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Utility infrastructure is the logical separation of operating systems and applications from physical servers, storage, processing power, and memory. The goal is to improve capacity utilization and increase the agility of IT. Infotech Research Group shares approaches that can help organizations make the most of this strategy?
Also See:
Free Information Technology Standards and Guidelines
Cloud Computing: Five Reasons to Proceed with Caution
Utility infrastructure promises increased agility, efficiency, and opportunity for competitive advantage through the dynamic allocation of IT resources to the small enterprise. This is a wholesale change to the way IT operates that carries massive implications for the allocation of IT assets and management.
Key Considerations:
1. Utility infrastructure is coming. Given the opportunities for savings and efficiency, Info-Tech believes that a move towards a utility infrastructure-style model is inevitable. The traditional server infrastructure model is inefficient. A typical configuration consists of disparate, single-function servers, each running specific applications and databases. To insulate against capacity shortages, the majority of the applications are allocated far more processing power and storage than is needed in order to meet peak activity requirements (distributed physical servers typically only use 20% to 40% of their capacity). Mirrored backup servers exacerbate this glut of resource provisioning.
The server infrastructure is inflexible. Capacity upgrades require manual re-provisioning and application downtime while servers or storage are added.
The server infrastructure is opaque. Few IT managers have a clear view of how spending on IT resources aligns with specific business initiatives.
2. Someone has to pay. Moving to a utility infrastructure will mean re-organizing the delivery of IT into centralized systems and services. Any resulting costs for additional resources and ongoing services (such as virtualization software, storage management, and dashboards) will have to be absorbed and managed by either IT or the business units.
Scenario 1: IT pays for the computing infrastructure. If all small enterprise servers were previously accounted for as part of IT's budget, this will not be a huge leap. The project will only require approval on the IT budget from the CFO, CEO, or other senior executive responsible for overseeing IT spend. In this case, senior management must be on board, and individual business units could remain unaffected (depending on how budget approval and oversight is managed). However, if disparate servers were previously owned by business units and included as a part of departmental budgets, the shift to a utility infrastructure will create a surplus on the departmental side and a deficit to IT that must be accounted for.
Scenario 2: Business units pay for computing based on a utility chargeback model. In this case, usage of IT resources by business units is tracked by IT managers. Each business unit pays for those resources that they use via transfer payments to the IT department. Business leaders will need a say in how this system is structured because their costs may increase in order to finance this new infrastructure.
Next: Streamlining resources to improve capacity
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