It doesn’t matter which industry you’re in — cloud-native companies are disrupting the status quo and putting pressure on incumbent IT teams to do more with less. The IT operating models that have gotten you this far are no longer capable of keeping pace with competitors.
Unfortunately, adopting an agile approach to IT is easier said than done when you’re working with a complicated mix of legacy systems.
In a perfect world, you might be able to migrate all of your systems and applications to cloud-based infrastructure and take advantage of flexibility and cost-efficiency. However, sacrificing the security and control of on-premises infrastructure is a non-starter for many mission-critical services.
As three key challenges weigh heavily on the IT department, increasing agility means going beyond a “cloud or bust” mindset. Instead, it’s time to focus on applying a consumption-based IT model to your infrastructure.
The 3 Challenges Legacy IT Teams Must Eliminate
Especially for incumbent businesses, the future of your infrastructure lies in hybrid IT. Finding the right balance of on-premises, public cloud, and private cloud infrastructure will help IT leaders maximize agility despite the presence of legacy systems.
However, your hybrid IT infrastructure won’t survive with a traditional operating model because of three all-too-common challenges:
Upfront Costs: Traditional operating models require large CapEx investments upfront when you’re deploying the latest technologies. When that happened once every few years, it wasn’t such a problem. Now, technology changes so rapidly that these upfront expenses are almost impossible to afford.
-
Long Procurement Cycles: Because new technology came with such large upfront costs, traditional procurement cycles could take months. You had to make sure you were investing in exactly the right infrastructure for your project or workload. Today, such long procurement cycles can put you behind the competitive curve.
-
Provisioning Problems: The lack of flexibility in traditional IT operating models means provisioning for a project or workload has to be determined upfront. But on average, enterprises overprovision 59% for compute and 48% for storage resources.1 Those costs directly impact your ability to adapt to the changing technology landscape.
The answer to these challenges is an infrastructure solution that creates a consumption-based IT model that functions across your whole business — not just in the cloud.
Turn Legacy IT into a Consumption-Based Model
IT leaders are constantly pulled in two different directions. They’re asked to maintain an increasingly complex infrastructure while also being tasked with facilitating their organizations’ agile futures. With on-premises infrastructure and consumption-based IT at odds, it’s impossible to do both.
That’s why a solution like HPE GreenLake Flex Capacity is so valuable to an evolving organization. With this infrastructure solution, you can balance cost-efficiency with security, control, and agility. It’s changing IT operating models, enabling scalability and speed in the face of new business initiatives.
And as an HPE Platinum Partner, American Digital has the experience and technical knowledge to make sure you’re getting the most out of a move to consumption-based IT. If you want to learn more, contact us today for a free consultation.
1451 Research, “Best of Both Worlds: Can Enterprises Achieve Both Scalability and Control When It Comes to Cloud?” November 2016.