FEATURE: IoT
CONVERGED
INFRASTRUCTURE
DOES NOT REQUIRE
THE IMMEDIATE
REPLACEMENT
OF ALL EXISTING
INFRASTRUCTURE
RESOURCES. ON
THE CONTRARY, IN
ITS INITIAL STAGES,
CONVERGENCE CAN
FOCUS EXCLUSIVELY
ON USING EXISTING
RESOURCES THROUGH
CONSOLIDATED
MANAGEMENT AND
AUTOMATION
L
ike with any other disruptive
force, the application of
converged infrastructure is
marred by myths that hinder business
and IT leaders from understanding just
how this technology could benefit not
just their IT operations but also the
business.
The benefits of unifying the
infrastructure and management planes
for IT cannot be overstated. The
impact is transformative: simply put,
deploying a converged infrastructure
allows organisations to move from
thinking about maintenance to thinking
about innovation, and focus on how
technology can support broader
business objectives like working more
collaboratively, improving customer
satisfaction and making your
organisation a great place to work.
Myth 1: Converged
infrastructure requires an ‘all
or nothing’ approach
One of the myths that we’ve had
to work towards dispelling is that
any move towards convergence
meant operating in a homogenous
environment, which couldn’t be further
from the truth.
Converged infrastructure does not
require the immediate replacement of
ALL existing infrastructure resources.
On the contrary, in its initial stages,
convergence can focus exclusively
on using existing resources through
consolidated management and
automation.
Every organisation starts its move
to next-generation infrastructure at
a different point, driven by different
workloads, yet facing similar pressures
to establish efficiency, agility and
control. We see convergence as
a journey, rather than a specific
destination – you don’t have to move
everything in one fell swoop.
Myth 2: Legacy applications
don’t play well with converged
infrastructure
There’s a theory that converged
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INTELLIGENTCIO
infrastructure doesn’t interoperate with
legacy applications which again; is far
from the truth.
Converged infrastructure is built on the
realisation that most IT infrastructures
are built on a considerable portfolio of
legacy applications which deliver the
same – or similar - functionality.
The key is to build an IT strategy
that gives special consideration to
these systems and also their value
to the business. Having a converged
infrastructure in place just means that
the organizations now have a roadmap
for phasing applications to new
technology platforms.
If there’s a need to tactically deploy
other systems to complement the
stack for any reason it’s obviously
possible. But crucially, the platform is
inherently built for scale in a virtual
compute context – allowing us to spin
up capacity effortlessly to respond to
pressures from across the business that
support departments initiatives, running
whatever legacy operating systems we
need to support older applications.
Myth 3: Converged
infrastructure constrains
innovation
This myth centres on the idea that with
a best of breed approach, you end up
with the multiple and varied innovation
programmes of individual vendors. In
theory this approach might hold water,
but in the debate around converged
infrastructure it falls short.
Cisco, EMC and VMware are
technology companies that are ahead
of the game individually and be
fund constant innovation focused at
keeping VCE’s platforms ahead of the
industry. These innovations are pre-
tested to work seamlessly, delivered
via VCE that guarantees reliability
and compatibility – a significant
challenge when rolling out best of
breed innovations in a heterogeneous
IT environment, where one wrong
upgrade could throw your entire
infrastructure into disarray.
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