Hyper-Converged Infrastructure
Article | October 3, 2023
As your organization scales, inevitably, so too will its infrastructure needs. From physical spaces to personnel, devices to applications, physical security to cybersecurity – all these resources will continue to grow to meet the changing needs of your business operations.
To manage your changing infrastructure throughout its entire lifecycle, your organization needs to implement a robust infrastructure lifecycle management program that’s designed to meet your particular business needs.
In particular, IT asset lifecycle management (ITALM) is becoming increasingly important for organizations across industries. As threats to organizations’ cybersecurity become more sophisticated and successful cyberattacks become more common, your business needs (now, more than ever) to implement an infrastructure lifecycle management strategy that emphasizes the security of your IT infrastructure.
In this article, we’ll explain why infrastructure management is important. Then we’ll outline steps your organization can take to design and implement a program and provide you with some of the most important infrastructure lifecycle management best practices for your business.
What Is the Purpose of Infrastructure Lifecycle Management?
No matter the size or industry of your organization, infrastructure lifecycle management is a critical process. The purpose of an infrastructure lifecycle management program is to protect your business and its infrastructure assets against risk.
Today, protecting your organization and its customer data from malicious actors means taking a more active approach to cybersecurity. Simply put, recovering from a cyber attack is more difficult and expensive than protecting yourself from one. If 2020 and 2021 have taught us anything about cybersecurity, it’s that cybercrime is on the rise and it’s not slowing down anytime soon.
As risks to cybersecurity continue to grow in number and in harm, infrastructure lifecycle management and IT asset management are becoming almost unavoidable. In addition to protecting your organization from potential cyberattacks, infrastructure lifecycle management makes for a more efficient enterprise, delivers a better end user experience for consumers, and identifies where your organization needs to expand its infrastructure.
Some of the other benefits that come along with comprehensive infrastructure lifecycle management program include:
More accurate planning;
Centralized and cost-effective procurement;
Streamlined provisioning of technology to users;
More efficient maintenance;
Secure and timely disposal.
A robust infrastructure lifecycle management program helps your organization to keep track of all the assets running on (or attached to) your corporate networks. That allows you to catalog, identify and track these assets wherever they are, physically and digitally.
While this might seem simple enough, infrastructure lifecycle management and particularly ITALM has become more complex as the diversity of IT assets has increased. Today organizations and their IT teams are responsible for managing hardware, software, cloud infrastructure, SaaS, and connected device or IoT assets. As the number of IT assets under management has soared for most organizations in the past decade, a comprehensive and holistic approach to infrastructure lifecycle management has never been more important.
Generally speaking, there are four major stages of asset lifecycle management. Your organization’s infrastructure lifecycle management program should include specific policies and processes for each of the following steps:
Planning. This is arguably the most important step for businesses and should be conducted prior to purchasing any assets. During this stage, you’ll need to identify what asset types are required and in what number; compile and verify the requirements for each asset; and evaluate those assets to make sure they meet your service needs.
Acquisition and procurement. Use this stage to identify areas for purchase consolidation with the most cost-effective vendors, negotiate warranties and bulk purchases of SaaS and cloud infrastructure assets. This is where lack of insights into actual asset usage can potentially result in overpaying for assets that aren’t really necessary. For this reason, timely and accurate asset data is crucial for effective acquisition and procurement.
Maintenance, upgrades and repair. All assets eventually require maintenance, upgrades and repairs. A holistic approach to infrastructure lifecycle management means tracking these needs and consolidating them into a single platform across all asset types.
Disposal. An outdated or broken asset needs to be disposed of properly, especially if it contains sensitive information. For hardware, assets that are older than a few years are often obsolete, and assets that fall out of warranty are typically no longer worth maintaining. Disposal of cloud infrastructure assets is also critical because data stored in the cloud can stay there forever.
Now that we’ve outlined the purpose and basic stages of infrastructure lifecycle management, it’s time to look at the steps your organization can take to implement it.
Read More
Hyper-Converged Infrastructure, IT Systems Management
Article | September 14, 2023
The pandemic has had a seismic impact on the telecom sector. This is perhaps most notably because where and how the world goes to work has been re-defined, with nearly every business deepening its commitment to mobility. Our homes suddenly became our offices, and workforces went from being centrally managed to widely distributed. This has called for a heightened need for widespread, secure and high-speed connectivity around the clock.
5G has answered the call, and 5G location intelligence and big data can provide service providers with the information they need to optimize their investments.
Case in point: Juniper Research reported in its 5G Monetization study that global revenue from 5G services will reach $73 billion by the end of 2021, rising from just $20 billion last year.
5G flexes as connected devices surge
Market insights firm IoT Analytics estimates there will be more than 30 billion IoT connections by 2025. That's an average of nearly four IoT devices per person. To help meet the pressure this growth in connectivity is putting on telecom providers, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is taking action to make additional spectrum available for 5G services and promoting the digital opportunities it provides to Americans. The FCC is urging that investments in 5G infrastructure be prioritized given the "widespread mobility opportunity" it presents, as stated by FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel.
While that's a good thing, we must also acknowledge that launching a 5G network presents high financial risk, among other challenges. The competitive pressures are significant, and network performance matters greatly when it comes to new business acquisition and retention. It's imperative to make wise decisions on network build-out to ensure investments yield the anticipated returns.
Thus, telcos need not – and should not – go it blindly when considering where to invest. You don't know what you don't know, which is why 5G location intelligence and big data can provide an incredible amount of clarity (and peace of mind) when it comes to optimizing investments, increasing marketing effectiveness and improving customer satisfaction.
Removing the blindfold
Location data and analytics provide telcos and Communications Service Providers (CSPs) with highly-specific insights to make informed decisions on where to invest in 5G. With this information, companies can not only map strategic expansion, but also better manage assets, operations, customers and products.
For example, with this intelligence, carriers can gain insight into the most desired locations of specific populations and how they want to use bandwidth. They can use this data to arm themselves with a clear understanding of customer location and mobility, mapping existing infrastructure and competitive coverage against market requirements to pinpoint new opportunities. By creating complex customer profiles rich with demographic information like age, income and lifestyle preferences, the guesswork is eliminated for where the telco should or shouldn’t deploy new 5G towers.
Further, by mapping a population of consumers and businesses within a specific region and then aggregating that information by age, income or business type, for example, a vivid picture comes to life of the market opportunity for that area.
This type of granular location intelligence adds important context to existing data and is a key pillar to data integrity, which describes the overall quality and completeness of a dataset. When telcos can clearly understand factors such as boundaries, movement and the customers’ surroundings, predictive insights can be made regarding demographic changes and future telecom requirements within a certain location. This then serves as the basis for a data-backed 5G expansion strategy. Without it, businesses are burdened by the trial-and-error losses that are all too common with 5G build-outs.
Location precision's myriad benefits
Improved location precision has many benefits for telcos looking to pinpoint where to build, market and provision 5G. Among them are:
Better data: Broadening insights on commercial, residential and mixed-use locations through easy-to-consume, scalable datasets provide highly accurate in-depth analyses for marketing and meeting customer demand.
Better serviceability insights: Complete and accurate location insights allow for a comprehensive view of serviceable addresses where products and services can be delivered to current and new customers causing ROI to improve and customers to be adequately served.
Better subscriber returns: Companies that deploy fixed wireless services often experience plan cancellations due to inconsistencies of signal performance, which typically result from the misalignment of sites with network assets. Location-based data provides operators with the ability to adapt their networks for signal consistency and serviceability as sites and structures change.
The 5G future
The role of location intelligence in accelerating development of new broadband services and driving ROI in a 5G world cannot be overstated. It adds a critical element of data integrity that informs network optimization, customer targeting and service provisioning so telecom service providers can ensure their investments are not made with blind hope.
Read More
Hyper-Converged Infrastructure
Article | July 13, 2023
Data Center as a Service (DCaaS) is a hosting service that gives clients access to actual data center infrastructure and amenities. Through a Wide-Area Network, DCaaS enables clients to remotely access the provider's storage, server, and networking capabilities (WAN).
Businesses can tackle their on-site data center's logistical and financial issues by outsourcing to a service provider. Many enterprises rely on DCaaS to overcome the physical constraints of their on-site infrastructure or to offload the hosting and management of non-mission-critical applications.
Businesses that require robust data management solutions but lack the necessary internal resources can adopt DCaaS. DCaaS is the perfect answer for companies that are struggling with a lack of IT help or a lack of funding for system maintenance.
Added benefits data Center as a Service allows businesses to be independent of their physical infrastructure:
A single-provider API
Data centers without Staff
Effortlessly handle the influx of data
Data centers in regions with more stable climates
Data Center as a Service helps democratize the data center itself, allowing companies that could never afford the huge investments that have gotten us this far to benefit from these developments. This is perhaps the most important, as Infrastructure-as-a-Service enables smaller companies to get started without a huge investment.
Conclusion
Data center as a service (DCaaS) enables clients to access a data center remotely and its features, whereas data center services might include complete management of an organization's on-premises infrastructure resources. IT can be outsourced using data center services to manage an organization's network, storage, computing, cloud, and maintenance. The infrastructure of many businesses is outsourced to increase operational effectiveness, size, and cost-effectiveness.
It might be challenging to manage your existing infrastructure while keeping up with the pace of innovation, but it's critical to be on the cutting edge of technology. Organizations may stay future-ready by working with a vendor that can supply DCaaS and data center services.
Read More
Application Infrastructure, Application Storage
Article | May 17, 2023
Without IaaS services, businesses face high upfront costs and slower time-to-market, hindering its growth. Embracing IaaS services with compliance to regulatory measures fosters digital transformation.
Contents
1. Introduction
2. Regulatory Requirements
2.1 Adhering to Regulations Before Migration
2.2. Confirming to Standards During Migration
2.3. Complying with Requirements After Migration
3. Role of IaaS in Digital Transformation
3.1. Overview of Digital Transformation in Business
3.2. Benefits of IaaS for Digital Transformation Initiation
4. Key IaaS Services for Digital Transformation
4.1. Compute Services
4.2. Storage Services
4.3. Networking Services
4.4. Security Services
5. Use Cases of IaaS in Digital Transformation
5.1. Cloud Migration
5.2. DevOps and Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment (CI/CD)
5.3. Big Data Analytics
5.4. Internet of Things
6. Leading Providers of IaaS
6.1. Deft
6.2. Virtuozzo
6.3. DigitalOcean
6.4. Vultr
6.5. Linode
7. Conclusion
1. Introduction
The article highlights infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) services, which are crucial in driving digital transformation for businesses. By delivering scalable computing resources, reducing IT infrastructure costs, and enabling a greater focus on core competencies, IaaS is helping businesses innovate faster and stay competitive in the rapidly evolving digital landscape. Further, the article elaborates on the three significant regulations to be considered for regulatory requirements. As businesses continue to embrace digital transformation, IaaS has emerged as a key enabler for organizations looking to achieve their goals. IaaS allows businesses to quickly and easily scale their computing resources up or down while reducing their IT infrastructure costs. This, in turn, enables businesses to focus on their core competencies, innovate faster, and stay competitive in today's fast-paced digital landscape. In this article, we will explore the ways in which IaaS is driving digital transformation, as well as the various services offered by IaaS providers that are helping businesses achieve their objectives and the use cases that follow.
2. Regulatory Requirements
During cloud adoption and migration to IaaS, organizations must comply with regulatory requirements before, during, and after migration to the cloud.
2.1 Adhering to Regulations Before Migration
Organizations must identify the relevant regulations that apply to their industry and geographic location. This includes:
2.1.1. Data Protection Laws
These laws define how personal and sensitive data should be handled and protected. Organizations must comply with these laws when collecting, storing, processing, and sharing private and sensitive data. Examples include the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the European Union and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) in the United States.
2.1.2. Industry-Specific Regulations
These regulations apply to specific industries like healthcare, finance, and government. In addition, these regulations may define particular security and data protection requirements that organizations must comply with. Examples are the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) in the healthcare industry and the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) in the finance industry.
2.1.3. International Laws
These laws apply to organizations operating in multiple countries or transferring data across international borders. These laws may vary based on the countries involved and define specific data protection and privacy requirements. Examples include the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in the European Union and the Cross-Border Privacy Rules (CBPR) in the Asia-Pacific region.
2.2. Confirming Standards During Migration
Organizations must ensure that they meet regulatory requirements while transferring data and applications to the cloud. This involves:
2.2.1. Access Management
This refers to controlling who can access data and applications in the cloud. Organizations must ensure only authorizedpersonnel can access sensitive data and specific applications during migration. This can be achieved by implementing access controls such as multi-factor authentication and role-based access control.
2.2.2. Data Encryption
This refers to converting data into code to prevent unauthorized access. During migration, organizations must ensure that sensitive data is encrypted both in transit and at rest. This can be achieved by using encryption technologies, such as Transport Layer Security (TLS) and Advanced Encryption Standard (AES).
2.2.3. Data Residency
This refers to the legal requirements around where data can be stored and processed. Organizations must comply with these requirements during migration to avoid potential legal and regulatory consequences. This may involve ensuring data is stored and processed within specific geographic locations or complies with industry-specific regulations.
2.3. Complying with Requirements After Migration
Organizations must continue to meet regulatory requirements through ongoing monitoring and reporting. This includes:
2.3.1. Regular Review and Updation of Security Measures
This refers to the ongoing process of reviewing and improving the security measures that are in place to protect data and assets from potential threats. This includes identifying vulnerabilities, updating software and hardware, implementing new security policies and procedures, and training employees on best practices.
2.3.2. Data Protection
This refers to the measures taken to safeguard sensitive and confidential data from unauthorized access, use, or disclosure. Proper data protection includes using encryption, access controls, firewalls, and other security technologies to prevent unauthorized access to the data center and implementing processes and procedures for securely handling and disposing of data.
2.3.3. Audit and Reporting
This refers to businesses' legal and regulatory requirements to regularly audit and report on their security practices and data protection measures. This includes complying with industry-specific standards and regulations, such as the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) or the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), and conducting internal and external audits to ensure compliance with these standards and regulations.
3. Role of IaaS in Digital Transformation
The role of IaaS in businesses is to configure, deploy, and manage cloud infrastructure environments or applications through cross-technology administration (virtual networks, operating systems, databases), scripting, monitoring automation execution, and managing incidents with a focus on service restoration.
3.1. Overview of Digital Transformation in Business
IaaS provides a flexible, scalable, and customizable infrastructure that can easily be managed and optimized, allowing organizations to focus on their core business objectives and maximize their productivity and efficiency.
IaaS provides businesses access to virtualized computing resources, such as virtual machines, storage, and networking, which can be provisioned and managed through a web-based interface or API. This allows businesses to quickly deploy and scale their infrastructure without worrying about the underlying hardware and infrastructure.
IaaS enables businesses to focus more on their core competencies. By outsourcing IT infrastructure management to IaaS providers, businesses can focus more on their core business functions and leave control of their IT systems to the experts. In addition, by leveraging the cloud, businesses can reduce their capital investment in buying, deploying, and managing physical servers and storage devices.
A report found that companies that have embraced digital transformation are 23 times more likely to acquire new customers, 6 times more likely to retain existing customers, and 19 times more likely to be profitable.
(Source: McKinsey & Company)
According to a study, the top benefits of digital transformation for businesses include increased efficiency (43%), better customer satisfaction (41%), and increased profitability (36%).
(Source: Accenture)
3.2. Benefits of IaaS for Digital Transformation Initiation
Apart from the benefits like improved agility, robust security, quick scalability, better flexibility, and cost savings, IaaS has the following benefits:
Predictable Costs:
IaaS providers typically offer transparent pricing models, which enable businesses to predict their IT costs more accurately and avoid unexpected expenses.
Enhanced Compliance:
IaaS providers often have compliance certifications, such as SOC 2, HIPAA, and PCI DSS, which can help businesses meet their regulatory compliance requirements more efficiently.
Geographic Flexibility:
IaaS enables businesses to deploy their IT infrastructure across different geographic regions, allowing the customer experience to soar in other markets with low latency and high availability.
Disaster Recovery:
IaaS providers typically have built-in disaster recovery capabilities, allowing businesses to quickly recover from data loss or infrastructure failures without significant downtime or data loss.
Increased Innovation:
By outsourcing their infrastructure management to IaaS providers, businesses can focus on innovation and new product development rather than infrastructure maintenance and management.
4. Key IaaS Services for Digital Transformation
4.1. Compute Services
Compute services provide the processing power and resources needed to run applications in the cloud. This includes virtual machines, containers, and serverless computing. Compute services are essential for digital transformation, allowing organizations to scale their applications and infrastructure to meet changing demands.
According to a report, the global cloud computing market size is expected to grow from USD 371.4 billion in 2020 to USD 832.1 billion by 2025, at a CAGR of 17.5% during the forecast period (2020-25). The growth of the market is driven by factors such as the increasing adoption of multi-cloud strategies and the growing demand for scalable and cost-effective computing.
(Source: MarketsandMarkets)
4.2. Storage Services
Storage services provide the capacity and durability needed to store and manage data in the cloud. This includes object storage, block storage, and file storage. Solutions such as cloud storage services are essential for digital transformation, as they allow organizations to store and manage large amounts of data and make it easily accessible to users.
According to a report, the global data sphere is expected to grow from 33 zettabytes (ZB) in 2018 to 175 ZB by 2025, at a CAGR of 61%. The growth of the data sphere is driven by factors such as the increasing use of digital technologies and the growing amount of data generated by connected devices.
(Source: IDC)
4.3. Networking Services
Networking services provide the connectivity and performance needed to access and use cloud resources. This includes virtual networks, load balancers, and content delivery networks. Networking services are essential for digital transformation, allowing organizations to connect their applications and infrastructure across different regions and providers.
According to a research report, the global multi-cloud networking market will grow from USD 2.7 billion in 2022 to USD 7.6 billion by 2027 at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 22.5% during the forecast period (2022-27).
(Source: MarketsandMarkets)
4.4. Security Services
Cloud security services provide the protection and compliance needed to secure cloud resources and data. This includes identity and access management (IAM), encryption, and threat detection and response. Security services are essential for digital transformation, as they allow organizations to secure their applications and data from cyber threats and comply with regulatory requirements.
The Global Cloud Access Security Broker Market size is expected to reach $18 billion by 2028, rising at a market growth of 17.8% CAGR during the forecast period (2022-28).
(Source: ReportLinker )
5. Use Cases of IaaS in Digital Transformation
5.1. Cloud Migration
Cloud Migration: One of the primary use cases for IaaS is cloud migration, where organizations move their existing applications and infrastructure to the cloud platform. This can help organizations reduce their IT costs, improve scalability, and increase flexibility. IaaS providers offer tools and cloud services to make the migration process easier and more efficient.
For example,
Accenture helped global manufacturing companies migrate its IT infrastructure to the Microsoft Azure IaaS platform. One of the migrations involved moving more than 1,200 virtual machines and 150 TB of data to the cloud. As a result, the company was able to reduce its IT infrastructure costs by 40% and improve scalability and flexibility.
(Source: Accenture)
5.2. DevOps and Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment (CI/CD)
IaaS provides the infrastructure needed to support DevOps and CI/CD processes, allowing organizations to deliver software faster and more reliably. IaaS providers offer tools and services to automate deployment, testing, and monitoring, as well as to manage infrastructure as code.
For example,
GE Digital used the Amazon Web Services (AWS) IaaS platform to implement DevOps and CI/CD processes for its Predix Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) platform. As a result, GE Digital reduced its mean acknowledgment time from one day to less than one hour and its mean remediation time from three days to 80 minutes. It moved from zero to a 100 percent real-time visibility.
(Source: Amazon)
5.3. Big Data Analytics
IaaS provides the processing power and storage needed to support big data analytics, allowing organizations to extract insights from large amounts of data. IaaS providers offer tools and services to manage and process data, as well as to enable real-time analytics and machine learning.
For example,
Netflix uses the AWS IaaS platform to support its big data analytics needs. Netflix processes over one billion events daily using AWS services such as Amazon Kinesis, Amazon S3, and Amazon EMR. As a result, Netflix is able to rapidly scale, operate securely, and meet capacity needs worldwide thanks to AWS's provision of computation, storage, and infrastructure.
(Source: Amazon)
5.4. The Internet of Things
IaaS provides the infrastructure needed to support IoT devices and applications, allowing organizations to collect and analyze data from connected devices. IaaS providers offer tools and cloud services to manage and secure IoT devices, as well as enable real-time data processing and analysis.
For example,
Siemens uses the Microsoft Azure IaaS platform to support its IoT initiatives. Siemens uses Azure services such as Azure IoT Hub, Azure Stream Analytics, and Azure Cosmos DB to collect and process data from over one million IoT devices. This allows Siemens to optimize its industrial processes and improve efficiency and productivity.
(Source: Siemens)
6. Leading Providers of IaaS
6.1.Deft
Deft is a trusted provider of managed IT services for SMBs and the Fortune 500. Deft's cloud services offer flexible, scalable, and cost-effective solutions for organizations looking to move their IT infrastructure to the cloud. Customers can choose from a range of cloud options, including public, private, and hybrid clouds, all hosted in Deft's secure data centers worldwide. Deft's cloud experts can also help customers design and implement custom solutions that meet their business requirements.
6.2. Virtuozzo
Virtuozzo is a leading provider of hyperconverged cloud software and services for cloud service providers (CSPs). Virtuozzo makes cloud computing easy, accessible, and affordable for all. The company's offerings include infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) with its production-ready OpenStack cloud platform, a key component of its IaaS offerings. The platform is designed to reduce costs and improve margins for CSPs by providing them with a highly efficient and scalable cloud infrastructure.
6.3. DigitalOcean
DigitalOcean is a cloud computing provider offering a range of solutions to simplify infrastructure management for developers and businesses. One of the key benefits of working with DigitalOcean is its simplicity. The company's solutions are designed to be easy to use and accessible to developers of all skill levels, with an intuitive user interface and straightforward pricing plans. This allows businesses to focus on building innovative applications rather than spending time managing their infrastructure.
6.4. Vultr
Vultr is a leading provider of cloud computing solutions designed to simplify infrastructure deployment for developers and businesses. The company's infrastructure is built on the latest technology, with state-of-the-art data centers and advanced networking capabilities. Vultr's cloud platform is designed to provide frictionless provisioning of public cloud, storage, and single-tenant bare metal services. This allows businesses to quickly and easily deploy infrastructure wherever needed, with fast network speeds and low latency.
6.5. Linode
Linode is a leading cloud computing solution provider that makes it easy, accessible, and affordable for individuals and businesses of all sizes to innovate and grow. Linode's cloud infrastructure is open-source, making it highly flexible and adaptable. They are designed to be simple and easy to use. The company offers various services, including virtual private servers (VPS), object storage, load balancing, managed Kubernetes, and more. In addition, these solutions are fully scalable and can be customized to meet each customer's specific needs.
7. Conclusion
IaaS services are expected to continue to play a critical role in driving the digital transformation of businesses. IaaS services are expected to see significant growth in the fields of artificial intelligence and machine learning. With the rise of big data and the increasing importance of data-driven decision-making, IaaS providers are expected to be critical in supporting these initiatives, providing the scalable computing power required to support advanced analytics and machine learning workloads. IaaS services are also expected to support the increasing demand for edge computing. With the proliferation of IoT devices and the rise of real-time applications, IaaS providers are expected to provide the necessary infrastructure and tools to support these initiatives, enabling organizations to process data and perform analysis. As a result, many organizations have turned to IaaS to support their digital transformation efforts, leveraging cloud computing services to implement new technologies and services that enable them to serve customers better, improve operational efficiency, and drive revenue growth. The future of IaaS services looks promising and will continue to be a critical enabler of digital transformation for businesses of all sizes and industries.
Read More