. So if a department orders 100TB of storage, they have to pay $100/mo whether they use it or not.

            That is down right mean, but i like it. Rather than me having to ask "do you really need 100TB" it's here's 100TB at $1/TB/M.

            That could work. . . now to find out if the CFO would go for that. .

            scottalanmillerS 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • scottalanmillerS
              scottalanmiller @DustinB3403
              last edited by

              @DustinB3403 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

              @scottalanmiller said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

              Dept A demands 100TB of storage. IT has a TB cost for storage (maybe by performance tier.) Let's say 1TB of storage costs $1/mo. So if a department orders 100TB of storage, they have to pay $100/mo whether they use it or not.

              That is down right mean, but i like it. Rather than me having to ask "do you really need 100TB" it's here's 100TB at $1/TB/M.

              That could work. . . now to find out if the CFO would go for that. .

              Not mean.... lol. It's how every service provider handles it, because it's the only way that makes sense. And normally it is CFOs demanding it, because it controls cost, and lets the CFO figure out what is going on. It keeps departments from working against each other and the company. If you need the resources, then great. If you don't, you better not order them.

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • Emad RE
                Emad R @DustinB3403
                last edited by

                @DustinB3403

                1 on 1 , never put them with there teamlead as group

                1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                • DashrenderD
                  Dashrender @scottalanmiller
                  last edited by

                  @scottalanmiller said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                  @DustinB3403 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                  Looking for some general advice on how you might address this so you can formulate a real business plan

                  Bill backs.... if a department pays for what they request, you don't care if they use it or not.

                  How is this not done on the norm anyway to verify that departments are in fact getting value for their purchases?

                  DustinB3403D scottalanmillerS 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                  • DustinB3403D
                    DustinB3403 @Dashrender
                    last edited by

                    @Dashrender said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                    @scottalanmiller said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                    @DustinB3403 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                    Looking for some general advice on how you might address this so you can formulate a real business plan

                    Bill backs.... if a department pays for what they request, you don't care if they use it or not.

                    How is this not done on the norm anyway to verify that departments are in fact getting value for their purchases?

                    Because of dysfunction? I'm not the CFO and thus can't possibly answer that.

                    DashrenderD pmonchoP 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • scottalanmillerS
                      scottalanmiller @Dashrender
                      last edited by

                      @Dashrender said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                      @scottalanmiller said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                      @DustinB3403 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                      Looking for some general advice on how you might address this so you can formulate a real business plan

                      Bill backs.... if a department pays for what they request, you don't care if they use it or not.

                      How is this not done on the norm anyway to verify that departments are in fact getting value for their purchases?

                      In larger firms, it is the norm 😉

                      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                      • wirestyle22W
                        wirestyle22 @scottalanmiller
                        last edited by

                        @scottalanmiller said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                        @DustinB3403 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                        @scottalanmiller said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                        @DustinB3403 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                        Looking for some general advice on how you might address this so you can formulate a real business plan

                        Bill backs.... if a department pays for what they request, you don't care if they use it or not.

                        How do you bill back a department who doesn't have a budget? (honestly asking)

                        By not billing based on projects, base on orders.

                        Example:

                        Dept A demands 100TB of storage. IT has a TB cost for storage (maybe by performance tier.) Let's say 1TB of storage costs $1/mo. So if a department orders 100TB of storage, they have to pay $100/mo whether they use it or not.

                        THis is a standard model that pushes real costs to departments, and puts the onus on the departments to justify their expenditures. It also provides the CFO a look into profits and losses that they lack otherwise.

                        How does this work with the ultra conservative managers? I'd imagine it would translate into overhead for IT. Reverse the scenario.

                        Say in a 3 year period you calculate the need for 750 TB worth of expansion. The manger is unwilling to purchase 750 TB and instead purchases 250 TB because they don't want to pay the full amount until they will use it. Now you have three installs instead of one. I'd imagine this would be a problem with bigger companies.

                        DashrenderD scottalanmillerS 3 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • DashrenderD
                          Dashrender @DustinB3403
                          last edited by Dashrender

                          @DustinB3403 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                          @Dashrender said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                          @scottalanmiller said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                          @DustinB3403 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                          Looking for some general advice on how you might address this so you can formulate a real business plan

                          Bill backs.... if a department pays for what they request, you don't care if they use it or not.

                          How is this not done on the norm anyway to verify that departments are in fact getting value for their purchases?

                          Because of dysfunction? I'm not the CFO and thus can't possibly answer that.

                          The question was for Scott - not you.. and well - it is in use according to his recent post... 😉

                          If you do this for every department, it makes all your buying decisions so much less about IT, and so much more about the departments truly being involved in the financial levels of the company... which should make the better - hell, if the department shows it's really producing.. they might find that they can get even more things/stuff/money., etc.

                          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                          • DashrenderD
                            Dashrender @wirestyle22
                            last edited by

                            @wirestyle22 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                            @scottalanmiller said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                            @DustinB3403 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                            @scottalanmiller said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                            @DustinB3403 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                            Looking for some general advice on how you might address this so you can formulate a real business plan

                            Bill backs.... if a department pays for what they request, you don't care if they use it or not.

                            How do you bill back a department who doesn't have a budget? (honestly asking)

                            By not billing based on projects, base on orders.

                            Example:

                            Dept A demands 100TB of storage. IT has a TB cost for storage (maybe by performance tier.) Let's say 1TB of storage costs $1/mo. So if a department orders 100TB of storage, they have to pay $100/mo whether they use it or not.

                            THis is a standard model that pushes real costs to departments, and puts the onus on the departments to justify their expenditures. It also provides the CFO a look into profits and losses that they lack otherwise.

                            How does this work with the ultra conservative managers? I'd imagine it would translate into overhead for IT. Reverse the scenario.

                            Say in a 3 year period you calculate the need for 750 TB worth of expansion. The manger is unwilling to purchase 750 TB and instead purchases 250 TB because they don't want to pay the full amount until they will use it. Now you have three installs instead of one. I'd imagine this would be a problem with bigger companies.

                            I'm pretty sure Scott is going to tell you that you don't buy for the future, because you really don't know what tomorrow brings. So likely you're going to do just that - buy 250 TB as needed, you might need if faster, you might need it slower. Sure it's possibly more work for IT, three installs - but theses are storage growths, you shouldn't require nearly as much work as the initial setup - design the system for growth, so IT has less using performing that growth.

                            wirestyle22W scottalanmillerS 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                            • wirestyle22W
                              wirestyle22 @Dashrender
                              last edited by wirestyle22

                              @Dashrender said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                              @wirestyle22 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                              @scottalanmiller said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                              @DustinB3403 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                              @scottalanmiller said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                              @DustinB3403 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                              Looking for some general advice on how you might address this so you can formulate a real business plan

                              Bill backs.... if a department pays for what they request, you don't care if they use it or not.

                              How do you bill back a department who doesn't have a budget? (honestly asking)

                              By not billing based on projects, base on orders.

                              Example:

                              Dept A demands 100TB of storage. IT has a TB cost for storage (maybe by performance tier.) Let's say 1TB of storage costs $1/mo. So if a department orders 100TB of storage, they have to pay $100/mo whether they use it or not.

                              THis is a standard model that pushes real costs to departments, and puts the onus on the departments to justify their expenditures. It also provides the CFO a look into profits and losses that they lack otherwise.

                              How does this work with the ultra conservative managers? I'd imagine it would translate into overhead for IT. Reverse the scenario.

                              Say in a 3 year period you calculate the need for 750 TB worth of expansion. The manger is unwilling to purchase 750 TB and instead purchases 250 TB because they don't want to pay the full amount until they will use it. Now you have three installs instead of one. I'd imagine this would be a problem with bigger companies.

                              I'm pretty sure Scott is going to tell you that you don't buy for the future, because you really don't know what tomorrow brings. So likely you're going to do just that - buy 250 TB as needed, you might need if faster, you might need it slower. Sure it's possibly more work for IT, three installs - but theses are storage growths, you shouldn't require nearly as much work as the initial setup - design the system for growth, so IT has less using performing that growth.

                              So if you're buying new servers you don't try to account for growth? You just buy exactly what you had?

                              DashrenderD scottalanmillerS 3 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                              • DashrenderD
                                Dashrender @wirestyle22
                                last edited by

                                @wirestyle22 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                                @Dashrender said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                                @wirestyle22 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                                @scottalanmiller said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                                @DustinB3403 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                                @scottalanmiller said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                                @DustinB3403 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                                Looking for some general advice on how you might address this so you can formulate a real business plan

                                Bill backs.... if a department pays for what they request, you don't care if they use it or not.

                                How do you bill back a department who doesn't have a budget? (honestly asking)

                                By not billing based on projects, base on orders.

                                Example:

                                Dept A demands 100TB of storage. IT has a TB cost for storage (maybe by performance tier.) Let's say 1TB of storage costs $1/mo. So if a department orders 100TB of storage, they have to pay $100/mo whether they use it or not.

                                THis is a standard model that pushes real costs to departments, and puts the onus on the departments to justify their expenditures. It also provides the CFO a look into profits and losses that they lack otherwise.

                                How does this work with the ultra conservative managers? I'd imagine it would translate into overhead for IT. Reverse the scenario.

                                Say in a 3 year period you calculate the need for 750 TB worth of expansion. The manger is unwilling to purchase 750 TB and instead purchases 250 TB because they don't want to pay the full amount until they will use it. Now you have three installs instead of one. I'd imagine this would be a problem with bigger companies.

                                I'm pretty sure Scott is going to tell you that you don't buy for the future, because you really don't know what tomorrow brings. So likely you're going to do just that - buy 250 TB as needed, you might need if faster, you might need it slower. Sure it's possibly more work for IT, three installs - but theses are storage growths, you shouldn't require nearly as much work as the initial setup - design the system for growth, so IT has less using performing that growth.

                                So if you're buying new servers you don't try to account for growth?

                                you can, but you don't have to spend all the money today.

                                example - you buy a server, you buy a dual socket machine, but only populate 1 socket (assuming the job can get done with that) and you populate the second when it's actually needed, same goes for storage and RAM.

                                wirestyle22W 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                                • DashrenderD
                                  Dashrender @wirestyle22
                                  last edited by

                                  @wirestyle22 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                                  @Dashrender said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                                  @wirestyle22 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                                  @scottalanmiller said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                                  @DustinB3403 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                                  @scottalanmiller said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                                  @DustinB3403 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                                  Looking for some general advice on how you might address this so you can formulate a real business plan

                                  Bill backs.... if a department pays for what they request, you don't care if they use it or not.

                                  How do you bill back a department who doesn't have a budget? (honestly asking)

                                  By not billing based on projects, base on orders.

                                  Example:

                                  Dept A demands 100TB of storage. IT has a TB cost for storage (maybe by performance tier.) Let's say 1TB of storage costs $1/mo. So if a department orders 100TB of storage, they have to pay $100/mo whether they use it or not.

                                  THis is a standard model that pushes real costs to departments, and puts the onus on the departments to justify their expenditures. It also provides the CFO a look into profits and losses that they lack otherwise.

                                  How does this work with the ultra conservative managers? I'd imagine it would translate into overhead for IT. Reverse the scenario.

                                  Say in a 3 year period you calculate the need for 750 TB worth of expansion. The manger is unwilling to purchase 750 TB and instead purchases 250 TB because they don't want to pay the full amount until they will use it. Now you have three installs instead of one. I'd imagine this would be a problem with bigger companies.

                                  I'm pretty sure Scott is going to tell you that you don't buy for the future, because you really don't know what tomorrow brings. So likely you're going to do just that - buy 250 TB as needed, you might need if faster, you might need it slower. Sure it's possibly more work for IT, three installs - but theses are storage growths, you shouldn't require nearly as much work as the initial setup - design the system for growth, so IT has less using performing that growth.

                                  So if you're buying new servers you don't try to account for growth? You just buy exactly what you had?

                                  Why would you ever buy exactly what you had? The reality here is that you're replacing for one of two reasons - aged out equipment or growth. Obviously in the case of growth, you're not buying the same thing - you clearly need more. But aged out equipment - do you really need more? heck your equipment aged out, meaning it's at least 5 years old, and could easily be 8+. Any server you buy today will crush that 5+ year old server and if necessary, should have plenty of room for expansion (in RAM and CPU) assuming you built it somewhere near the performance level of the old one.

                                  As for storage - you might start with all internal storage - then you might move to DAS for additional storage, don't need another server (necessarily)

                                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                                  • wirestyle22W
                                    wirestyle22 @Dashrender
                                    last edited by

                                    @Dashrender said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                                    @wirestyle22 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                                    @Dashrender said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                                    @wirestyle22 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                                    @scottalanmiller said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                                    @DustinB3403 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                                    @scottalanmiller said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                                    @DustinB3403 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                                    Looking for some general advice on how you might address this so you can formulate a real business plan

                                    Bill backs.... if a department pays for what they request, you don't care if they use it or not.

                                    How do you bill back a department who doesn't have a budget? (honestly asking)

                                    By not billing based on projects, base on orders.

                                    Example:

                                    Dept A demands 100TB of storage. IT has a TB cost for storage (maybe by performance tier.) Let's say 1TB of storage costs $1/mo. So if a department orders 100TB of storage, they have to pay $100/mo whether they use it or not.

                                    THis is a standard model that pushes real costs to departments, and puts the onus on the departments to justify their expenditures. It also provides the CFO a look into profits and losses that they lack otherwise.

                                    How does this work with the ultra conservative managers? I'd imagine it would translate into overhead for IT. Reverse the scenario.

                                    Say in a 3 year period you calculate the need for 750 TB worth of expansion. The manger is unwilling to purchase 750 TB and instead purchases 250 TB because they don't want to pay the full amount until they will use it. Now you have three installs instead of one. I'd imagine this would be a problem with bigger companies.

                                    I'm pretty sure Scott is going to tell you that you don't buy for the future, because you really don't know what tomorrow brings. So likely you're going to do just that - buy 250 TB as needed, you might need if faster, you might need it slower. Sure it's possibly more work for IT, three installs - but theses are storage growths, you shouldn't require nearly as much work as the initial setup - design the system for growth, so IT has less using performing that growth.

                                    So if you're buying new servers you don't try to account for growth?

                                    you can, but you don't have to spend all the money today.

                                    example - you buy a server, you buy a dual socket machine, but only populate 1 socket (assuming the job can get done with that) and you populate the second when it's actually needed, same goes for storage and RAM.

                                    What I've seen is overbuying specifically for the calculated expansion needed for whatever the refresh plan is but yeah, I guess that is too much of an upfront investment.

                                    DashrenderD scottalanmillerS 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 1
                                    • DashrenderD
                                      Dashrender @wirestyle22
                                      last edited by

                                      @wirestyle22 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                                      @Dashrender said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                                      @wirestyle22 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                                      @Dashrender said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                                      @wirestyle22 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                                      @scottalanmiller said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                                      @DustinB3403 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                                      @scottalanmiller said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                                      @DustinB3403 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                                      Looking for some general advice on how you might address this so you can formulate a real business plan

                                      Bill backs.... if a department pays for what they request, you don't care if they use it or not.

                                      How do you bill back a department who doesn't have a budget? (honestly asking)

                                      By not billing based on projects, base on orders.

                                      Example:

                                      Dept A demands 100TB of storage. IT has a TB cost for storage (maybe by performance tier.) Let's say 1TB of storage costs $1/mo. So if a department orders 100TB of storage, they have to pay $100/mo whether they use it or not.

                                      THis is a standard model that pushes real costs to departments, and puts the onus on the departments to justify their expenditures. It also provides the CFO a look into profits and losses that they lack otherwise.

                                      How does this work with the ultra conservative managers? I'd imagine it would translate into overhead for IT. Reverse the scenario.

                                      Say in a 3 year period you calculate the need for 750 TB worth of expansion. The manger is unwilling to purchase 750 TB and instead purchases 250 TB because they don't want to pay the full amount until they will use it. Now you have three installs instead of one. I'd imagine this would be a problem with bigger companies.

                                      I'm pretty sure Scott is going to tell you that you don't buy for the future, because you really don't know what tomorrow brings. So likely you're going to do just that - buy 250 TB as needed, you might need if faster, you might need it slower. Sure it's possibly more work for IT, three installs - but theses are storage growths, you shouldn't require nearly as much work as the initial setup - design the system for growth, so IT has less using performing that growth.

                                      So if you're buying new servers you don't try to account for growth?

                                      you can, but you don't have to spend all the money today.

                                      example - you buy a server, you buy a dual socket machine, but only populate 1 socket (assuming the job can get done with that) and you populate the second when it's actually needed, same goes for storage and RAM.

                                      What I've seen is overbuying specifically for the calculated expansion needed for whatever the refresh plan is but yeah, I guess that is too much of an upfront investment.

                                      Right - and how often do those growth projections fail? Far more than most want to admit. So save the money.

                                      wirestyle22W 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                                      • wirestyle22W
                                        wirestyle22 @Dashrender
                                        last edited by

                                        @Dashrender said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                                        @wirestyle22 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                                        @Dashrender said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                                        @wirestyle22 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                                        @scottalanmiller said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                                        @DustinB3403 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                                        @scottalanmiller said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                                        @DustinB3403 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                                        Looking for some general advice on how you might address this so you can formulate a real business plan

                                        Bill backs.... if a department pays for what they request, you don't care if they use it or not.

                                        How do you bill back a department who doesn't have a budget? (honestly asking)

                                        By not billing based on projects, base on orders.

                                        Example:

                                        Dept A demands 100TB of storage. IT has a TB cost for storage (maybe by performance tier.) Let's say 1TB of storage costs $1/mo. So if a department orders 100TB of storage, they have to pay $100/mo whether they use it or not.

                                        THis is a standard model that pushes real costs to departments, and puts the onus on the departments to justify their expenditures. It also provides the CFO a look into profits and losses that they lack otherwise.

                                        How does this work with the ultra conservative managers? I'd imagine it would translate into overhead for IT. Reverse the scenario.

                                        Say in a 3 year period you calculate the need for 750 TB worth of expansion. The manger is unwilling to purchase 750 TB and instead purchases 250 TB because they don't want to pay the full amount until they will use it. Now you have three installs instead of one. I'd imagine this would be a problem with bigger companies.

                                        I'm pretty sure Scott is going to tell you that you don't buy for the future, because you really don't know what tomorrow brings. So likely you're going to do just that - buy 250 TB as needed, you might need if faster, you might need it slower. Sure it's possibly more work for IT, three installs - but theses are storage growths, you shouldn't require nearly as much work as the initial setup - design the system for growth, so IT has less using performing that growth.

                                        So if you're buying new servers you don't try to account for growth? You just buy exactly what you had?

                                        Why would you ever buy exactly what you had? The reality here is that you're replacing for one of two reasons - aged out equipment or growth. Obviously in the case of growth, you're not buying the same thing - you clearly need more. But aged out equipment - do you really need more? heck your equipment aged out, meaning it's at least 5 years old, and could easily be 8+. Any server you buy today will crush that 5+ year old server and if necessary, should have plenty of room for expansion (in RAM and CPU) assuming you built it somewhere near the performance level of the old one.

                                        As for storage - you might start with all internal storage - then you might move to DAS for additional storage, don't need another server (necessarily)

                                        They were widely viewed as successful but that is only because they stopped analyzing after implementation 😄

                                        scottalanmillerS 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                        • pmonchoP
                                          pmoncho @DustinB3403
                                          last edited by

                                          @DustinB3403 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                                          @Dashrender said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                                          @scottalanmiller said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                                          @DustinB3403 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                                          Looking for some general advice on how you might address this so you can formulate a real business plan

                                          Bill backs.... if a department pays for what they request, you don't care if they use it or not.

                                          How is this not done on the norm anyway to verify that departments are in fact getting value for their purchases?

                                          Because of dysfunction? I'm not the CFO and thus can't possibly answer that.

                                          @DustinB3403 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                                          @Dashrender said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                                          @scottalanmiller said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                                          @DustinB3403 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                                          Looking for some general advice on how you might address this so you can formulate a real business plan

                                          Bill backs.... if a department pays for what they request, you don't care if they use it or not.

                                          How is this not done on the norm anyway to verify that departments are in fact getting value for their purchases?

                                          Because of dysfunction? I'm not the CFO and thus can't possibly answer that.

                                          Dysfunction may come about because the company only has so much money and if the charge back is a fixed cost, you can bet all departments will work VERY hard to be first in line to use up all of their fee first.

                                          Add to that, you now have all department heads stating, "Hey, I paid my monthly fee, now give me what I want NOW! My department is more important than any other department" Thus more dysfunction within the company.

                                          If you would like a good example of how charge backs can mess things up but have a slight potential of working, give "Keep the Joint Running: A Manifesto for 21st Century Information Technology" by Bob Lewis a read.

                                          DashrenderD scottalanmillerS 4 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                          • DashrenderD
                                            Dashrender @pmoncho
                                            last edited by

                                            @pmoncho said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                                            @DustinB3403 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                                            @Dashrender said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                                            @scottalanmiller said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                                            @DustinB3403 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                                            Looking for some general advice on how you might address this so you can formulate a real business plan

                                            Bill backs.... if a department pays for what they request, you don't care if they use it or not.

                                            How is this not done on the norm anyway to verify that departments are in fact getting value for their purchases?

                                            Because of dysfunction? I'm not the CFO and thus can't possibly answer that.

                                            @DustinB3403 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                                            @Dashrender said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                                            @scottalanmiller said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                                            @DustinB3403 said in How do you get your departments to quantify what they actually need for their jobs:

                                            Looking for some general advice on how you might address this so you can formulate a real business plan

                                            Bill backs.... if a department pays for what they request, you don't care if they use it or not.

                                            How is this not done on the norm anyway to verify that departments are in fact getting value for their purchases?

                                            Because of dysfunction? I'm not the CFO and thus can't possibly answer that.

                                            Dysfunction may come about because the company only has so much money and if the charge back is a fixed cost, you can bet all departments will work VERY hard to be first in line to use up all of their fee first.

                                            Add to that, you now have all department heads stating, "Hey, I paid my monthly fee, now give me what I want NOW! My department is more important than any other department" Thus more dysfunction within the company.

                                            If you would like a good example of how charge backs can mess things up but have a slight potential of working, give "Keep the Joint Running: A Manifesto for 21st Century Information Technology" by Bob Lewis a read.

                                            I don't think it needs to be super hard and fast to live and die by charge backs, that could be a CFO/exec level only thing... but then the CFO could look at a department who's asking for 750 TB of storage, and look at the history of that department and might come back and say - uh, yeah.. ya know.. we're going to get you that 750, but it will be staged over years - etc...

                                            I also want to find a way to work in Dustin's - the departments don't cleanup their old shit - so storage just keeps growing - into this as well, but I'm not sure how.

                                            pmonchoP 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                                            • 1
                                            • 2
                                            • 3
                                            • 4
                                            • 5
                                            • 2 / 5
                                            • First post
                                              Last post