What is IT Infrastructure Transformation?

Let’s start with what IT infrastructure transformation is not. It isn’t simply buying the latest and greatest hardware and software. We’ve had decades of technological innovation in the data center, each delivering superior capability compared with the previous generation. This trend will continue and isn’t transformative; it’s business as usual. Contrary to prevailing wisdom, the cloud isn’t transformative either. Leveraging a public cloud provider, such as Amazon Web Services or Microsoft Azure, provides benefits and may feel transformative, but it isn’t enough.

At a high level, IT infrastructure transformation is all about becoming better and more efficient at allocating budget and resources to new projects and markets and making the cost of managing day-to-day infrastructure easier and cheaper. And while it addresses the full range of infrastructure components, this article predominately focuses on data storage technologies.

The following list provides some high-level goals for transformational storage infrastructure. Some of these capabilities are available today, some are more aspirational. Together, they make up a framework of what to look for to revamp your storage infrastructure for the age of digital transformation.

Immediate, or near-immediate, deployment
When new requirements arise, access to storage capacity can’t take months to get approvals and another couple of months to install. There are multiple technologies that can speed up storage infrastructure deployment, such as SDS-based converged and hyper-converged infrastructures. Another one of the fastest means of accessing new infrastructure is the adoption of public cloud resources. While the cloud isn’t always an option for every data type, it can dramatically speed up time to provision new storage.
Multi-cloud data management
Managing this new infrastructure must be automatic. Storage vendors use the term simple too often. I’ve never heard of a product referred to by its manufacturer as difficult to use. But management must not only save time, it should dramatically free up resources for other tasks while covering the scope of the resulting hybrid or, more likely, multicloud architecture. According to Enterprise Strategy Group’s research, 75% of public cloud infrastructure-as-a-service customers use multiple cloud IaaS providers. To manage this new multicloud ecosystem, you would ideally need the following:
•  a single architecture that can consolidate multiple disparate clouds;
•  the ability to automatically select and quickly employ a specific cloud service;
•  the capacity to understand and manage the colocation of compute and data as a means to reduce latency; and
•  the capability to spin up new workloads in the cloud or on-premises through universal data accessibility.

These multi-cloud data management capabilities trend toward the aspirational. But they present an idea of what will be required to effectively manage multi-cloud infrastructures. This list presents a high-level idea of what IT infrastructure will soon entail, and it will likely grow with new innovations. Now your IT team’s time is divided between keeping everything in the data center and cloud running and keeping an eye on new opportunities as they arise. If a business is going to transform itself digitally, it must dramatically reduce the time it wastes on everyday IT maintenance. That will entail an IT infrastructure transformation.

Benefits Of IT Infrastructure Transformation

Efficient Utilization of Human Capital
A huge proportion of time of IT teams is spent in addressing issues arising from legacy infrastructure in terms of updating, managing, supporting, and ensuring security. As these systems are made by multiple technology product companies, myriad challenges need to be addressed. With modernization, the new-age technology systems are more robust, work seamlessly with in-house applications and integrate well with external systems. This enables the IT Workforce to focus on more strategic and analytical tasks and utilize their skills better to enhance operational and business efficiency.
Create an Agile IT Team and Develop Products Faster
If the IT infrastructure is outdated, the resource allocation for application development – both test and production – goes on hold longer than required. It impacts the release of new products, features etc. and impacts key business metrics such as customer engagement and product development efficiency. With IT Infrastructure modernization, the IT teams can spend more time on enhancing efficiency through automation by leveraging the time saved on IT maintenance, support etc. This enables the organization to “go-to-market” with new product features and functionalities much faster than before. It also enables organization to implement their research finding and translate them into innovative solutions seamlessly.
Augment Security and Trust Among Customers
With Infrastructure Modernization, businesses can ensure that the platforms and infrastructure on which applications are built will offer enhanced security and add value to the business. By empowering the application teams with a modernized infrastructure, the experience of the customer with respect to an organizations products and services is seamless and it augments customer experience and trust.
Optimized IT Footprint and Efficient Management of IT Infrastructure
An Infrastructure Modernization exercise is punctuated by consolidation of servers and rationalization. It enables to not only reduce the number of servers but also the types. The result is that IT teams can optimize IT Infrastructure footprint and manage the entire organization’s IT infrastructure better by reducing number of locations and datacenters that need to be managed.
Reduce Cost and Enhance Revenue
With a modernized IT Infrastructure, two things improve. The efficiency of the IT Infrastructure and systems which leads to lesser incidents of maintenance and troubleshooting which accrues into cost savings over time. The modernized infrastructure also enables adoption of cloud and automation of redundant processes thereby reducing employee cost and effort spent on mundane tasks. The result is a significant addition to the bottom line of the organization while also enhancing productivity of the IT teams. Infrastructure Modernization is a transformational change. It is not a standalone IT project. The entire organization must align and support the exercise to make it a success and to enable the organization to enjoy the benefits mentioned above. Organizations can reap rich dividends by onboarding an IT services provider which has rich experience and skills in undertaking a complete IT Infrastructure Modernization exercise. At Clover Infotech, we are happy to offer a consultation to you in order to help you to plan and kick-start your IT Infrastructure Modernization.