It's likely additional resources won't become available to oversee Power Systems operations, so "work smarter, not harder" may be the catchword of the day—in short, automation.

Editor's note: This article introduces the white paper "The Top Ten Job Scheduling Challenges and How to Solve Them" available free at the MC White Paper Center.

The last 10 years have been tough for organizations the world around. When it comes to a recession, everyone is forced to do more with less. But at the same time, companies still need to move forward at a frenetic pace—just to maintain a competitive advantage through the recession and beyond. It is this enhanced speed at which the business must operate that creates a new level of resource challenges to address, often with no time to waste. It's no wonder that "work smarter, not harder" has become the hallmark of modern business.

Current Trends

In my job, I spend a lot of time working with datacenters all over the world. No matter the size and scope of the organization, I consistently see the same trends everywhere. If the organization runs Power Systems in their datacenter, before I step foot on premise I already know that three or more of the following will apply:

• IT operational or administration staff numbers have been reduced.
• The majority of the remaining staff are more likely to be generalists rather than specialists.
• The operational procedures are in many cases still paper-based.
• There are fewer decision-making powers in the datacenter.
• Operational risks continue to increase.
• The "graying" of the Power Systems workforce is a worry to management.

All of those challenges stem from a collision between the speed at which the business must operate versus the resources available to maintain the pace. And if history is any indicator, the speed is only likely to increase even more as time goes on.

So what does the future hold for us, the resource? Well, it's probably a safe bet that additional resources aren't on the way, so we come back to the "work smarter, not harder" philosophy—and what we are really talking about is automation.

Want to Know the Rest?

To read the rest of the white paper "The Top Ten Job Scheduling Challenges and How to Solve Them" download it free from the MC White Paper Center.

Martin Norman has worked for more than 25 years in the IT industry, specializing in Systems and Security Management of the IBM System i platforms. Martin has performed consultancy and implementations in the UK and Central Europe, and for the last 10 years in the U.S., Canada, and the Caribbean, with particular focus on Fortune 100 and 500 organizations.

 

Martin is Technical Support Manager at Halcyon Software Inc., based in Philadelphia, where he focuses on helping IBM Power Systems users get the optimum performance from their IT business environment and the maximum efficiency and ROI for their operations.

 

A regular speaker at IBM events, such as COMMON and within the LUG network, he is also a contributor to a number of U.S. IT publications.