Information Technology as Hidden Gold in Every Business
Every business person may not be aware of the fact that there may be a hidden goldmine of database computing capacity already resident in their Information Technology resources that simply is not being tapped to its fullest.
You know that it isn’t uncommon for your Information Technology professionals to report that your systems are at 80-90% capacity and must be upgraded to handle the next big increase in business. The upgrade and maintenance budgets for the computers and database systems that run your business no doubt represent a fairly sizable percentage of the corporate budget each year.
But because those systems are what make you competitive in the marketplace, that investment is worth the money to assure that the mission critical jobs do get done on time each week and month.
When a database driven computer begins to show signs of straining under the load of work it can be a cause of significant concern for a business. If your business paradigm dictates that the load of traffic or system resources could be pushed to beyond what the computers can do with their existing database computing power, that weakness represents a significant risk to the company.
To avoid this crises, that hidden goldmine that comes into play and into our story is a discipline that has actually been around for quite sometime but is infrequently tapped in the modern business world. That discipline is called “capacity planning”.
By implementing a database-driven capacity planning query-and-reporting systematic-monitoring function, you can put the tools and the talent in place to precisely measure scientifically as to whether your computerized Database Management System is at capacity or if there is just a need for system tuning or realignment of computing schedules to get more out of the computer and database systems you already own.
Recently a large pharmaceutical company in the Midwest noted that many of its mission critical functions were being delayed in processing, seemingly because the Database portion of computer systems were overloaded with extraneous data and in dire need of an expensive and time consuming upgrade.
Database driven capacity planning measurements were taken and the system was diagnosed to determine what the real problem was that job priorities of new database tables, reports, and query functions were not tuned to the load of the system at critical time frames.
The new database designs and database table adjustments were made by talented systems and database administrators and the Information Technology infrastructure continued to perform at top-notch capacity and the delays were eliminated with no additional hardware or upgrades needed.
By utilizing capacity planning database software tools and enabling your Information Technology team to take advantage of this highly scientific computer measurement and prediction method, the business can get the most out of its computer resources and use its corporate resources to further the business objectives of the company. And that benefits everyone.
The hidden gold mine is embedded in the concept of using Dedicated Database Management Systems as technical IT solution providers and business data providers. Any DBMS application should always include metadata tables and record layout schemas that assist administrators in capacity planning and allow your company to capitalize on the findings of the hidden Information Technology gold.
Additional gold can be found in these articles:
(1) Science
(2) Strategic Planning
(3) Organizing
Author: Tom Gruich
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