Every organization is in a unique place when it comes to their IT needs and wants. In fact, some organizations believe that IT progression is not a major priority. Of course, most of us know this is not the most forward thinking approach. Thankfully it’s a very small minority that believes this. The majority of organizations, however, are maneuvering their way across the IT landscape. Some get stuck along the way while others navigate this often-tumultuous route with precision. One thing they have in common is that they’re both at a certain stage in the IT transformation process, trying to get to a point when IT becomes a fluid part of business success.
Below are the common stages of IT transformation and growth. What stage is your organization in?
Stage One: Component-based Architecture
This is the most infantile stage of IT transformation. It is described as a stage where many organizations deal with time-consuming manual IT tasks & processes, have a limited understanding of how to best utilize equipment and resources, and lack the flexibility to align with the changing needs of the business. It is estimated that about 10% of organizations currently find themselves in this stage.
Stage Two: Virtualization
This next stage of IT transformation finds organizations moving from physical environments to virtual servers and networks. The idea here is to automate a lot of the mundane and often time-consuming tasks. Some common issues faced in this stage are a poor ability for capacity planning and lack of dexterity leading to a lack of cost savings. This is one of the most common stages for most organizations as about 20% are in this group.
Stage Three: Converged Infrastructure
This is the stage in which most organizations try to take advantage of cloud-computing. A converged infrastructure is imperative to having a successful and cost-effective cloud environment. This allows organizations to increase the promptness of implementation of new services while minimizing hiccups in the process. This is where most are today as a quarter (25%) of organizations currently find themselves in this stage.
Stage Four: Protection Services
It’s pretty common knowledge at this point that a successful IT plan involves backups and security, right? Well, not all organizations feel the same way as only about 20% of organizations implement a suite of these services. This stage of IT transformation involves to make sure your organization has minimal downtime and that data is highly available.
Stage Five: Automation
This stage is all about using virtualization, cloud-computing, and automation to align technology with business priorities and policies. At this stage the organization has grasped and implemented automation of essential processes and designed a boilerplate for routine procedures.
Stage Six: Full Cloud
This is the most advanced stage of IT transformation and cloud usage. In this stage the IT environment is fully virtualized and automated to take full advantage. The unpredictable costs of IT are replaced by a steady monthly expenditure allowing organizations to better plan for computing needs and easily determine costs.
These are some of the common stages of IT transformation as it applies to the use of cloud-computing and virtualization. More and more organizations are realizing the potential of the cloud and how it can serve their organization positively over a long period – including lowering costs and increasing automation.
*Some information in this article obtained from ‘The Impact of IT Transformation on Enterprise Computing’ by the Logicalis Corp.