There are multiple trends putting
pressure on IT today to radically change the way they operate. From SDN to
cloud, market pressure on organizations to adopt new technological models or
utterly fail is immense.
That's not to say that new
technological models aren't valuable or won't fulfill promises to add value,
but it is to say that the market often overestimates the urgency with which
organizations must view emerging technology.
Too, mired in its own importance and
benefits, markets often overlook that not every organization has the same needs
or goals or business drivers. After all, everyone wants to reduce their costs
and simplify provisioning processes!
And yet goals can often be met
through application of other technologies that carry less risk, which is
another factor in the overall enterprise adoption formula – and one that's
often overlooked.
DYNAMIC DATA CENTER versus cloud computing
There are two models competing for
data center attention today: dynamic data center and cloud computing. They are
closely related, and both promise similar benefits with cloud computing
offering "above and beyond" benefits that may or may not be needed or
desired by organizations in search of efficiency.
The dynamic data center originates
with the same premises that drive cloud computing: the static, inflexible data
center models of the past inhibit growth, promote inefficiency, and are fraught
with operational risk. Both seek to address these issues with more flexible,
dynamic models of provisioning, scale and application deployment.
The differences are actually quite
subtle. The dynamic data center is focused on NOC and administration, with
enabling elasticity and shared infrastructure services that improve efficiency
and decrease time to market. Cloud computing, even private cloud, is focused on
the tenant and enabling for them self-service capabilities across the entire
application deployment lifecycle.
A dynamic data center is able to
rapidly respond to events because it is integrated and automated to enable responsiveness.
Cloud computing is able to rapidly respond to events because it is necessarily
must provide entry points into the processes that drive elasticity and
provisioning to enable the self-service aspects that have become the hallmark
of cloud computing.
DATA CENTER TRANSFORMATION: PHASE 4
You may recall the cloud maturity model, comprising five distinct steps of maturation from initial
virtualization efforts through a fully cloud-enabled infrastructure.
A highly virtualized data center,
managed via one of the many available automation and orchestration frameworks,
may be considered a dynamic data center. When the operational processes
codified by those frameworks are made available as services to consumers
(business and developers) within the organization, the model moves from dynamic
data center to private cloud.
This is where the dynamic data
center fits in the overall transformational model. The thing is that some
organizations may never desire or need to continue beyond phase 4, the dynamic
data center.
While cloud computing certainly
brings additional benefits to the table, these may be benefits that, when
evaluated against the risks and costs to implement (or adopt if it's public)
simply do not measure up.
And that's okay. These organizations
are not some sort of technological pariah because they choose not to embark on
a journey toward a destination that does not, in their estimation, offer the
value necessary to compel an investment.
Their business will not, as too
often predicted with an overabundance of hyperbole, disappear or become in
danger of being eclipsed by other more agile, younger versions who take to
cloud like ducks take to water.
If you're not sure about that,
consider this employment ad from the most profitable insurance company in 2012, United
Health Group – also #22 on the Fortune 500 list – which lists among its requirements "3+ years of
COBOL programming."
Nuff said.
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