Digital infrastructure decisions are being driven by placement of application workloads rather than infrastructure determining application location.
Digital infrastructure is evolving and hybrid cloud is rapidly emerging as an alternative to public cloud for mission-critical workloads and as-a-service offerings. Data functions are no longer centralised in a physical location but rather deployed to meet complex business requirements by utilising cloud, co-location and edge deployment locations.
I&O leaders are finding digital infrastructure is more difficult to design and manage as workloads and infrastructures expand beyond traditional centralised locations. To solve these complex issues, a wider view of data architecture and operations must be taken. I&O leaders must also automate the data environment and acquire automation skill sets. Proper leveraging of as-a-service models will also ease the infrastructure management burden by outsourcing certain responsibilities to partners.
Data infrastructure is no longer a physical location but evolving into the new IT operating model brought about by hybrid cloud. Enterprise operational and deployment models are reaching beyond public cloud to include hybrid cloud-based platforms for on-premises as-a-service offerings. Acquiring and sustaining skills is proving challenging as the speed and scale of modern application deployments require infrastructure automation to allow I&O to keep up.
I&O leaders deploying data infrastructure should expand deployment options by integrating hybrid cloud into a holistic architectural approach for application delivery; implement core data infrastructure functions by leveraging as-a-service models to deliver performance, security and agility at the right price point; enhance their ability to meet customer demand by investing in infrastructure automation, skills and tools.
Gartner predicts that by 2025, 40 per cent of newly procured premises-based compute and storage will be consumed as a service up from less than ten per cent in 2021.By 2025, 70 per cent of organisations will implement structured infrastructure automation to deliver flexibility and efficiency, up from 20 per cent in 2021.
A new Equinix report, Leaders’ Guide to Digital Infrastructure, provides guidance on how to fast-track your digital transformation.
