How to save your IT infrastructure costs

Here are a few ways in which you can restrict your costs;

• Move to shared services. In other words, consolidate things like help desk into one group that services the entire company.

• Don't ignore "unmanaged" costs like printers or data center power

• Eliminate unused software and modules.

• Consider buying a videoconferencing unit rather than constantly renting.

• Where possible, use the Internet as a replacement for expensive WAN transport services.

• Defer moving to Vista. If your PC hardware is holding up, consider sticking with it another year.

• Consolidate and virtualize servers.

• Reduce storage costs via data deduplication and other methods.

• Harvest unused software licenses and reuse them when a new employee makes a request.

• Deploy IP telephony and VoIP as a way of cutting costs for moves, adds and changes.