Microsoft Server Infrastructure Optimization White Paper

Server Infrastructure Optimization

Best Practices to Reduce IT Operational Costs

Abstract
This paper shows technical decision makers and IT managers how organizations can reduce costs and improve their IT
efficiency by optimizing their core infrastructure and adopting server-related best practices. This paper identifies which best
practices are most effective in driving IT efficiency to reduce operating costs and free up human and financial IT resources
to add more value to the business.

January 2009
Lanlogic 248 Rickenbacker Circle, Livermore, CA 94551 888-LANLOGIC

Best Practices to Reduce IT Operational Costs 1

Contents
Executive Summary.............................................................................................. 2

Introduction .......................................................................................................... 3

Infrastructure Optimization ................................................................................ 4

Core Infrastructure Optimization Model.......................................................................... 4

Core Infrastructure Best Practices ....................................................................................... 4

The Study .............................................................................................................. 5

Collaboration Workload .......................................................................................................... 6

Data Management Workload ............................................................................................... 7

Identity and Access Workload .............................................................................................. 9

Email Workload ........................................................................................................................11

Connectivity Workload ..........................................................................................................12

Print Management Workload .............................................................................................14

Delivering Best Practices with Microsoft Solutions ....................................... 16

Configuration Management Solution ..............................................................................17

End-to-End Monitoring Solution .......................................................................................18

Identity Management Solution ..........................................................................................19

Data Protection and Recovery Solution ..........................................................................20

Security and Compliance Solution ....................................................................................21

Conclusions and Next Steps .............................................................................. 23

Appendix A: Study Methodology ..................................................................... 24

Appendix B: Core Infrastructure Optimization ............................................... 25

Appendix C: Server-Related Best Practices ..................................................... 26



Executive Summary
This paper summarizes results of a research study that shows how implementing up to 31 core infrastructure best practices
on key server workloads can significantly reduce IT operational costs and increase workload availability.

Findings

• Organizations can achieve big savings by adopting core infrastructure best practices for mission-critical
server workloads. In the email and collaboration workloads, organizations that adopted core infrastructure best
practices reported IT labor costs of more than $10,000 per server per year less than those that did not. Companies are
increasingly aware of these benefits and are rapidly adopting these best practices for their mission-critical messaging
and collaboration workloads.

• Organizations are not necessarily implementing best practices on all core server workloads. There are
significant unrealized cost savings to be made from adopting best practices for core workloads, such as print
management. However, adoption of best practices in these workloads is limited.

• Some best practices that deliver considerable benefits are not widely adopted. Practices such as software
imaging or cloning, automated restore, or automated deployment processes offer considerable benefits across
multiple workloads. However, they are not as widely adopted as other, less beneficial practices.

Benefits

• Best practices provide tangible benefits. Although the benefits of best practice adoption vary widely across
workloads, they are real, and the cost savings are quantifiable.

• The more practices adopted, the greater the cost savings. As organizations adopt more best practices, their
infrastructure optimization (IO) level increases, their IT efficiency improves, and the value of the benefits achieved
increases. For example, organizations operating at the rationalized IO level tended to realize higher-value benefits
than those operating at lower IO levels.

• Benefits are accessible to any organization. Organizations at any IO level can drive cost savings now by adopting
core infrastructure best practices. Study results show that best practice adoption has an increasingly positive effect
on IT costs and server availability as organizations move through the continuum of basic, standardized, and
rationalized IO levels.

• Microsoft solutions support best practice implementation. Microsoft infrastructure solutions provide core
infrastructure capabilities that enable many best practices and help deliver the cost and availability benefits
documented in this paper.

Recommendations

• Begin the IO process by implementing the easiest-to-adopt best practices. These would be the highest-value,
most frequently adopted best practices, which appear at the upper right corner of the workload best practices graphs.

• Assess organizational IO level. Use the Microsoft Infrastructure Optimization Assessment to determine the current
state of the IT infrastructure.

• Learn more about Microsoft’s free IO tools. Find out more about optimization tools, guidance, and Microsoft
Solution Accelerators.

• Learn more about Microsoft solutions that support best practices. Microsoft solutions are designed to support
best practice adoption and to become part of a long-term IT investment road map, which can help organizations
realize rapid cost benefits now and in the future. IT organizations should schedule a meeting with their Microsoft or
partner representative to discuss Microsoft solutions that can help address IT operational costs.



Introduction
Even in the best of times, IT managers are faced with the challenge of providing high-quality services on a 24 x 7 basis with
limited budgets. Research from many IT industry analysts indicate that roughly 80% of the typical enterprise IT budget is
spent on operations and maintenance, leaving roughly 20% for IT innovation that contributes to greater business value. In
uncertain economic times, with smaller budgets, this ratio can shift even more toward operations and maintenance, leaving
less money available to enhance IT services that serve the business.

Microsoft solutions can help data center administrators improve the efficiency of their organization’s core infrastructure, so
more human and financial resources will be available for IT innovation.

More Pressure Than Ever on IT Budgets
Best practices provide an opportunity to drive down IT operations costs
and deliver more innovative services to business.

Technology Regulatory
Change Compliance

Competition Security More
pressure
than ever
20% to reduce
New costs
Cost
80% Keep
Business
Reduction Maintenance Up &
Running More
pressure
with limited than ever
resources for to deliver
advancing capability business
Customer
Connection End-User value
Productivity

Business Results
& New Value

This paper, written for technical decision makers and IT managers, shows how organizations can improve IT efficiency and
reduce operating costs by adopting core infrastructure best practices designed to optimize the server environment.



Infrastructure Optimization
Engaging with Microsoft and its partners helps organizations consider how best to plan and make IT investments, establish
the appropriate IO level, and reduce IT operations costs. To support this effort, Microsoft has developed the Core IO Model.
This model can help organizations understand where they are today in terms of IT efficiency, what they need to do to
improve this efficiency, and optimize their IT infrastructure.

Core Infrastructure Optimization Model
Microsoft developed the Core IO Model to characterize levels of IT efficiency organizations can achieve by delivering core
infrastructure services more efficiently. Four different levels of IT operations efficiency (IO levels) are assigned to specific
technology capabilities that can advance IT efficiency and reduce IT operations and maintenance costs. These levels are:
basic, standardized, rationalized, and dynamic. These IO levels indicate how efficiently IT services are delivered within
specific workloads. The higher an organization’s optimization status, the more efficient its IT organization, and generally, the
lower the costs of IT services delivered.

Infrastructure Optimization Can Make IT
Operations More Efficient
Infrastructure optimization models provide a powerful way to
assess current IT efficiency and guide future IT investments.

Basic Standardized Rationalized Dynamic

Uncoordinated Managed IT Managed and Fully automated
manual infrastructure consolidated IT management,
infrastructure with limited infrastructure with dynamic resource
automation maximum usage, business-
automation linked SLAs

Cost Center Most Efficient Business Strategic Asset
Cost Center Enabler

To better assess an organization’s current IO level and identify areas for improvement, the Core IO Model is divided
into different capabilities. Core IO capability areas include identity and access management; desktop, device, and server
management; security and networking; data protection and recovery; and IT and security management. This paper looks
at best practices related to each of these capabilities to identify and quantify their impact on the availability and costs of
operating core server workloads.

Core Infrastructure Best Practices
Identifying and adopting Core IO best practices is a powerful way for organizations to reduce IT operations costs, improve
IT service levels, and increase the agility of their IT infrastructure. Previous studies have documented the strong connection
between best practices adopted and benefits such as desktop support and PC user cost savings. This paper describes the
less well known connection between the adoption of server-related best practices and associated benefits in terms of the
availability and the cost of running core server workloads.


The Study
This paper summarizes the results of a multi-phase, Microsoft-sponsored study of core infrastructure best practices and
their impact on key server workloads.

The study was designed and managed by a team of Microsoft specialists, who investigate costs in the IT environment
and inform Microsoft product development teams about features and functionality that can help organizations reduce IT
operations costs. The first, qualitative phase of the study analyzed a small group of companies to identify a set of practices
used to manage core server workloads.

In 2007, the team engaged the research firm, Hansa/GCR, to perform Phase 2 quantitative research. This phase analyzed
the practices identified in Phase 1 and quantified their impact on the availability and ongoing IT operations costs of core
server workloads.

IT managers and data center administrators at 850 organizations responded to the survey, on which the Phase 2 study was
based. Of these respondents, 162 organizations provided enough detail (cost, quality of service, and efficiency metrics) and
insight into the workloads and related core infrastructure practices to validate study results.

The study investigated the connection between adoption of specific core infrastructure best practices and IT operations
performance in six common server workloads. Each practice examined was mapped to an IO level in the Core IO Model to
help determine each participating organization’s IO level for specific workloads.

Server Infrastructure Workloads
The study focused on six server infrastructure workloads that are essential to keeping organizations up and running. These
workloads include:

• Collaboration

• Data management

• Identity and access

• Email

• Connectivity

• Print

These server workloads were analyzed from a core IO perspective; practices analyzed in the study were related to
managing and running each server workload rather than specific workload activities. Although the practices described in
the summaries that follow were common across three or more workloads, they had different effects on IT labor costs and
workload availability, depending on the workload.



Collaboration Workload
The collaboration workload includes practices undertaken in enterprise content management, Web content management,
document storage and search, document workflows, social networking, and project tracking.

Collaboration Workload: Benefits of Core Infrastructure Optimization
IT organizations managing collaboration servers at the rational IO level achieved far greater benefits than those operating
at basic and standardized levels. By being able to automate cluster server management and other routine management
tasks, rationalized organizations experienced significantly lower per-server IT labor effort and costs.

Rules-based core infrastructure tools and standardized, pre-scheduled maintenance contributed to the greater availability
that standardized IT organizations experienced. Rationalized IT organizations were able to reduce the impact of system
downtime further through automated patch deployment and by leveraging the failover protection of server clustering and
rollover capabilities.

Collaboration Workload: Higher
Core IO Level Means Lower IT Costs,
More Availability
Organizations adopting more core infrastructure best practices had more efficient
server management and significantly lower IT labor costs than those that did not.

Basic Standardized Rationalized

IT Labor Costs per
User per Year $89.68 $67.3 $1.24

Servers per IT FTE 4.6 10.8 91.8

IT Labor Costs per
Server per Year $23,807 $10,163 $1,201

Downtime per Server
per Year (Hours) 3.02 0.81 0.31

Collaboration Workload: Core Infrastructure Best Practices
In this workload, core infrastructure practices had a significant impact on IT operations costs. Collaboration is one of the
more recently implemented core server workloads. Nevertheless, organizations, that see clear value in adopting core
infrastructure best practices are doing so rapidly.

• High-impact practices: The 47% of study participants who use server clusters spent $24,000 per server less in annual
IT labor costs than those that did not adopt this best practice. Most of this difference is related to greater efficiency
gained through managing collaboration databases in this deployment model. The best practice of automated
provisioning, patching, and deployment also yielded significant IT labor cost savings.

• Widely adopted practices. The use of thresholding of basic performance parameters, regular operating system
maintenance, and using standardized images had effects on IT labor costs ranging from $15,000 to $18,000 per
server. These practices enable greater efficiencies through automation, rules-based monitoring, and standardized
maintenance practices.


• Practices with lower adoption rates. Five practices (integration of automated trouble handling, integration with
predictive maintenance database, automated integration with systems management, automated deployment, and
integration with centralized identification and metadata store) are examples of collaboration practices that were
seldom adopted. However, these practices were associated with lower IT labor costs valued at $11,000 to $17,000 per
server. These best practices support automated system monitoring, deployment, and problem response capabilities
that identify critical issues and root causes with a minimal IT staff intervention.

Collaboration Workload: Server
Clustering, Automation Provide
Robust Benefits
Core infrastructure best practices are directly related to lower costs, valued up to
$24,000 per server.

$25,000
Server Clustering
Automated Provisioning
Reduction in IT Labor Costs

Automated
Deployment Automated Patch-Deployment Rollback
$20,000 Process
per Server per Year

Integration with Predictive Operating System
Maintenance Database Maintenance
Thresholding of Basic
$15,000 Parameters Standardized Images

Integration with Central
ID/Metadata Store
$10.000
Automated Integration
Integrated with Systems Management Integrated with Main Trouble
Trouble Handling Handling Infrastructure

$5,000 Standardized Security
Process
Automated Backup
$-

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70%

Participant Adoption of Best Practices

Standardized Practices Rationalized / Dynamic Practices

Note: Best Practice graphs show the difference in labor costs per server per year for participants who had
implemented a best practice compared to those who had not. Values are not cumulative.

Data Management Workload
The data management workload includes practices undertaken in managing data management and file sharing servers in
the IT organization.

Data Management Workload: Benefits of Core Infrastructure Optimization
IT organizations managing data management servers at the rational IO level incurred 63% lower per-server operations costs
and managed approximately 3 times more servers per administrator than those operating at the basic level. Automated
server virtualization, deployment, and security processes contribute to lower IT staff effort, which relates to lower costs and
higher per-server FTE efficiency.

Data management availability at organizations with a standardized level of core IO availability was higher than that of
organizations at the basic IO level. However, data management availability of rationalized organizations was slightly
lower than that at standardized IT operations. This anomaly may be due to the fact that key rationalized practices are
implemented for other benefits, such 248 Rickenbacker Circle, Livermore, CA 94551
Lanlogic as cost efficiency or increased agility. 888-LANLOGIC


Data Management Workload: Core
Infrastructure Best Practices Drive
Down IT Costs Significantly
Efficient processes, integrated toolset help minimize administrator effort.


IT Labor Costs per
User per Year $58.7 $30.56 $3.81


IT Labor Costs per
Server per Year $3,094 $2,381 $1,143

Downtime per Server
per Year (Hours) 1.20 0.63 0.96

Data Management Workload: Core Infrastructure Best Practices
In this workload, two trends were apparent: the clear benefit of virtualizing data management workloads and the low
adoption rates of automated management practices, despite measurable benefits.

Data Management Workload: Automated
Processes Are Beneficial But Underutilized
Automated processes reduce IT staff effort and contribute to three-fold increase
servers managed per FTE.

$2,500
Virtualization
Utilized

$2,000
Automated Deployment
per Server per Year

Integration with Central Process
ID/Metadata Store Integration with Intrusion
Detection System
$1,500
Automated Integration
System Management Standardized Process
Automated for Server Adds Moves
Provisioning and Changes
$1,000
Integration with Predictive
Maintenance Database Thresholding of
Advanced Parameters
$500
Automated Restore Thresholding of Basic
Parameters

$-

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60%





• High-impact practices. Server virtualization enables organizations to reduce their hardware footprint, save on
utilities costs, and (where systems management is used) reduce IT labor costs. These savings are reflected in an annual
$2,300 per-server difference in IT labor costs at organizations that adopt the practice compared to those who don’t.
Automation also factors in heavily; by automating the creation, conversion, and management of virtual servers, the
IT staff can assign resources dynamically, improving server utilization rates and saving hardware, power consumption,
and other IT costs.

• Widely adopted practices: Two widely adopted standardized best practices delivered value to study participants in
this workload. Standardizing the process for adding, moving, or changing data management servers helps ensure that
only proven, efficient procedures are used to perform these routine tasks. This practice, which helps IT organizations
avoid rework or system downtime, had an annual $1,400 per server impact on IT labor costs. Thresholding of basic
parameters, a rules-based monitoring practice, had a $700 per server impact on annual IT labor costs.

• Practices with lower adoption rates. Only 17% of study participants integrated automated systems management
with a predictive maintenance database, but those that did experienced $1,100 per server less in IT labor costs than
organizations that did not. These savings are based on having pre-defined rules and actions that are triggered by
system events and by automated monitoring and management tools.

Identity and Access Workload
The identity and access (IDA) workload includes practices undertaken in managing identity and access servers in a
corporate IT organization. Identity and access management includes supporting servers that provide Lightweight Directory
Access Protocol (LDAP) or Microsoft Active Directory® services.

Identity and Access Workload: Benefits of Core Infrastructure Optimization
In this workload, organizations with rationalized operations showed significant differences in terms of per-user and per-
server IT labor costs.

Identity & Access Workload: Best
Practices Help Reduce IT Labor Costs
by Up to 80%
Standard hardware, imaging, and operating system maintenance reduce IT
staff effort and related per-user costs.


IT Labor Costs per
User per Year $20.14 $4.91 $3.91


IT Labor Costs per
Server per Year $2,083 $1,869 $1,339

Downtime per Server
per Year (Hours) 1.89 0.35 0.35



Server availability provided by standardized and rationalized operations was virtually the same. This is because, in the IDA
workload, availability improvements are mostly associated with combining more efficient processes and an integrated
toolset. Capabilities that these practices support minimize the time that servers are offline while data center administrators
troubleshoot problems, change server hardware, and maintain the network.

Identity and Access Workload: Core Infrastructure Best Practices
Because the post-installation environment of IDA servers requires relatively little management and maintenance,
operations costs are low, and the impact of best practice implementation on the workload is limited. However, IDA
capabilities such as single sign-on, automated provisioning, or integration with a central identity (ID) metadata store are
the foundation of other core infrastructure best practices. As a result, best practice adoption for this workload has a positive
effect on other workloads.

• High-impact practices. Server clustering provides the redundancy and recovery capabilities that reduce the risk
of interrupted IDA workloads. The automated provisioning functions of server clustering reduce response time
and IT staff effort.

• Widely adopted practices: Four widely adopted standardized best practices (standardized hardware, new and
additional standardized images, and operating system maintenance) streamline routine IT tasks. These practices
decrease the number of core software configurations that the IT staff must deploy and support. These best practices
had an impact on IT labor costs that ranged from $140 to $200 per server.

• Practices with lower adoption rates. Automated trouble handling and automated deployment practices contributed
to IT cost savings, but both had low adoption rates (less than 30%). These practices minimize IT staff effort and costs
by providing pre-defined process workflows that automate responses to trouble event triggers and by providing a fully
defined, scripted, and tested deployment process.

Identity & Access Workload: Imaging and
Clustering Best Practices Streamline Routine
IT Administration Tasks
Benefits of an optimized identity and access service are also realized in other workloads.

$250

Server Clustering

Integrated with Main Trouble
$200 Handling Infrastructure Standardized
per Server per Year

Standardized Images New
Operating System Hardware
$150 Maintenance
Standardized Images
Load Balancing Within Add Capacity
Service-Cluster
Automated Server Imaging or
$100 Deployment Cloning
Process
Automated Standardized Process for
Trouble Handling Server Adds, Moves, and
$50
Changes

Virtualization Utilized
$-

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70%





Email Workload
The email workload includes the practices required to manage email server software and ensure the quality and
responsiveness of email messaging services.

Email Workload: Benefits of Core Infrastructure Optimization
Server consolidation through virtualization and automated server deployment, feedback, and reporting made contributions
to reduce the cost of IT operations for study participants at the rationalized IO level. Automated trouble handling, server
operating system maintenance, and automated feedback and reporting capabilities contributed to improved availability at
rationalized organizations:

Email Workload: Virtualization and
Automated Processes Enable Eight-Fold
Decrease in Downtime
Automated trouble handling, deployment, and feedback and reporting help
minimize the time that servers are offline.


IT Labor Costs per
User per Year $36.21 $22.67 $9.06


IT Labor Costs per
Server per Year $15,045 $10,950 $6,285

Downtime per Server
per Year (Hours) 9.42 1.13 0.73

Email Workload: Core Infrastructure Best Practices
Email is another mission-critical workload that is relatively complex from an IT operations point of view. As a result, email
operations tend to be expensive, and best practice adoption can have a major impact on IT labor costs.

• High-impact best practices. Several automation-related best practices prove highly beneficial to email workload
management. For example, automated server deployment uses a fully defined, scripted, and tested deployment
process, which can be engaged whenever it is needed, with minimal customization. IT departments adopting this
practice avoid $9,000 in IT labor costs per server by automating formerly manual setup and installation tasks.

• Widely adopted best practices. Several best practices such as load balancing with server clusters, thresholding of
advanced parameters, and automated patch testing had relatively high adoption rates but relatively low impact on
costs. These practices had IT labor cost impacts ranging from $1,000 to $3,500 per server annually.

• Practices with lower adoption rates. Automated trouble handling provides a pre-defined workflow that minimizes
manual responses to network trouble alerts. The ability to reduce IT intervention to solve network problems helped
organizations adopting this practice to spend $8,000 per server less in IT labor cost than those that did not.



Email Workload: Best Practices Have
Big Impact on Operational Costs
Virtual servers can have a big impact, but only when servers can be virtualized.

$16,000
Virtualization Utilized

$14,000

$12,000
per Server per Year

$10,000
Automated Deployment Process
$8,000 Automated Trouble
Handling Automated Feedback and Reporting
Server Imaging or Cloning
$6,000

Single Sign-On
Operating System
$4,000 Maintenance Load Balancing
Integrated with Vendor Within
Integration with Central QA Infrastructure Service/Cluster
$2,000 ID/Metadata Store Thresholding
of Advanced Automated
Parameters Patch Testing
$-

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70%



Connectivity Workload
The connectivity workload provides connectivity-related services such as Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP),
Domain Name System (DNS), and Microsoft® Windows® Internet Name Service (WINS).

Connectivity Workload: Benefits of Core Infrastructure Optimization
In this workload, software imaging and cloning had a substantial effect on IT costs and availability. The time and cost
savings of more efficient provisioning, patch testing, and storage management further reduced IT operations costs for
organizations with a rationalized infrastructure.

Workload availability changed only a little across IO levels. Availability among rationalized organizations was slightly
lower than that of standardized groups. This pattern, which is similar to that experienced for the data management
workload, suggests that at this IO level, availability is not the key benefit driving best practice adoption. Presumably,
the goal of increasing availability takes second place to driving down costs or better alignment of IT operations with
business requirements.



Connectivity Workload: Best Practices
Contribute to 12-fold Increase in Server
Management Efficiency
More efficient provisioning, patch testing, and storage management enable IT
staff to manage more servers per FTE.


IT Labor Costs per
User per Year $23.07 $13.02 $0.96


IT Labor Costs per
Server per Year $3,753 $933 $301

Downtime per Server
per Year (Hours) 1.10 0.96 1.04

Connectivity Workload: Core Infrastructure Best Practices
Connectivity is also another relatively mature workload. Best practices are generally well adopted and have less impact on
IT operations costs than in collaboration and email workloads.

Connectivity Workload: Organizations
Spend up to $3,500 Less per Server
by Adopting Best Practices
Automating management tasks provides significant operational cost savings.
$4,000

Automated Provisioning
$3,500
Automated Patch Testing Hierarchical Storage
Management

$3,000
per Server per Year

$2,500
Automated Virtualization
Decommissioning Utilized
$2,000 Software Imaging
or Cloning
Out-of-Band Management Server Imaging or Cloning
$1,500
Server Clustering
Integration with Central
$1,000 ID/Metadata Store Standardized
Security Process
$500 Automated Integration
Automated Restore with Systems
Application/Service Operating System
Management Maintenance
Maintenance
$-

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70%





• High-impact best practices. Automated provisioning yields the highest IT labor cost savings in the connectivity
workload. The 30% of organizations that had adopted this best practice spent $3,500 less in annual per-server IT labor
costs than those that had not adopted it. Patch testing provides a standard, pre-defined process workflow that tests
security updates before full-scale production deployment occurs. Automating this process eliminates formerly manual
testing processes and reduces the IT staff effort (and related labor costs) of managing security updates. Organizations
that had adopted this practice spent $3,200 per server less in IT labor costs than those that had not adopted it.

• Widely adopted practices. Operating system maintenance, server virtualization, server imaging or cloning, and
server clustering, all widely adopted best practices, enable organizations to scale and adapt the workload on demand.
In addition to their impact on costs, these practices also help improve workload availability.

• Practices with lower adoption rates. In this workload, a variety of best practices including out-of-band management
and automated restore were under-utilized. The automated restore best practice reduces the business impact of
data loss by ensuring that intellectual property and other vital data are always protected. This best practice enables
IT organizations to consistently restore data according to established business and IT policies. Organizations
implementing this practice paid roughly $500 less per server in annual IT labor costs than those that did not.

Print Management Workload
The print workload includes practices required for print server management in a corporate IT organization. Activities
include management of printer server hardware and software and ensuring the quality and responsiveness of print services.

Print Management Workload: Benefits of Core Infrastructure Optimization

Efficiencies enabled by standardized images and practices enabled standardized IT organizations to manage twice the
number of servers per administrator than those operating at the basic level. Standardized practices such as automated
backup and standardized images enabled IT organizations in this workload to minimize the time that servers are
offline for repairs.

Print Workload: Server Management
Efficiency Doubles, Availability Soars
However, many best practices are seldom adopted.


IT Labor Costs per
User per Year $19.78 $11.97 -

Servers per IT FTE 40.4 87.5 -

IT Labor Costs per
Server per Year $2,730 $1,259 -

Downtime per Server
per Year (Hours) 1.60 0.21 -



Print Management Workload: Core Infrastructure Best Practices
Study results showed that in the print management workload, there are clear benefits to optimizing the management of
print servers. But surprisingly few participating organizations sought to achieve these benefits by adopting best practices.

Although organizations adopted some rationalized best practices in this workload, none of the organizations ran their
print operations at a rationalized level overall. This is reflected in the generally low adoption of print server management
practices. Ten of the 13 best most frequently adopted practices in this workload (and all rationalized practices) have
adoption rates less than 30%.

• High-impact practices. The standardized images practice streamlines server management by reducing the core
software configurations that IT professionals must deploy and support. This practice has a $3,200 per server IT labor
cost impact associated with updating and maintaining images.

• Widely adopted practices. Of the print server management practices with a higher-than-30% adoption rate,
standardized imaging, standardized hardware, and automated backup practices have the biggest impact on IT labor
costs. By streamlining routine, formerly manual IT tasks, these practices have an impact on IT costs valued from $1,000
to $3,200 per server.

• Practices with lower adoption rates. Many of the more typical management and automation best practices have
lower adoption rates in the print workload. Of the 10 practices in this workload with adoption rates less than 30%, the
standardized security process and application and service maintenance practices have the biggest impact on IT costs.
These practices, which provide a formalized approach to security and ensure that IT core workloads meet defined
service levels, are associated with IT labor costs valued at $3,200 and $2,700 respectively per server.

Print Workload: Best Practices Offer Big
Potential Cost Savings
Most print-related best practices were seldom adopted. Organizations that did adopt
them spend $1,000 to $3,200 less than organizations that did not.

$4,000

$3,500
Standardized
Security Process Standardized Images
Integrated

$3,000 Integration with Add Capacity
with Trouble
Handling Predictive
Maintenance Application/Service
Infrastructure
per Server per Year

Database Maintenance
$2,500 Standardized
Integration with Central Hardware
ID/Metadata Store
$2,000
Automated
Integration Automated Software Imaging or Cloning
$1,500 with Systems Deployment Thresholding of Basic
Management Process Parameters
Automated Backup
$1,000 Server Imaging
or Cloning

$500

$-

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60%





Delivering Best Practices with Microsoft Solutions
Microsoft solutions deliver unified management and security capabilities into its core infrastructure solutions. These
solutions, which make best practice adoption and core infrastructure optimization possible, include:

• Configuration management. Provides comprehensive set of systems management tools that assess, deploy, and
update servers across physical, virtual, distributed, and mobile environments.

• End-to-end monitoring. Enables operations and data center administrators to identify and resolve issues affecting
health of distributed IT services.

• Identity management. Provides identity synchronization, certificate and password management, and user
provisioning in a single solution that works across Microsoft Windows and other organizational systems.

• Data protection and recovery. Provides continuous data protection for Windows application and file servers.

• Security and compliance. Includes a comprehensive line of business security solutions that provide greater protection
and control through integration with existing IT infrastructure.

Data center administrators using Microsoft core infrastructure management solutions can leverage these capabilities and
use their, familiar, consistent Microsoft systems management environment and skills set to reduce IT effort and related costs.



Configuration Management Solution
Microsoft provides a solution that helps data center managers support fewer physical machines and deal with the
increasing number of servers and applications deployed in the data center. The Microsoft configuration management
solution:

• Automates server provisioning and updates by centralizing the management of physical and virtual server software
deployments in the data center.

• Consolidates physical servers by converting, provisioning, and managing virtual machines.

The solution helps to reduce IT operations costs by reducing power consumption, optimizing IT resources, improving IT
staff efficiency, and by keeping operating systems, security software, and other applications updated.

Configuration Management Solution Enables Server
Consolidation and Centralized Management
Virtualization and systems management enable server consolidation; automated
provisioning centralizes configuration management tasks.
Best Practices

Microsoft Solution
• Automated Deployment Process Reduce IT operations costs by
automating key tasks of physical and
• Automated Patch
virtual servers:
Deployment/Rollback
• Enable automatic deployment and
• Automated Patch Testing
updates
• Operating System Maintenance
• Configure monitoring and alerts
• Server Imaging or Cloning
Reduce hardware and management
• Standardized Process for Server costs with virtualization-driven server
Adds, Moves, and Changes consolidation:
• Virtualization Utilized • Automate physical-to-virtual server
conversions
• Enable rapid provisioning
• Extend unified management
approach to VMware
• Extend unified management
approach to VMware investment

Microsoft Configuration Management Products
The Microsoft configuration management solution uses these products, which provide automated virtualization,
provisioning, and update capabilities:

• System Center Configuration Manager 2007 R2, which comprehensively assesses, deploys, and updates servers,
client computers, and devices.

• System Center Virtual Machine Manager 2008, which enables organizations to configure and deploy new virtual
machines and centrally manage physical and virtual infrastructure from one console.

• Windows Server® 2008 Solution Accelerators, which include proven guidance and automated tools that enable
organizations to assess hardware and deploy and securely operate Windows Server 2008.



End-to-End Monitoring Solution
Microsoft’s end-to-end monitoring solution enables data center administrators to monitor the entire enterprise application
environment, regardless of its complexity, and identify potential problems that affect business process and workflow. The
solution supports:

• End-to-end service management that is easy to customize and extend.

• Best-of-breed solution for Windows built on expertise from the Microsoft server, client, and application teams.

• Increased efficiency and control capabilities, which automate routine, redundant tasks and provide intelligent
reporting and monitoring.

End-to-End Monitoring Solution Maximizes
Uptime and Service Responsiveness
Automated management and trouble handling and integrated controls enable end-to-end
monitoring of enterprise server environment.
Best Practices

• Automated Feedback and Reporting Microsoft Solution Reduce maintenance costs and
downtime with automated
• Thresholding of Parameters
monitoring capabilities:
• Automated Integration with Systems
• Monitor applications and
Management
services proactively
• Automated Trouble Handling
• Enable end-to-end monitoring
• Integrated with Main Trouble across operating systems,
Handling Infrastructure virtual hypervisor environments,
• Integrated with Vendor QA and servers
Infrastructure • Extend monitoring to desired
• Integrated with Predictive configuration management and
Maintenance Database security event reporting

This solution uses an open and extensible platform that helps to ensure that IT services, applications, and servers run
smoothly and meet service levels to maximize uptime and responsiveness.

Microsoft End-to-End Monitoring Products
The Microsoft end-to-end monitoring solution uses these products to provide automated alerts, trouble handling, and
feedback and reporting capabilities across operating systems in virtual and physical server environments:

• System Center Operations Manager, which provides end-to-end service management that helps organizations
increase IT efficiency and enables greater control of the IT infrastructure.


• Windows Server 2008 Solution Accelerators, which include proven guidance and automated tools that enable


Identity Management Solution
Microsoft’s identity management solution provides an integrated and comprehensive solution for managing the entire
lifecycle of user identities and their associated credentials. It provides identity synchronization, certificate and password
management, and user provisioning in a single solution that works across Windows and heterogeneous systems.

The next version of the solution enables comprehensive identity and access management in the enterprise, delivering
an integrated identity management solution that serves IT professionals, end users, and developers. The new solution
provides powerful self-service capabilities for Office end-users, rich administrative tools and enhanced automation for IT
professionals, and extensibility for developers.
The solution includes:
• A single view of digital identities across multiple identity systems.

• Automated user provisioning, which synchronizes identities and passwords across a wide range of directories,
databases, and proprietary identity systems.

Identity Management Solution Reduces Effort and
Costs of Access and Credentials Management
Automated authentication, provisioning, and decommissioning reduce costs of managing
the identity and access life cycle.
Best Practices

Microsoft Solution

Integration with Central • Synchronize identities and
ID/Metadata Store passwords
Single Sign-On • Automate account provisioning
Automated Provisioning • Provide self-service access
Automated Decommissioning management, user profiles, and
authentication
• Manage workflow with Microsoft
Office and SharePoint Server

Automating provisioning to these applications provides users with immediate access to intranet and extranet resources such
as content, files, and workspaces.

Microsoft Identity Management Products
The Microsoft identity management solution includes these products, which provide automated provisioning,
authentication, and de-commissioning capabilities:



• Identity Lifecycle Manager 2007 Feature Pack 1, which uses the automation of common tasks to reduce the cost
of managing the identity and access life cycle by providing a single view of a user’s identity across heterogeneous
computing environments.


Data Protection and Recovery Solution
The Microsoft data protection and recovery solution delivers data protection, recovery, and reliability capabilities of physical
and virtual servers and applications. This solution helps to ensure:

• Business continuity through server virtualization, which enables quick restoration of virtual machines in case of
failure. Virtualization technology supports rapid recovery of virtual machines’ operating system state.

• Backup and restore capability by recovering mission-critical enterprise data and data center physical and virtual
environment after a power outage, data loss, or file corruption problem. This capability, which supports the backup of
Windows Server machines and Windows applications, enables file recovery in minutes rather than hours.

Data Protection and Recovery Solution Promotes
Business Continuity and Workload Availability
Automated backup, recovery, and restore capabilities simplify workload management and
maximizes uptime.
Best Practices

Microsoft Solution

• Automated Archiving of Content Reduce costs of Microsoft application
recover and restore in physical and
• Automated Backup
virtual environments.:
• Automated Restore
• Centralize automatic backup and
• Hierarchical Storage Management restore
• Recovery Automation • Back up to disk for faster restore and
self-service end-user file recovery
• Reduce business cost impact with
business continuity solution and
server virtualization management
• Enable high availability and business
continuity with virtual stand-ins

Implementing the data protection and recovery solution simplifies storage management, improves system availability, and
makes IT workloads more responsive.

Microsoft Data Protection and Recovery Products
The Microsoft data protection and recovery solution includes these products, which provide server virtualization,
centralized backup, and restore capabilities:



• System Center Data Protection Manager 2007, which delivers continuous data protection for Microsoft application
and file servers by using seamlessly integrated disk and tape media.



Security and Compliance Solution
Microsoft’s security and compliance solution helps data center managers maintain internal and external standards by
staying current with business policies and regulatory requirements.

The solution accomplishes this by providing:

• Easy-to-use configuration controls and a comprehensive collection of security events. A console dashboard
and reporting tools in the solution help data center administrators understand and control the state of their server
configuration against both regulations and best practices.

• Integrated secure messaging and collaboration capabilities for mission-critical servers. The solution provides
comprehensive malware and SPAM protection that eliminates single points of failure with a multi-engine architecture.

Security and Compliance Solution Reduces Business
Impact of Security, Compliance Challenges
Automated detection, decommissioning, and trouble handling reduce effort and cost of
security and compliance management.
Best Practices

Microsoft Solution

• Automated System Isolation Reduce compliance costs by
enforcing configuration controls
• Automated System
and reporting:
Reconfiguration
• Manage server requirements to
• Integration with Intrusion Detection
meet compliance standards
System
• Back up to disk for faster
• Out-of-Band Management
restore and self-service
• Standardized Security Process end-user file recovery
• Ability to Decommission Without • Automate consolidation
Downtime and reporting
• Support comprehensive security
and identity access management
• Enable layered server application
security

This solution, which offers comprehensive, integrated, and easy-to-manage security for server and edge protection, can
reduce the business impact of changing security challenges and the costs of security-related systems management.



Microsoft Security and Compliance Products
The Microsoft security and compliance solution uses these products to support security and compliance standards:

• Microsoft Forefront™ Suite, which helps provide protection for server operating systems, application servers, and the
network edge.

• System Center Configuration Manager 2007 R2, which comprehensively assesses, deploys, and updates servers,
client computers, and devices across physical, virtual, distributed, and mobile environments.

• System Center Operations Manager, which provides end-to-end service management that helps organizations
increase IT efficiency and enables greater control of the IT infrastructure.

• IT Governance and Compliance Solution Accelerators, which provide free guidance and tools to manage
compliance infrastructure and to institute sound principles of IT service governance.

• Security Solution Accelerators, which provide free, authoritative resources to help organizations proactively plan,
integrate, and operate their security infrastructure.



Conclusions and Next Steps
The study findings suggest that, as the number of best practices adopted increases, IT organizations stand to gain
exponentially, not just in terms of reducing ongoing costs or increasing server availability but by being able to reallocate
the IT resources saved to new projects designed to deliver new capabilities to the business.

While the impact of each best practice varies according to workload, there are a number of broad conclusions that can be
drawn from the study.

• Best practices provide tangible benefits. Although the benefits of best practice adoption vary widely across
workloads, they are real and quantifiable.

• The more practices adopted, the greater the value of benefits. Organizations operating at the rationalized IO level
tended to realize higher-value benefits than those operating at lower levels. As organizations adopt more and more
best practices, their IO level advances, their IT efficiency increases, and the value of the benefits achieved increases.

• Benefits are accessible to any organization. Organizations operating at any IO level can drive cost savings now by
adopting core infrastructure best practices. Study results show that best practice adoption has an increasingly positive
effect on IT costs and server availability for organizations operating at basic, standardized, and rationalized IO levels.

• Microsoft solutions support and enable best practice implementation and support. Microsoft infrastructure
solutions provide core infrastructure capabilities that enable and support many of the best practices that deliver the
cost and availability benefits documented in this study.

Next Steps
• Learn more about Microsoft server infrastructure management solutions, which support best practice adoption
and core IO.

• Find out more about Microsoft Solution Accelerators. Free tools and guidance that help organizations optimize
their infrastructure are available at www.microsoft.com/infrastructure/default.mspx.

• Take an Infrastructure Optimization Assessment. Organizations can find out more about the current state of their
IT infrastructure by taking this assessment, which is available at www.microsoft.com/optimization/default.mspx.

• Meet with your Microsoft or partner representative to discuss IT operations costs and Microsoft solutions that can
help core infrastructure optimization.

IT Services, Support,
Consulting, and Outsourcing
in the San Francisco Bay
Area.
***
www.lanlogic.com



Appendix A: Study Methodology
The study documented in this white paper was commissioned by Microsoft as a blind study. The study was conducted by
Hansa/GCR, an independent analyst firm, who collected the data used.

Premise and scope. Based on detailed analysis of six core server workloads, the study was designed to determine how server
availability as well as per-server and per-user IT labor costs are affected by the adoption of core infrastructure best practices.

Participating organizations. Director-level or senior IT managers at 850 organizations were surveyed. Of these
organizations, 162 organizations were selected for the study, based on their ability to provide rich data on best practice
adoption and IT labor costs across multiple server workloads. Participating organizations were selected from a wide range
of different industries with a range of between 1,000 to 300,000 PCs. Respondents were surveyed for information on IT staff
size, budgetary responsibility, and technical knowledge of core server-related IT workloads to ensure that they qualified to
participate in the study.

The study is not platform specific, and participants were selected regardless of the brands of products they deployed in
their server environment.

Data assumptions. Value metrics for each server workload (per-user IT labor costs, per-server IT labor costs, IT staff
efficiency, and server availability) were mapped to the core infrastructure practices implemented on each server workload
to determine the most beneficial practices per workload.

Percentage of best practice adoption per workload was used to determine which organizations were operating at the basic,
standardized or rationalized levels of the Core IO Model.

Cost savings indicated in best practices graphs compare the IT labor costs per server per year for organizations that had
adopted a particular practice with the costs for those that had not.

(Note: The best practice graphs only include the practices associated with the highest cost savings for each server workload
and a net improvement in server availability.)

The following hypotheses were proposed:

• Core infrastructure practices that have a positive impact on a given workload will reduce the per-user and per-server IT
labor costs needed to manage and support the service provided by that workload.

• Core infrastructure practices that have a positive impact on a given workload will increase server availability by reducing
the occurrence of downtime and reducing the number of hours required to recover from a downtime incident.



Appendix B: Core Infrastructure Optimization
The Core IO Model has been developed using industry best practices and Microsoft experience with enterprise customers.
A key goal for Microsoft in creating the Core IO Model was to develop a flexible, easy-to-use framework that can be used
as the benchmark to determine technical capabilities and business value.

The following table characterizes the Core IO Model by the IT and business capabilities of organizations operating at each
of four levels.

IO Model Level IO Model Level Descriptions
• Most IT resources are used to keep IT functioning with reactive management.
• Systems are complex, incompatible, and expensive; they do not provide services throughout
Basic
the organization.
• Organizations use few IT policies and automated processes.

• Organizations run somewhat effective, centralized IT departments.
• IT systems, which remain complex, incompatible, and expensive, run as stand-alone operations.
Standardized
• Basic automation is provided by a centralized IT department.
• Pockets of automated services exist in business units.

• Organizations run somewhat effective, centralized IT departments.
• IT systems, which remain complex, incompatible, and expensive, run as stand-alone operations.
Rationalized
• Basic automation is provided by a centralized IT department.
• Pockets of automated services exist in business units.

• Cost savings are secondary to maximizing business agility, which is a source of
competitive advantage.
• Some decision making is decentralized to bring decisions closer to business processes.
Dynamic
• IT systems are highly automated, flexible and responsive to changing business conditions.
• Organizations might choose not to implement specific best practices because they
reduce business agility.

More information about Microsoft IO models is available at www.microsoft.com/optimization.



Appendix C: The 31 Server-Related Best Practices
The study identified 31 core infrastructure practices that had positive effects on IT labor costs and availability across
multiple workloads. These practices are grouped by levels of the Core IO Model.

Standardized Practices
Best Practice Description
Ongoing, automated backup capabilities—with the ability to consistently back up data according to
established business and IT policies—reduces business risk by ensuring that intellectual property and
Automated backup
other vital data are always centrally protected. This practice also reduces the staff time needed to
recover data on an ad hoc basis.

Ability to consistently restore data according to established business and IT policies reduces business
Automated restore risk by ensuring that intellectual property and other vital data are always centrally protected. This
practice also reduces the staff time needed to recover data on an ad hoc basis.

The activities undertaken within in pre-defined change windows to ensure core IT services meet
Operating system maintenance
defined service levels for the organization.

Use of fully prepared software environment sourced from a reference system to rapidly provide new
Software imaging or cloning
images or clones of standard systems on demand.

Standardized process for server adds,
Standardized process for server adds, moves and changes.
moves, and changes

Deploying a uniform set of hardware platforms that can be monitored and managed using a common
Standardized hardware set of management tools, consoles, and processes reduces IT labor costs by minimizing the amount of
time and training needed to maintain the systems.

Enforcing use of a limited number of approved software images streamlines IT staff effort by reducing
Standardized images
the core software configurations that staff members must deploy and support. Standardization also
add capacity
reduces resource costs associated with patching and maintaining images.

Use of core management tools capabilities to monitor the system state and performance. Uses core
Thresholding of basic parameters
relationship state rules and capabilities.

Rationalized Practices
Uses a fully defined, scripted, and tested deployment process that is enabled by request. Limited
Automated deployment process
variable changes are required.

Embedded monitoring agents, state management tools, and capabilities within standard images
Automated integration with systems
that are pre-configured for immediate use. Practice is based on use of service model distilled into
management
actionable components such as monitors and tasks.

Automated patch testing Pre-defined process workflow that automates patch testing before a production release.

A systematic method of validating, targeting, and distributing security updates reduces business risk
Automated patch deployment/ rollback by ensuring that all systems remain in compliance with standard images and security update levels.
Automation also reduces staff costs by eliminating the need for manual updates.

Pre-defined process that automates system quarantine in event of a security event or failure that
Automated system isolation
violates pre-determined risk levels.

Automated trouble handling Pre-defined process workflow that automates responses to production issue triggers.

Automatically shifting data to the most cost-effective storage instance reduces the cost of data storage
Hierarchical storage management and improves business continuity, helps to increase security and data protection, and enhances data
recovery capabilities.



Rationalized Practices (continued)
Integrated with main trouble handling Formal event triggers that are mapped to system management software for generation of alerts in the
infrastructure event of a security event or failure. This practice supports a prescriptive maintenance workflow.

Integrated with vendor QA infrastructure Pre-defined systems management processes integrated with vendor QA procedures.

Integration with intrusion detection Formal event triggers mapped to system management software for generation of alerts in the event of
system a security event or failure. This practice supports a prescriptive maintenance workflow.

Automated system monitoring that alerts IT staff when predetermined criteria are met reduces the
Integration with predictive maintenance
time needed to identify critical issues and isolate root causes. Automation also helps maintain service
database
levels by initiating diagnostics and repairs before users are affected by the problem.

Clustering servers to provide system redundancy for crucial IT services reduces downtime, improves
Server clustering
service levels, and simplifies day-to-day operations, scheduled maintenance, and system upgrades.

Uses a fully prepared software environment sourced from a reference system to rapidly provide new
Server imaging or cloning
images or clones of standard systems on demand.

A formalized approach to security reduces IT staff time devoted to creating, implementing, and
Standardized security process
enforcing security policies and helps to ensure company-wide compliance.

Uses core and extended management tools capabilities to monitor system state and performance. This
Thresholding of advanced parameters
practice uses expanded relationship state rules and capabilities.

By using virtualization technology to reduce the number of physical servers providing IT services,
Virtualization utilized the IT staff can assign resources dynamically to improve utilization, which reduces physical hardware,
power consumption, and data center space requirements.

Dynamic Practices
The ability for users to trigger a process that automatically creates their own user accounts and
privileges reduces their reliance on the IT staff to perform these tasks. IT staff is freed to manage
Automated provisioning
infrastructure, not users, and users enjoy improved productivity by achieving faster access to the
accounts and permissions they need to do their jobs.

The ability to trigger a process that automatically decommissions user accounts and privileges reduces
Automated de-commissioning
reliance on the IT staff to perform these tasks. IT staff is freed to manage infrastructure, not users.

Integration with central ID/metadata Single source for identity propagated through all applications and platforms within current Service
store levels.

Problem or change management activities undertaken outside of planned maintenance window
Out of band management
timeframes to ensure IT core services meet defined service levels for the organization.

Recovery automation Pre-defined process that automates system recovery in the event of failure that requires intervention.

Single source for identity propagated through all applications and platforms within current service
Single sign-on
levels.

Pre-defined process that automates system recovery and returns to standard service levels in the event
Self healing
of failure that does not require intervention.



The information contained in this document represents the current view of Microsoft Corporation on the issues discussed as of the date of publication.
Because Microsoft must respond to changing market conditions, it should not be interpreted to be a commitment on the part of Microsoft, and Microsoft
or its respective suppliers cannot guarantee the accuracy of any information presented after the date of publication.

This white paper is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT AND ITS RESPECTIVE SUPPLIERS MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, AS TO
THE INFORMATION IN THIS DOCUMENT.

Complying with all applicable copyright laws is the responsibility of the user. Without limiting the rights under copyright, no part of this document may be
reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording,
or otherwise), or for any purpose, without the express written permission of Microsoft Corporation.

Microsoft may have patents, patent applications, trademarks, copyrights, or other intellectual property rights covering subject matter in this document.
Except as expressly provided in any written license agreement from Microsoft, the furnishing of this document does not give you any license to these
patents, trademarks, copyrights, or other intellectual property.

© 2009 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

Microsoft, Active Directory, Forefront, People Ready, Windows, and Windows Server are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corpora-
tion in the United States and/or other countries.

The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

Microsoft Corporation • One Microsoft Way • Redmond, WA 98052-6399 • USA


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