What Type of IT Infrastructure Do You Need?

“Operations is about delivering resources on-demand,” she says. “Any kind of delay can potentially make or break a critical project and impact the entire value chain. Of course, your infrastructure must also stay up and running, so we know that customers must find ways to automate the provisioning and delivery process, but also optimise their operational efficiency.”

She says this is a major reason that many IT organisations have turned to the public cloud (whether it’s Amazon or Azure or Google Cloud) so that they can rapidly and easily deploy on-demand services with a limitless scale. However, these “islands of clouds”, as she calls them, can be difficult to manage separately and can add complexity to IT.

This is where hybrid solutions come in. “There is value in a hybrid model that embraces both data centres and public cloud, which means organisations can run both modern and traditional applications together,” says Jennifer.

She believes that only a modern infrastructure can provide maximum value for workloads that require higher-than-ever-before levels of performance, scalability, resilience and efficiency.

What does all of this mean in practicality? Jennifer says there are three significant implications:

1. Automation of operations is necessary as data centre equipment, capacity and complexities grow.
2. To derive more value from the public cloud, organisations need to find ways of embracing it – not as a destination, but as an operating model across a hybrid environment.
3. This will in turn require common virtualised and containerised infrastructure and a common operating experience.

How Dell is delivering new infrastructure solutions

Jennifer explains that while COVID-19 is a catalyst for digitisation, it essentially forced adaption. What Dell has seen come out of the evolution of IT since the pandemic is a new model for infrastructure. This comprises two parts: a modernised data centre based on technology that can support workloads for digital transformation (and also the automation enabling operations to focus on consumption, versus building and maintaining infrastructure); and a hybrid cloud acceleration based on consistent virtualised environments and consistent cloud operating models (infrastructure as a service).

Dell has created solutions designed to meet these requirements through its PowerEdge servers. In 2020 / 2021, Dell launched its 15G server, first with third-generation AMD EPYC processors and then with Intel’s third-generation Xeon Ice Lake processors.

These Dell EMC PowerEdge Servers allow organisations to take advantage of the latest technology on offer, from infrastructure automation to systems and software designs, with security as a priority.

Marketed as “your innovation engine”, Dell EMC PowerEdge Servers offer your business the ability to scale smarter, manage easier and innovate faster.

The PowerEdge portfolio centres on three focus capabilities:

• Adaptive Compute: This is about addressing evolving compute demands with a platform that’s been engineered to optimise the latest technology advancements, while easily scaling to address your data at the point of need.
• Autonomous Compute Infrastructure: Organisations are able to respond rapidly to business opportunities with intelligent systems that work together and independently, delivering to the parameters that you set.
• Proactive Resilience: You can embed trust into your digital transformation with an infrastructure that’s designed for secure interactions and has the capability to predict potential threats.

According to Jennifer, the ‘secret sauce' in the solution is Dell’s OpenManage systems management portfolio. This helps tame the complexity of your IT infrastructure with intuitive tools that work together to deliver automated, repeatable processes, based on your unique policies, enabling effortless management.

OpenManage makes it possible for your organisation to manage Dell PowerEdge servers in virtual, physical, local and remote environments, with or without a systems management software agent. “It provides customers with a holistic picture of the entire infrastructure,” says Jennifer. “It’s an intelligent system that works together and independently to enable rapid digital transformation productivity.”

Start with strategy

Cobus Bezuidenhout, Chief Technology Officer at Numata, says that SMEs need to understand their business strategy and motivations before embracing the technology that will work best for their organisation. While many believe that moving completely to the cloud will save on cost and be more secure, he says this is not always the case, and often a hybrid infrastructure makes more sense.

“With smaller businesses, they can often be more agile and make use of off-the-shelf products, but when it comes to larger enterprises, you need to factor in things like legacy infrastructure too,” he says.

There have also been instances where organisations have gone “full cloud” and suffered a breach on a public cloud platform. “Just as with traditional on-premises solutions, you still need to prioritise security, whether you opt for a cloud solution or a hybrid one,” he says.

Before deciding on whether you want to invest in physical, cloud or hybrid IT infrastructure, it’s important to understand not only how the technologies work, but which ones will best match your business priorities and strategy. At Numata, we believe that a good IT strategy must be aligned with business strategies.

To find out more about how Numata and Dell can assist you with your IT strategy and infrastructure, please get in touch.