Keeping your IT infrastructure in line with evolving application and business needs can be a challenge. Cloud promises to help, but services often come with caveats and constraints. So is there another option for avoiding a complex and expensive modernization exercise? Hybrid IT as a Service, the ‘third way’, is worth considering.
In some businesses IT is considered an enabler of competitive advantage, while in others it is simply seen as part of the operational infrastructure. Even if it’s the latter, business expectations of what IT should deliver, and how, are likely to be growing. Whether it’s you introducing ideas, or users figuring things out for themselves, it would be surprising if demands around mobile technology, sharing and collaboration, remote access and other enhancers of productivity and flexibility weren’t on the agenda, or at least on the business wish list. At the same time, application software vendors are continually knocking on the door tempting users with the latest and greatest functionality. Depending on the nature of your business it could be marketing and sales solutions, customer service management, time recording and billing, right through to full-blown ERP systems. Even traditionally innocuous applications like accounting are moving on in terms of capability. When users and business managers see what’s now possible in terms of automation, analytics, integration with MS Office, access via mobile apps, and so on, expectations are raised even further and the wish list gets longer. The challenges arise when wishes get translated into firm demands, and you start to discuss funding with budget holders. Senior business managers often don’t understand the dependencies and that even an apparently simple idea such as “let’s just switch on remote access so everyone can get to everything from their iPads” could require an upgrade to your Windows Server environment, network security, and management toolset, let alone the implementation of mobile middleware. If they do have a number in their head, it’s likely to be the one quoted for “budgeting purposes” by the application sales rep who gave them that impressive and inspiring demo. It is unlikely that anything would be factored in for the spend required on hardware, systems software, backup and DR capability, plus all of the integration effort needed to get everything working together properly. And let’s not forget the ongoing cost of running whatever you end up putting into place over the lifetime of the new or upgraded system, which may be incurred across multiple applications.
