Have you ever stepped back, looked at your current IT infrastructure, and thought, "No human in their right mind would ever design a datacenter like this!"? If you’re like most IT professionals, you’ve either inherited a jumble of technology patched together over the years, or you’ve had to throw together quick solutions to meet business demands. Most of us don’t have the luxury of building a datacenter from scratch—and even if we did, we’d likely end up adding features, functionality, hardware, and software on as-needed basis. It’s nearly impossible to find the time for planning when you’re just trying to keep up with day-to-day needs.  

Datacenters are usually built in a reactive manner--Oh! I need more capacity. Oh! That server is down and I have to get it up. You need what capability by when? Are you out of your mind?! It will take months just to figure out how to do it.  

The reason why IT infrastructure gets so messy is that IT and business are not in sync. IT enables and empowers the business. But business is focused on earning more revenue, creating new product lines, and finding opportunities to generate new cash. Business managers often consider IT as a support department that is responsible for capital expenditure.   

However, you can change this situation. When IT and business have a common way of looking at IT infrastructure and can see how technology expenses can be lowered, then IT can be transformed from a cost center to business enabler. By supporting business proactively and in a reliable manner, IT can have a direct impact on business success. This transformation comes with standardization in the delivery of datacenter services through end-to-end management of physical and virtual environments. You can reduce operational costs and get optimum utilization of data center resources by considering your entire IT platform in every decision you make.  

The Platform Vision architectural model provides that common perspective on IT as a whole. The Infrastructure solution pattern represents the foundation for any IT platform and encompasses datacenter management, client devices, identity, networking, and security. By understanding the elements that make up the Infrastructure solution pattern, and by considering the dependencies and relationships that exist throughout the IT platform, you can give business management a way of seeing the cost and Return on Investment (ROI) implications of introducing any technology into your infrastructure. And you can look at your datacenter and see it as something that is evolving and growing in a sensible, planned way.  

This quick overview of the rational for and benefits of the Platform Vision model is just a starting point. To provide an in-depth explanation of the model, describe the components of each layer, and explain the dependencies and relationships among the components and layers, the Platform Vision team will create a white paper drilling down into each layer of the model. Stay tuned for the first of these white papers, which will focus on the Infrastructure layer.  

We invite your input into the model. Help us grow the Platform Vision model and make it more useful. Let us know about your experiences, as well as your needs. Email at Vikram.Jain@Advaiya.com