Podcasts

TeamQuest Corporation, a global leader in IT Service Optimization, presents "Do More with Less: Managing the Quality of Service Delivery." TeamQuest podcasts enable you to download and listen at your convenience. Thank you for listening.

Join San Diego Zoo CTO Robert Erhardt in this entertaining podcast as he illustrates how technology is being used to ensure the survival of animal species around the world. Erhardt describes emerging technologies at the Zoo and Wild Animal Park, tells amusing stories, and discusses IT issues that keep him up at night.

Join internationally recognized performance management and capacity planning expert Dr. Neil Gunther as he discusses the discipline of capacity planning. Dr. Gunther talks about his experiences in the field, how and why some capacity plans are more successful than others, and why using the right performance management tool is so important.

This entertaining podcast was recorded live at the recent CMG International Conference and provides great insight and observations regarding capacity planning and performance management.

Computer Measurement Group (CMG) President Ivan Gelb shares highlights from the recent CMG ’07 International Conference. Gelb discusses new trends in the performance and capacity management space and what makes the CMG conference an annual must-attend event. If you haven’t attended the CMG conference before or missed this year’s conference, this podcast provides great insight. Listen now.

Learn how you can impress your boss by helping your IT organization meet service levels while saving time and money. Listen as expert Jon Hill describes how to get a smooth start implementing capacity planning best practices.

Hill tells how to draw up a capacity plan and the steps involved. He explains how to minimize risk from embarrassing outages while maximizing the business benefits of your IT infrastructure.

Whether you are looking to consolidate servers, using virtualization or creating a disaster recovery plan, this podcast can help get you started.

TeamQuest Performance Software has been called a 'best kept secret' by industry influencers. We are proud to unveil many of the key 'secrets' in a brand new microsite.

Join TeamQuest's Director of Marketing Communications, Craig Olson in an interview where he discusses why the microsite is a great resource for IT professionals who face serious data center issues every day.

When it comes to servers, virtualization is a very hot topic. Server virtualization holds the promise of more computing power, lower costs, and better server management. But is this emerging area also reviving a traditional discipline? It appears virtualization is reviving interest in and the need for capacity planning.

Why does Capacity Planning play such an important role in virtual environments? How do you best blend these areas? And how do you find the right capacity planning solution for your needs?

Join Gartner analyst Cameron Haight as he provides the answers to these questions and gives insight from a market and customer best practices perspective.

The insurance industry is a complicated business. The right IT strategies can save insurance businesses millions, yet insurance business leaders still question the value of IT.
Common business perceptions are:

• I don't see the value of IT so how do I know dollars are well spent.
• Technology is expensive. We can get by with what we have, so why purchase more?
• I’m not sure new technology ever saves money, increases productivity or improves customer satisfaction.

As new technologies emerge, business leaders who realize the value of IT and leverage it consistently, harvest the short- and long-term benefits that IT brings. If CIOs cannot communicate effective answers to these business concerns, then the gap between IT and the business widens, preventing the business from realizing its full potential. So where do we go from here? Listen to this podcast now to find out!

In this podcast, join Software Engineer Manager Marsha Griffin as she explains how TeamQuest Harvest provides the capability to consolidate data from multiple systems into an enterprise database. Explore how harvesting data to a TeamQuest Enterprise Database enables multi-system analysis and how easily TeamQuest Harvest for Unisys MCP Systems gathers data from TeamQuest SMFII. Listen now to find out why TeamQuest Harvest is a must have in your Unisys MCP environment.

Industry analysts report that 60 to 80 percent of IT departments are pursuing server consolidation projects. Server virtualization has become the quick fix of every enterprise’s favorite money-saving initiative, especially in today’s environment where adapting complex IT infrastructure to meet changing business needs is not always easy. Beyond the dramatic cost savings, server virtualization can greatly enhance an organization’s business agility.

IT departments are asking questions such as:

• Why server virtualization?
• What are the challenges?
• How do I manage server virtualization?
• What do I look for in a virtualization solution?

Join Pascal Wallenius as he discusses ten things you should know about server virtualization. Pascal talks about his real-world experience virtualizing and managing servers, the do’s and don’ts, and tips on how to be successful with your server virtualization implementation.

Retail, wholesale, and manufacturing organizations understand the importance of cost savings in their IT organizations. Many are being forced to do more with less. New technology solutions are helping organizations better utilize existing resources, meet service level agreements, and improve business intelligence. TeamQuest Enterprise Performance Specialist John Arnold describes trends and solutions that leaders in the industry are implementing, providing an immediate impact on the data center. Arnold describes how analytic modeling can provide the data necessary for best practices such as virtualization, leading to significant data center performance improvement.

IT executives are expected to do more than simply provide reliable technology for their organizations. They must also demonstrate to management and client organizations that IT is delivering true business value. Can you show how IT contributes to the overall success of your business? To do that, reporting must have business relevance by showing how IT service performance relates to key business objectives. Join TeamQuest Software Engineering Manager Mark Manness as he explores IT service reporting and gives new insight on how to communicate the business value of IT.

Also in this podcast learn:

• How IT service reporting has changed
• How to relate IT service performance directly to business objectives
• Why there is a gap between IT and the business
• How to create effective IT service reporting
• How consolidation and virtualization make management reporting more of a challenge

Next generations technologies such as SOA, IMS and SDF are forcing the telecommunications industry to undergo rapid change which includes that of its core architecture. These technologies require more Capacity Management involvement earlier in the service implementation process when designing and scaling the IT infrastructure to support various and multiplying service types and the prospect of supporting extreme transaction processing. Join TeamQuest's Keith Hanna as he discusses the mission critical role that TeamQuest plays for the telecom service provider. TeamQuest provides the telecom operator the data and analysis tools to realize complete confidence that these next-gen environments will deliver the service quality necessary to attract and retain rapid subscriber adoption.

The ability to analyze and report performance in business terms using TeamQuest Performance Software is further enhanced with the introduction of IT Resources. IT Resources allow you to merge performance data from components that together implement a particular IT service, enabling you to examine and optimize performance in business terms. You can drill down from higher-level IT Resources to the actual hardware or software components involved in providing a particular IT service, regardless of where those components may reside. In this way, IT Resources provide for an enterprise-wide drill down capability, crossing technology silos and even data centers.

Join noted speaker Scott Adams, as he talks about the IT Resource concept and how it can be used to analyze performance in ways that make complete business sense.

Many are saying Release 10 from TeamQuest Corporation is the most innovative enterprise performance and capacity management software available today.

TeamQuest has always been about business-aligned IT service optimization (ITSO). This latest release further supports that by providing the ability to analyze together the disparate components relating to a service. Release 10’s enterprise-class Capacity Management Database serves up performance data regardless of where it is stored, and enables drill down across distributed heterogeneous components.

Join TeamQuest CEO Jerred Ruble as he discusses Release 10, the primary business drivers behind it, how customers influenced it, and why Release 10 is in a league of its own.

IT organizations supporting hospitals or clinics are perpetually concerned with space and cost constraints. IT, necessary as it may be, often takes a backseat to more pertinent business issues like patient care, cutting edge medical equipment, and service offerings.

Join John Seifert, enterprise performance specialist for TeamQuest, as he shares his experiences in working in IT for a 700-bed hospital back in the 90s. He reminisces about the challenges they faced then, and how time and technology have changed since.

Join TeamQuest ITIL Best Practices Manager Ron Potter as he discusses the benefits of beginning an ITIL implementation with Capacity Management. Ron highlights ways to gain C-Level support and explains the value of ITIL. Use the savings from a Capacity Management implementation to fund the remaining components of ITIL and discover solutions for success.

Listen to "The Evolution of Capacity Planning" podcast and explore the changes in capacity planning, past to present. Understand the importance of capacity planning, as well as various methods and techniques. Mr. Rich will explain the process of how to build an effective capacity plan, provide best practices tips, and outline common pitfalls.

Server consolidation is a hot issue, primarily due to the potential cost-savings in hardware, software, staffing and facilities. According to Gartner, most IT departments are either considering server consolidation or are currently consolidating. Data center managers are constantly being asked to "do more with less" in the IT environment.

Is server consolidation the solution to your IT problems?

Find out as TeamQuest Enterprise Performance Specialist John Arnold explains and provides remedies to common server consolidation issues such as:

• When to implement a consolidation strategy?
• What servers need to be consolidated and what is the best technology approach?
• Should applications be single stacked or virtualized?
• How does server consolidation lower TCO?
• How to manage and evaluate the progress of consolidation through easy access up-to-date system performance data?
• How to ensure ROI on your investment?

Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) is probably the most discussed application development topic today. When done correctly, additions and changes to the application portfolio can be accomplished quickly and easily. Business can capitalize on opportunities while keeping IT infrastructure costs low.

Join TeamQuest Best Practices Manager Ron Potter as he explains "Why SOA Matters". Learn how SOA improves the agility of IT by loosely coupling services for maximum flexibility and cost efficiencies. Gain new insights about how SOA really works from applications and infrastructure perspectives, as well as the benefits and challenges associated with it.

Blade servers are self-contained computer servers designed for high density. Whereas a standard rack-mount server can exist with a power cord and network cable, blade servers have many components removed for space, power and other considerations while still having all the functional components to be considered a computer. A blade enclosure provides services such as power, cooling, networking, various interconnects and management - though different blade providers have differing principles around what should and should not be included in the blade itself. Together these form the blade system.

Join TeamQuest Product Manager Pascal Wallenius as he discusses IT performance solutions for blade servers. Pascal describes the benefits of blade servers and the growing demands being placed on capacity planners in regard to this unique server environment. Listeners will gain insight into the importance of effective blade server management.

Capacity planning is the key to a well-oiled, smooth-running data center, helping IT organizations to:

• Accurately and efficiently provision new applications
• Reduce, delay and sometimes completely avoid costs
• Justify upgrades with objective analyses
• Optimally configure systems to accommodate forecasted changes in business
• Migrate systems to take advantage of new technology
• Consolidate servers to simplify management and gain economies of scale
• Mitigate service delivery risk by playing out potential scenarios in advance, and then preparing for them

Join TeamQuest Enterprise Performance Specialist Jim Smith in this podcast as he discusses the importance of capacity planning. He will describe how it relates to ITIL and gives examples of capacity planning best practices and solutions.