As IT Moves To A Service Model, Companies Need The Full Range Of Infrastructure Services

Cloud platforms are both an enabler and a driver of an IT-as-a-Service approach to enterprise infrastructure delivery. Without the inherent flexibility and cost advantages of cloud platforms, there would be little motivation to change from the old delivery model — cloud enables ITaaS. Without the demand from within an organization, fed by exposure to the capabilities of cloud applications, there’d be little expectation that things can be done differently.

But here we are: modern IT departments are expected to quickly meet the needs of business units that depend on agility and elasticity to deliver products and services to market. No more waiting several months for server deployments. No more IT gatekeepers deciding who should have access to what technology. IT departments should be demand-driven and service oriented.

That change was powered by the public cloud, and in some minds, that means ITaaS and the cloud are irrevocably linked. To them, ITaaS means cloud delivery. I don’t think that’s the case.

IT-as-a-Service means delivering the right infrastructure at the right time. It means IT service delivery that can accommodate a wide variety of needs. Perhaps most importantly, it means cost control — choosing the infrastructure modality that best meets the needs of business units while extracting the maximum ROI from infrastructure investments.

It can’t all be about the public cloud. Public cloud platforms aren’t a solution to every possible infrastructure problem, especially when controlling costs and fitting infrastructure to requirements are of key concern.

That’s not to say public cloud can’t fulfill these requirements, but IT departments should consider the full range of options, including private cloud, hybrid cloud, dedicated servers, virtual private servers, managed services and so on.

IT’s job is to service infrastructure requests and provide the best possible solution. If a project is best suited to a private cloud platform, that should be available. If a project demands the lowest possible latencies, dedicated servers should be an option. For large projects, the right solution might be a combination of multiple cloud and bare metal modalities.

All of which sounds expensive and difficult to manage, but it needn’t be. Your company doesn’t need to build solutions and platforms that fulfill the diverse range of infrastructure needs it has. But it should use an infrastructure provider capable of supplying and integrating a wide spectrum of platforms and services.

Complexity is a limiting factor for infrastructure diversity. Most companies don’t have the expertise or the inclination to develop IT solutions that include the full range of infrastructure options.

However, they can choose an infrastructure provider capable of meeting their needs: a provider that isn’t just a cloud vendor, just a dedicated server host, just a managed security specialist or backup provider.

Steadfast can help IT departments deliver exactly the right mix of infrastructure, consultation, and management services for their business’s projects.