Intelligent Tech Channels Issue 12 | Page 36

INTELLIGENT DATA CENTRES Speed, SDN, API and hybrid, driving datacentre transformation Speed, interoperability, software managed and services architecture will be the principle criteria for datacentre transformation in 2018. I n today’s world of digital disruption, every business perceives itself as being under threat and, as a result, most are making a conscious decision to choose speed over cost. This is manifesting itself in some interesting behaviour shifts by enterprise IT leaders. Speed trumps cost In 2018, we will see them moving away from conducting lengthy, in-depth total cost of ownership analyses when making decisions about which technology to invest in and, instead, choosing the technology or platform that they can leverage the fastest. And, in their quest to deliver the speed that the business needs to drive digital transformation, IT leaders will intensify their efforts to identify and eliminate the inhibitors of speed. Increasingly, organisations will recognise the extent to which they depend on their networks to keep up with the speed of the cloud, and look for ways to ensure that their networks can perform at the same pace as their compute and storage environments. 36 In the year ahead, we will also see more businesses exploiting software-defined networking and network virtualisation across the network in the datacentre, hybrid WAN and the campus as part of their efforts to transform their networks. In 2018, it will be important for organisations to identify the technologies and platforms that will deliver the business outcome they need, at the required speed. For example, instead of continuing to implement multiple tiers of legacy storage devices, some will conclude that they can move faster by only using flash storage. Leveraging tools The organisations that will achieve digital supremacy in 2018 will be those that capitalise on new tools that enable their developers to innovate and create new sources of competitive differentiation. Developers need access to new tools and the flexibility to create new business models. They have to be able to support new application types, using modern Using SaaS to ensure that their non-core focus areas are running optimally will enable organisation to focus their resources on creating and evolving their differentiation capability elsewhere. Issue 12 INTELLIGENT TECH CHANNELS