How is IT impacting your business?
A recent article by InformationWeek explored the top 10 CIO priorities. Topping the list was IT’s ability to “implement fast enough to meet business goals”, followed by “making IT one with the business”. And with cloud computing, the consumerization of IT, and security and compliance issues, today’s IT leaders have a lot on their plate.
Which brings us to the question: How is IT impacting your business?
As technology constantly evolves it’s becoming harder and harder for businesses to maintain an in-house IT staff that can provide the necessary expertise and service 24x7x365. Not to mention the ability to get new technology up and running in a matter of days versus months.
How many organizations today have the luxury – or patience – to wait months for a new technology or initiative to go live? Or how many would find an outage acceptable, especially if it affects the company’s ability to communicate with its customers (impact on service) or process orders (impact on revenue)? I’m guessing not too many.
Cloud stirring mobile demand, and vice versa
Anyone with an eye on the technology industry can see that cloud computing and mobile devices are two of the biggest trends unfolding in the enterprise space right now. Separately, the two are making waves. But combined, the impact of cloud computing and mobile technology has the potential to be enormous.
The flexibility benefits of both technologies are clear. The cloud affords businesses the ability to access data, applications, storage, and resources from virtually anywhere. This has tremendous advantages in terms of increase productivity and business efficiency.
Avoiding network strain when moving to the cloud
When it comes to cloud computing, we’re as enthusiastic as the next guy. But, for all the good the cloud brings, the technology is not without its challenges. As more businesses turn to the cloud to take advantage of potential cost savings, improved IT efficiency and greater productivity (the list goes on), there are issues of which a company must be mindful.
One such issue is the cloud’s effect on a company’s infrastructure. It’s understandable that businesses may be inclined to ignore their networks when moving to the cloud. After all, one of the major points about the technology is that it lets a third party deal with the nitty gritty.
Seeing green in the cloud
A few years ago, going green was all the rage. Businesses and consumers alike were doing almost all they could to tap into their inner tree hugger.
In recent years, though, some of the noise surrounding environmental business practices has died down. While the need is still there, it doesn’t seem to be capturing the same amount of attention as it did in the last decade. This coincided largely with the economy tanking. Businesses suddenly found themselves without the extra bread to spend on green initiatives, like solar panels and eco-friendly lighting.
The cloud and MDM: Helping businesses help themselves
For businesses, mobility is the gold rush of today, with many looking to get smartphones into the hands of their employees as quickly as possible. By now, we’ve all heard about the inevitable risks of consumerization of IT, and the importance of mobile device management to get the most value out of enterprise mobility.
So now, businesses are preparing for the technology, putting most of their efforts toward weighing their options on smartphones. Sure, mobile device management is a consideration, and many believe that as long as they have any MDM solution in place, they’ve covered all the bases.
VDI for a Globally Available Virtual Workforce
Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) is taking precedence in the enterprise more than ever. The cost benefits of large deployments are hard to overlook. Why are we seeing such a slow adoption rate? I believe there are 3 key factors slowing the momentum.
- VDI technology is still hindered by bandwidth delay. Working on a LAN is extremely usable for the average employee. The speeds of processing and usability are near real-time with the latest thin clients. Recently, we can include streamed HD graphics and content to benefit developers. Over a WAN or open Internet is a different story, and there are still large gaps in usability in this architecture. It is improving everyday and more and more people are starting to tackle the problems.
Consumerization of IT: Have your cake and eat it too
We can probably all agree by this point that smartphones have been good for business. And not just smartphones – tablets, Facebook, Twitter – all those technologies we like to use during our lunch breaks or when vegging out of the couch have also proven beneficial, in one way or another, in the workplace.
Now more than ever, companies are letting people take their personal devices to work or surf social networks in the office – a trend that’s often referred to as “consumerization of IT.” A more accurate title, though, may be “causing frustration for IT.” While employees and executives may appreciate the consumerization, it can create serious headaches for the IT departments that have to account for them.
Quick trip to Las Vegas
Not for fun but for business. Holding conferences in Las Vegas has always seemed contradictory—conducting serious business in a not-so-serious city, but I rarely hear anyone complain.
I was invited to represent Virtela at the HDI Conference in Las Vegas and discussed the importance of encouraging company awareness, building a sense of ownership within your team, fostering inter- and intra-organizational alignment, and communication to reach the end game: customer service excellence through technical leadership. This discussion was based on real world experiences managing Virtela’s global operations center to maintain our SLA and actual Time to Repair guarantees.
Welcome from Virtela’s new CEO
Hello Virtela Viewpoint readers. I am truly pleased to be making my first post since joining Virtela in fall 2010.
We saved the announcement of my joining until the start of 2011, because I feel this is going to be a milestone year for IT and its leaders as companies across the world take advantage of the flexibility, savings and agility offered by cloud- and network-based services and their associated providers.
Welcome to Virtela Viewpoint
Welcome to Virtela Viewpoint – our blog about Managed and Cloud IT Services.
As we start a new – and hopefully economically more vibrant – year of 2011, we look forward to sharing what Virtela, our customers, and our partners see in way of IT trends, best practices and things to watch out for. If Gartner has anything to say about 2011, it starts with moderate budget growth of 5.1% to $3.6 trillion (not so moderate, in terms of aggregate spend).
From Virtela’s Viewpoint, CIOs and their IT teams have some clear and consistent goals for 2011 and beyond, including how to:
