Why companies are paying millions for IT assets needlessly – and what you can do about it

In my previous blog post, I explained that too many organizations have unnecessary IT assets, especially database platform related assets that have accumulated over time, in the dark corners of their data centers. In this post, I discuss the reasons why companies tend to overlook these sleeping assets—which can be worth millions.

How is it possible that companies keep paying excessive amounts for little to no value?

When a company procures new software as it grows or develops, the software often comes with one or more new database servers. Since procurement of servers and applications can take place over a long period of time with multiple stakeholders, one can see how a large part of a company’s overall server capacity can remain underutilized if not addressed through a holistic model. When you combine the underutilized server resources with the associated software licensing costs, the money can add up quickly.

Have you thought about whether this could be the case in your company? Might you have unused server resources in your data center? If you fall into this category, we have good news to share which can help you gain the most utility from your server assets while unlocking massive savings.

How to save on server asset costs

What prevents companies from achieving database server savings worth millions?

We have established that companies can save millions of dollars without compromising performance or availability by optimizing database platform resources. So why have more companies not taken advantage of this? Until recently, capacity optimization has been largely a manual process requiring a substantial commitment of time and resources.

There are two sides to every business decision. The first involves a rational cost-benefit needs analysis and solution verification. Is there a product that addresses my needs and does it deliver enough of a tangible benefit to justify purchasing it? The second aspect of a business decision involves belief. From speaking with numerous companies, we have ascertained that three limiting beliefs may be the difference between real savings for an organization and missing out on a profitable opportunity. Here they are:

Money hidden in the datacenter - unlock savings

Limiting Belief #1: “We are so busy.”

Having a lot to do is generally a good problem to have in business. The challenge is to connect the “busy activities” to results that move a company forward. “We are busy” can often be a knee-jerk reaction and cause companies to miss out on opportunities that can make a material difference in their business such as saving millions of dollars in database-server related costs.

Limiting Belief #2: “This is how we have always done it.”

Standard operating procedures and best practices should provide a good baseline for running a company but never be used as an excuse for not improving a company. Improvement can be scary because the status quo is being overhauled. Optimizing the capacity of database platforms can be seen as a risk because the architecture of the platform is being transformed. A company cannot grow and improve without changing.

In practice, the risks related to database platform consolidation also in mission critical environments can be well managed with careful planning. The owners of IT infrastructure should approach this as an opportunity instead of a risk. The money brought back as a result of the database platform consolidation can be used to fund budgets for key items necessary to grow the company. By sticking with the way things have always been done, executives may not only be missing out on a smoother operation but critical capital fuel necessary to implement new strategic initiatives such as digitalization or IoT.

Limiting Belief #3: “This can’t be done with our system.”

The third limiting belief cuts to the heart of belief itself: this is not technically possible. There may be a few exceptional situations where the database platform consolidation does not make sense—but they are very rare!

In most cases, the near automatic response is to assume that there will be technical challenges and sometimes use this as a reason for not exploring a solution. When faced with the prospect of change, projected fears tend to bubble to the surface. When this happens, it is important to quickly bring the conversation back to the facts so that decision-makers and stake-holders can get a clear picture of the risk-reward equation. Capacity optimization can be performed in different environments yielding significant savings along with an optimized database platform that is more compact and easier to manage.

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Simple steps to savings

Rarely have I come across organizations that do not need to pay ANY attention to their costs. Even companies that have highly flexible budgets want to get something in return for their money. Optimizing underutilized IT assets and putting the savings in your pocket is an excellent method for gathering funds for future projects or adding to the shareholder profit pool.

Would you like to know how we can unlock these savings for your company?

Download our guide "How your company can save with SQL Governor":

Download the guide to learn how to recuce SQL Servers