A common problem in infrastructure groups is determining the value that we provide to the organization. One common way of thinking about this is in terms of asset utilization. Messages such as “take your servers from 5% utilization to 60%” are very common in virtualization value propositions, but I do not think that capacity utilization is the correct measurement of infrastructure value. That value is derived from being able to run an application at adequate performance levels. It does not matter what the utilization is. Take the following hypothetical scenario measuring performance in CPU or memory:
Both of these systems are running the same application and provide the same benefit to the organization, but the higher utilization solution actually costs more. When thinking about it this way I think that it becomes clear that higher utilization is not a good indicator of infrastructure efficiency in providing value to the organization.
I just read Leadership and self-deception : getting out of the box and I am sure I will have to read it a few more times to have it sink in, but I like what I got out of it so far. I like that it goes beyond “don’t be selfish” to talk about the ways that a mindset can color our perceptions of other people. It hit pretty close to home for me and I am glad to have found it.
It amazes me the amount of incorrect information that is put on user forums. There are always mistakes and I have seen some posts where people realize and correct their errors. Primarily though, I see people ranting about “the correct way” when that way is not based in product knowledge, but rather on “it seemed to work”.
This reminds me of the time I went to the pet store to buy some activated charcoal after my dog ate some wild mushrooms. The box I was given was regular charcoal, but the employee assured me that it was the same thing because she had used it and her dog did not die.
Just because “it seems to work” does not mean that what you did was correct.
