Moving into the Fast Lane with Anytime, Anywhere Infrastructure

Sometimes running the IT infrastructure for a modern organization can feel a lot like being a race car driver on a circular track: You’re going ‘round and ‘round, constantly passing the start line, and the only imperative is to go faster and faster.

This is the blessing and the curse of technological innovation. New technologies bring exciting capabilities that allow for increased productivity and improved business outcomes, but they also add complexity and require regular modernization in your IT infrastructure.

And that is where many organizations find themselves today. To modernize and transform their IT systems, they are leveraging new cloud-native technologies like Kubernetes, implementing automated and agile IT systems, and deploying new types of applications and services.

Modernization Requires More Than Implementation Alone

One of the main drivers of this modernization is hybrid cloud. According to recent research by Aberdeen Strategy & Research, nearly 50% of businesses have already deployed hybrid cloud and another 36% plan to do so in the next 12 months. Clearly, hybrid is becoming the new normal for IT infrastructures.

But an effective modernization requires much more than simply putting some private and public cloud systems in place. We’ve found that if businesses don’t follow the right strategies, and don’t work with the right partners and utilize the right solutions, they will be slow to realize the benefits that come with modernization.

So how are leading organizations effectively modernizing to achieve key benefits, such as improved performance and less downtime? We’ve found that successful businesses implement agile and flexible solutions designed to work not only with hybrid systems, but also with modern automated and cloud-native technologies.

These organizations are also focused on modernizing with a data-driven approach that moves past older processes and legacy systems — ensuring that the right workloads and services are prioritized. When businesses do this, they are better able to innovate with new technologies. For example, they are 80% more likely to develop microservices and 2.5x more likely to be innovating with artificial intelligence.

Key to this data-driven approach are the abilities to analyze and understand business needs, focus on IT modernization as a whole rather than a project, and work with partners that understand business needs and innovative new technologies. Businesses that have successfully modernized their IT infrastructure move innovation and agility past technology alone and into their entire IT operations.

Round-the-Clock IT

Today, IT understands that all of their services and applications, and the infrastructure that drives them, have to be built for anytime, anywhere demand. As organizations have transformed with mainly remote and often global workforces and partners, they need an infrastructure designed to meet these modern demands.

To successfully carry out the transformations that modernization and hybrid cloud bring, organizations need to focus on future-proofing their infrastructure and becoming more innovative and agile. They need to adopt a strategy that does so in a way that benefits their individual business needs, both today and tomorrow.