Responding to Growing Interest from IT Managers, LANDesk Provides a Set of Best Practices for IT Managers to Optimize Control and Create Effective Capacity Planning 

SALT LAKE CITY – June 03, 2009 – Avocent Corporation  (Nasdaq: AVCT), a global leader in IT operations management, today announced the availability of a new LANDesk white paper: “KOALA in Depth: Ownership – Foundation for Cost Accounting and Strategic Steering.” This white paper is the second installment of a comprehensive five-part series exploring in detail each of the five key elements of asset management — key costs, ownership, accountability, lifecycle status, and assignment — offering advice to IT managers who are implementing asset lifecycle management. The series uses a “cradle to grave” model to provide a thorough and practical framework to demonstrate to both IT organizations and their businesses the immediate and significant value of managing assets throughout their useable lifecycle.

The white paper details best practices and reveals asset management strategies that negotiate the boundaries of control within an organization, track budget accountability, increase strategic value, lower costs, and help create heightened capacity planning.

“With the rise of virtualization, load balancing, and other distributed processes within enterprises, commoditized hardware is now being repurposed,” said Steve Daly, executive vice president and general manager of LANDesk. “This has forced a change in the way that IT assets are purchased, allocated and maintained, and often results in ownership of the asset changing several times over its operational lifespan.”

The white paper also addresses total cost and value analytics over the full lifecycle of assets, which are commonly overlooked:

Operational Expenses Often Exceed Initial Capital Expenditure: Software renewals; hardware maintenance and repair; and ongoing operational expenses such as power, floor space and cooling typically surpass the cost of the hardware itself.

Data Residing on the Asset Is Typically More Valuable Than the Hardware: ith regulatory requirements calling for strict data segregation, security practices, and hardware encryption, the data the hardware contains is usually worth more to an organization than the actual hardware.

Data Leakage Extends Control Beyond the Datacenter: The most common way in which data is lost or corrupted is through remote access by end-user devices. With the SAAS and device-independent computing model growing at an astounding rate, data can be easily accessed though the cloud. Risk management — a combination of physical and logical access control — allows IT managers to properly track, police and prosecute policy violations to reduce costs and maintain data integrity.

“When ownership data is current and accurate, tactical and strategic decisions can be made to increase efficiencies, enhance security, properly allocate resources, and make cost-saving capacity plans,” said Daly. “This can help reduce risk while increasing overall agility and strategic responsiveness.”

To learn more or to download a free copy of the white paper “KOALA in Depth: Ownership – Foundation for Cost Accounting and Strategic Steering,” visit  www.landesk.com.

About Avocent/LANDesk
Avocent delivers IT operations management solutions that reduce operating costs, simplify management, and increase the availability of critical IT environments 24/7 via integrated, centralized software. LANDesk delivers cost-effective systems, security, and process management solutions that help IT teams automate and simplify the management of desktops, servers, and mobile devices. With long-standing partner relationships and solutions successfully deployed at leading enterprises worldwide, LANDesk continues to deliver rapid innovation and time to value to help organizations achieve their business objectives. Additional information is available at www.landesk.com.