After a year of deep recession affecting IT budgets, businesses are finally returning to a growth agenda. And infrastructure and operations is no exception: in the coming year, Forrester expects a noticeable bump in IT spend. So what does this mean for the infrastructure professional? It's time to reprioritise initiatives to align with the business' focus on growth.
But 2010 will not be business as usual. When asked to categorise the IT spend breakdown, IT departments said that only half of the funds are going on ongoing operations and maintenance. "Keeping the lights on" is taking a backseat while new IT initiatives and expansions move forward, utilising the other half of IT spend.
You might be thinking this sounds like business as usual, so what's the problem? The traditional breakdown of spending half the budget inside the datacenter and the other half on user infrastructure contradicts the mandate to focus on new initiatives and supporting business expansion. If you fall into the 50/50 category, then it's time to break the cycle and focus on three key efforts. Each of these efforts have components that meet the "new IT initiative" and "support business expansion" objectives the CIO and CEO demand.
Start By Transforming Your Desktop
Deploy Windows 7 as a new IT initiative. Most companies skipped Windows Vista and now have an opportunity to capitalise on the PC and workstation budgets to phase in Windows 7. You might be tempted to downgrade to Windows XP to avoid app compatibility hassles, but new features in Windows 7 will help unlock productivity benefits, security and management enhancements, and green IT cost efficiencies.
Implement client virtualization to support business expansion. New desktop and application virtualisation technologies support business expansion through bring-your-own-computer programs that can attract and retain new talent, as well as hosted virtual desktop infrastructure to connect third-party users. But transforming the desktop architecture isn't easy--it's time to segment your user population by looking at the mobility and productivity needs that drive the architecture.
Continue By Retooling Your Datacenter For The Path To Cloud
Deploy converged infrastructure as a new IT initiative. Although server, storage, and networks spend will increase in the coming year, the key is not to spend this money in the traditional siloed approach. New converged infrastructures combine server, storage, and networks in a single framework, helping transform the economics running the datacenter. It accelerates the transition to IP storage and helps build cloud-ready infrastructure.
Burst to public IaaS for new applications that support business expansion. Converged infrastructure is a perfect platform for building a hybrid internal/public cloud environment that integrates with infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS). Help meet business expansion with IaaS' low entry costs, ease of use, security, and availability.
Round Out Your Efforts By Industrialising Your IT Operations
Deploy IT automation tools as a new IT initiative. The recession uncorked a lot of process inertia so you can now stop rewarding your team as heroes that put out fires in IT and start motivating them to improve efficiency. Invest in tools to integrate IT operations within the broader business operations. Pick tools that encompass all three to industrialise your operations.