Wednesday 13 June 2012

Sweaty Assets?


Ok so this is my third day in this job and already I’ve learnt so much. When you’ve been around as long as me you start to think you’re starting to have seen it all. But I haven’t, not in the least bit.

I like to think in the GIS world I was a bit of a “face”, pretty well known, that my opinion was taken note of and maybe that was the case. But I had lost sight of the fact that GIS is such a small part of the world of computing and so much has happened in that world that had passed me by.

One phrase that I have come across that I was unaware of is “Sweating the Assets”. When it was first mentioned my mind thought of me when I’ve finished a 6Km run. I have very sweaty assets then. But it appears the phrase is somewhat more above the waist than that.

Basically it’s getting the most out of your existing kit, not just IT, but any hardware that you use. Making your existing assets work as hard as possible for as long as possible before replacing them. To borrow a war time phrase “Make Do And Mend”.

Now that sounds a fine principle but how is it achieved?

If you have the expertise in house to carry out that maintenance schedule and have the time available to do that then it makes obvious sense to do that.

But what if you don’t?

A third party service that looks after it for you for a fraction of the cost?

There is going to be cost, let’s be realistic, no one is going to do it for free. But is it’s a lot less that replacing your existing IT hardware it has to make sense.

In these times of austerity and cuts it has to make sense to spend as little as possible but get the most out of not just any new investment but what you have already got.

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