3 Ways to Build Your IT Skills as Data Centers Modernize

Technology marches on. And so must we.

As IT professionals, we need to be agile: constantly transforming skills to adapt, if not anticipating, the constantly changing business and technology landscape.

Today, that means you need to learn new skills along with data center infrastructure transformation and digital transformation of businesses.  These modernization trends are clear:

  1. Instead of integrating separate compute, storage and network components themselves, more and more IT teams are buying pre-engineered/pre-manufactured converged systems.
  2. Instead of relying on traditional brick-and-motor business models (run on traditional CRM, ERP and financial applications), more businesses are turning to service-oriented business models run on social, mobile and big data applications.

This white paper from the Enterprise Management Associates analyst group outlines IT/business transformation trends and includes in-depth interviews with two enterprises who successfully transformed.

Here are three important use cases that you need to keep in mind as you tune up your skills to ride this wave along with IT and business.

Use Case 1: Must Modernize Data Center to Support Core Business Apps

  • Problem: Infrastructure supporting core business applications (SAP, Oracle, Microsoft, vertical industry-specific suites) is aging.  The data center needs a refresh and more capacity, but space, support staff and budget for OPEX are limited.
  • Solution: Converged infrastructure systems, pre-engineered and manufactured with the latest technologies (storage arrays, compute blades, network and hybrid cloud for “anything as a service”) give you the latest technologies. This delivers the performance, headroom and resiliency that mission critical applications require, while requiring less hand-holding (i.e., OPEX) and a smaller footprint.
  • Skill Transformation: Less effort to “keep the lights on” frees you to become more consultative with customers and more agile, so you can upgrade and deploy new services faster – be recognized for it.

Use Case 2: Must Scale-out the Data Center for Digital Business Transformation

  • Problem: Need to provide infrastructure and environments for “third platform applications”  that deliver revenue-generating services via web, social media and mobile devices.
  • Solution: Rackscale hyper-converged systems that start small, scale-out massively, and support native hybrid cloud platforms for rapid application development and deployment.
  • Skill Transformation: Learn the art of  the software-defined data center, so you’re not left behind the next phase on infrastructure evolution and are recognized for helping drive your business to its next reincarnation.

Use Case 3: Must Assure Infrastructure Meets Stringent Operating Level and Security Objectives

  • Problem: Revenue, customer satisfaction and loyalty and IT’s reputation depend on round-the-clock application availability and no service degradations. Traditional siloed IT processes are too slow when new capacity needs to be reallocated, when security bugs strike without warning and when you need to upgrade firmware to address a technical issue.
  • Solution: Converged infrastructure management tools with cross-silo intelligence, automation and visualization.
  • Skill Transformation: Learn how to manage, support and sustain compute, storage and network resources as a single system and multiple systems as a unified pool of resources. This will make you a more valuable player who is collaborative across silos, proactive and solves problems faster.

 

About the Author: David Hayward