Increase In Demand example essay topic

On-Demand Computing; Fact or Fiction? What is on-demand computing? On-demand computing means IT resources (and technologies) can respond to unexpected increases in demand, and immediately deliver the additional capacity that is required. The thought is to make the delivery (and availability) of IT computing resources as promptly as that of utilities such as electricity, natural gas or water; as a service. The intentions of on-demand computing are to dynamically support IT capacity with changing business priorities, while increasing the efficiency with which IT computing resources are used which give organizations the capability to instantly acclimate its infrastructure according to the changing business environment. However, on-demand computing seems to be yet another phrase in the long list of IT buzzwords.

The major hardware vendors have their own unique strategies for it and now software companies are addressing on-demand computing. This is a new mode of delivering IT services since it is intended to deliver IT as a service. It will enable more automation in existing infrastructure management which allows the platform to be quicker to respond and to self-manage. Currently used management tools in the enterprise give technical information. Case in point, these tools report that a specific device or part of an application has failed.

However, to manage IT as a service, there needs to be much more detailed information. At present the systems do not give us detailed information about things like how many transactions or users are affected by the problem which is related to the business. But, various companies have developed tools that gather detailed information from devices and give it to the technical team and also to the users such as IBM's Tivoli or HP's OpenView suite of products. The business users will get information relevant to the business, and the technical team gets the technical details about the problem. One sticking point is that on-demand computing should not and cannot be secluded from the managed infrastructure. It should be end-to-end and not a new silo of technology within the enterprise.

It needs to be integrated with the existing way of managing the IT infrastructure and for the fiscally aware companies, it needs to have flexible licensing. On-demand computing should have components integrated as part of the infrastructure that are adaptive. Hardware manufacturers need to make the devices more intelligent to be able to identify problems. Software manufacturers need to accommodate hardware partners to enable this by providing software APIs. The device will automatically contact the help desk when there is a problem by triggering an alert by itself, reporting the failure which will then create a service-oriented architecture in the enterprise. Some of the key technology that is used in on-demand computing is the capability to automatically detect the components within the infrastructure.

It can indicate the components servicing a specific business process, or a specific application. There are three drivers for on-demand computing: 1. Number one reason is increased usage of IT. Downtime these days has much greater impact than it had a few years ago. 2. Secondly, the speed of change is increasing and technology is rapidly growing.

For example, the rate at which enterprises are adopting Linux is staggering. Wireless technology is another rapidly evolving technology that has contributed to the growth. 3. The third driver is Costs.

IT departments are scrutinized more stringently and are required to justify any new IT investment. With the added scrutiny, first thing IS managers want to know is the cost to deliver IT as a service. In addition to costs savings, other benefits of on-demand computing are increase in response time from IT. Typically, business executives would like IT to respond swiftly to an increase in demand, but without the time needed to be able to take action in time of need. On-demand computing enables the services to be delivered in a more agile way. For example, during peak shopping times, such as Christmas and Valentine's Day, the demand for products goes up.

Businesses offering online shopping need to step up their operational capacity to handle the jump in their online transactions. By using on-demand computing, additional capacity requirements can be detected and given instantly, thus resulting in a smooth customer experience. This technology is not yet established industry-wide. Currently, initiatives affect mainly hardware resources like storage and CPU utilization. Although, companies such as HP and IBM are becoming more concerned with infrastructure management, it is believed that proper management of IT infrastructure is the key to making on-demand computing a reality in the enterprise.