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Special Issue--IT Automation: Best Practices: Page 14 of 14

Automated network tasks, according to one vendor, take five minutes, compared with conventional approaches taking hours. Another vendor shows savings in various server tasks ranging from 83 percent to 99 percent. It claims patching 1,800 Unix servers took only two hours, for example, versus 400 hours before its tool was used.

One indication that the ROI really is positive comes from those folks whose business absolutely depends upon running an efficient data center--the outsourcing vendors. They have been relatively early adopters of these tools. In a story from July 2006, one such company started out with an admin-to-server ratio of 1-to-20, but had by last year gotten to 1-to-150 and was planning on 1-to-400.

As always, you need to look at the total cost of ownership--including initial setup, your staff's time, and continuing maintenance--and expected time before the product can be used before you begin to estimate ROI.

Dr. Norman J. Jacknis is the first CIO of Westchester County, NY. He has had extensive experience in the private sector, most recently dealing with enterprise middleware software products. Write to him at [email protected]