Executive corner: Moving toward a Dynamic Infrastructure can help companies achieve the change they need

From CCR2: The voice of System z software for more than 30 years

Vol. 7, Issue 1 - 14 Jan 2009

Susan By Susan Blocher, Vice President, Information Infrastructure Marketing

When it comes to competing successfully in today’s business climate, change is in the air – but getting there often isn’t easy.

The 2008 IBM Global CEO survey shows that while 98 percent of chief executives plan business model changes, an increasing number question the viability of IT to get them there. Within the same survey, CEOs also say a new, simplified infrastructure is needed to help them quickly adapt to globalization and the information explosion – and connect with more customers via the Internet, cell phones and other devices.

Meeting challenges on both fronts requires a streamlined, nimble and dynamic infrastructure. And if you’re attending IBM Pulse in Las Vegas in February, I’d like to invite you to attend workshops exploring the topic.

Automating and optimizing in key areas

A Dynamic Infrastructure means optimizing, automating and improving efficiency across key areas of the data center and other business infrastructure, which increasingly need to be interlinked. The goal is an intelligent environment that can constantly respond to real-time information, drive down costs and change on a dime to accommodate today’s ever-changing business climate.

A Dynamic Infrastructure also provides needed information security as businesses increasingly need to share access to information and services instantly from any device.

By optimizing in these seven areas within and outside of the data center, companies can begin to create a more dynamic infrastructure:

Virtualization – Taking full advantage of consolidation and virtualization can reduce server sprawl, while providing much higher utilization rates and resiliency, while lowering management costs for servers, storage, networks and data.
Information Infrastructure – A cost-effective approach to storing and managing the explosion of information to client requirements for related compliance, archiving and retention, information availability and information security with innovative capabilities to store more data on less infrastructure, dynamically scale when needed and optimize the utilization of infrastructure assets.
Service Management – Gaining deeper visibility into systems that support key business initiatives and automating those processes can improve service delivery and accelerate business growth.
Energy Efficiency – By measuring, automating and optimizing energy use within the data center and across other assets, companies can trim escalating energy costs, resolve space, power, and cooling constraints, and become greener.
Asset Management – Improving asset reliability, availability and uptime can support service delivery based on business priorities. It can also help optimize inventory operations and labor efficiency.
Security – As companies expand the ways they make information available to customers, an end-to-end approach geared to each device and system can help them fend off internal and external threats of all types, whether protecting data or physical assets.
Business Resiliency – Keeping systems and applications available is crucial to avoiding costly downtime. By assessing the importance of each system and its importance to the business, companies can apply the specific availability and redundancy needed in each area of their infrastructure.

Internally, optimizing and automating infrastructure can streamline operations, reduce complexity and manual tasks, and lower costs. Results for the customer can be equally dramatic. The city of Stockholm, Sweden, for example, needed to stem a growing traffic problem. By optimizing numerous IT systems, automating related functions, and using intelligent sensors to monitor information from traffic lights, the city’s IT infrastructure could measure traffic volume in real time and dynamically adjust to current driving patterns.

Drivers now experience smoother traffic flow and fewer bottlenecks. Without this level of automation and optimization that responds in real time, such a solution wouldn’t have been possible.

Evolving into a modern, dynamic infrastructure

How do companies begin creating a more dynamic infrastructure? Start by analyzing your organization, business objectives and competitive pressures. How is it changing and where do IT limitations hamper growth?

Is the company struggling to manage an explosion of data or security as it globalizes? Can it consolidate servers to take advantage of virtualization? Can automating processes support your business initiatives – and simplify the environment?

Within each of the areas above, IBM offers a set of workshops and assessments to help companies plan wisely when modernizing their IT infrastructure.

From there, IBM can help clients define solutions and best practices around these seven key areas to optimize their IT investment and deliver measurable business results.

Stay on the Pulse

To learn more, check out the seminars at Pulse, the industry’s premier service management conference. We’ll be laying out a roadmap to Dynamic Infrastructure in the general sessions, and again within tracks focusing on virtualization, energy efficiency and business resiliency.

We’ll also be making numerous special announcements at the event about support for Dynamic Infrastructure, including news about storage hardware, software and services, and capabilities for small- and mid-size customers. Announcements will address business resiliency, energy savings, virtualization and service management, as well.

By adopting a more dynamic infrastructure, your company can not only roll with the changes that define today’s business climate, but profit from them, as well. Learn how by attending Pulse.

Learn more

Attend Pulse 2009