Modernize IT with Agile Services: Gartner
June 29th, 2008
Last week in Orlando, Andy Kyte, Gartner Research Fellow was quoted as saying: ‘”IT modernization is the escape route from the accidental architecture of 20th century IT. Every company is dealing with the history of IT. Some fundamental change is needed. I don’t think we can carry on the bad habits and siloed decisions of the past. I’m looking for infrastructure and operations to begin the process of transforming IT.” IT must be overhauled from the siloed decisions of the past and transformed into an agile service provider. For a report on Andy Kytes keynote at Gartners IT Infrastructure, Operations and Management Summit see Denis Dubie’s article in NetworkWorld, “Stop buying more technology, start maximize current investments; Gartner”
Andy has been leading Gartner’s initiative to make IT modernization a key strategy for 2008. He has predicted that many of the applications, infrastructure, and processes that were developed during the last 20 years will be obsolete in the next 5 to 7 years as new technologies, new processes and new business demands evolve. IT must begin the modernization of out dated IT processes and technologies, and that modernization begins with the way that IT acquires and maintains technology. Instead of measuring success in terms of ROI, the return on investment of acquiring new technology, he recommends a new metric, ROA, return on assets. ROA is a measure of success on the returns that IT gains on assets that are already deployed and a metric for planning for future assets.
ROA is a great measure for Hitachi Data Systems’ Services Oriented Storage, SOS. With control unit based storage virtualization, SOS can leverage and enhance existing storage assets with the latest services of an enterprise class control unit. An example of a service is Dynamic Provisioning, which includes thin provisioning for improved utilization of capacity, and wide striping for improved performance.
Andy also observes that IT can not wait for a change in business requirements before initiating a change in IT process or infrastructure. Business can not be competitive if it has to wait 6 months to a year or more for support from IT.
Services Oriented Storage addresses this by providing a platform for storage and data services technologies that can be quickly adapted to meet changing business needs. SOS is similar to Services Oriented Architecture, SOA, in providing business agility through the use and reuse of common services. SOS provides services and not solutions. While a solution addresses a particular need like backup, SOS provides services to make that solution more efficient. An example of a service is snap copy that enables the backup to be done off of a point in time copy without the need to interupt the production volume. It can combine this with Dynamic Provisioning services so that the snap copy only contains data and not allocated unused space, reducing the elapsed time for backup. It can also use VTL and de-duplication services for faster recovery. SOS provides services that can be combined to support different solutions and make them more efficient, and cost effective.
If you are considering making storage investments this year, consider moving to a Services Oriented Storage approach, instead of investing in siloed storage solutions that can not be adapted to new requirements or in capacity solutions that only provide a short term fix.
