By Brian Nettles,
VP of Operations and CIO
VP of Operations and CIO
Some interesting buzz came out of VMworld last week. In his keynote address, incoming VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger called today’s data center “a museum.” His point was that data center operations haven’t kept pace with the rate of change in today’s IT environment.
Some of that has to do with technology but a lot of it involves process. Too many IT shops have too many manual processes that can’t keep up with the speed, flexibility and scale of today’s data center. Organizations are rolling out new IT services faster than ever but don’t have the resources to manage and support them properly. There needs to be greater emphasis on efficiency, automation and best practices.
There can be a tendency to put a Band-Aid on the problem and hope it gets better on its own. If we bring in a couple of contractors or resident engineers we’ll get through this crunch, the thinking goes. But adding contractors to supplement in-house resources is not cost-effective for day-to-day operations and does not address systemic problems within the IT organization. IT needs to rethink the data center operating model for the cloud era. And that’s tough to do when you’re already stretched thin and on a tight budget.
The fact is, the entire IT consumption model is shifting. Knowing why, how and when to consume a given product or service is half the battle. Using a combination of Remote Infrastructure Management (RIM), field services and support, and contractors can help. This hybrid, IT-Operations-as-a-Service model allows for a more cost-effective, SLA-based and business-oriented approach, enabling you to systematically out-task IT maintenance and management functions so your IT team can focus on strategic initiatives.
Tailoring your service consumption will help you begin to transform your IT operations. A true enterprise-class IT-Operations-as-a-Service solution will feature the right skill sets on demand, remote or on-premise management, automated tools and standardized methodologies that enable scalability, rapid problem resolution and repeatable results. The right level of solution will bring together people, processes and technology. And through efficiency and economies of scale, IT-Operations-as-a-Service can dramatically reduce your operational costs, leaving more of your budget for innovation.
I’m not talking about outsourcing your IT operations. All too often, outsourcing simply transfers existing processes to a third party in a “people-based” model. With traditional outsourcing, IT loses control without really solving the problem. That’s why traditional outsourcing arrangements are unpopular and typically fail to achieve their objectives.
Nor am I referring to traditional break/fix support agreements. Those types of agreements are important to have when things go wrong, but they simply react to IT problems without providing predictability or scalability.
An IT-Operations-as-a-Service solution is not about system maintenance, it’s about redefining the IT operational environment and cost structure. It enables organizations to selectively outsource activities with which they don’t have capacity, competence or cost advantages. In utilizing IT-Operations-as-a-Service, the in-house IT team remains in control of the organization’s business and technology objectives while optimizing IT operations.
