Desire for IT Infrastructure Transformation

Over the past year, we have seen a substantial increase in the demand of organizations wanting to right-size, refresh, or otherwise transform their IT infrastructure/data center.  Many organizations want to understand their opportunities to improve efficiency and service to the business and end-users through newer technology and IT delivery methodologies.  Because the pressure to transform is increasing, many organizations are running head-first into change without clearly understanding the needs of the business or the most cost-effective strategy to deliver IT. One of the most common questions we hear from clients is “what workloads should I move to the cloud”?  To effectively answer this question. a process of discovery and planning needs to be done.

 

IT Infrastructure Transformation Methodology

Over the past 16 years, our business (Zunesis) has developed a methodology and a group of talented technologists who work closely with clients to transform their IT infrastructure.  First, we work to understand the business and the user requirements that matter today and tomorrow.  We hear frequently from clients that they spend 90% of their time putting out fires and never find the time to develop a strategic IT infrastructure architecture, plan, or roadmap.  The Zunesis IT infrastructure transformation methodology forces the production of these activities and documents.  These delivery artifacts provide the guidance and direction for organizations to shape their IT infrastructure solutions now and into the future.

The Zunesis IT infrastructure transformation methodology prioritizes availability, resiliency, security, manageability, and performance.  Our experience spans next-generation IT infrastructures for commercial and public sector organizations of all sizes and missions. The design efforts also take into consideration the financial constraints and the IT expertise of the organization.

We know transformation projects like this demand strong leadership and rigorous project management.  We recognize that leadership and rigorous project management without outstanding communication are likely to cause problems.  For this reason, our leadership approach is one of over-communication. We plan to keep all important stakeholders involved and engaged throughout the process.  Zunesis provides supportive leadership in areas where presentations, justifications, logical explanations, and other communications are available to members of the leadership team.

 

The Key Phases of our time-tested IT Infrastructure Transformation Methodology include:

• Assess
• Design
• Plan
• Execute

Assess 

The Assessment phase sets the foundation for the rest of the engagement and requires a commitment of time from each of the key stakeholders in the organization.  At Zunesis, we keep this process efficient by using a proven approach and seasoned and experienced IT professionals.  We utilize efficient forums to collect, analyze and validate requirements and current infrastructure details.

Our approach includes reviewing existing documentation, workshops, on-line surveys, and interviews.  This phase documents the current state of the IT infrastructure. This is all done with a consensus understanding of core business functions and desired future state of IT infrastructure requirements.  During the Assessment Phase, it is also important to gain an understanding of any business or financial constraints as they will provide guard rails during the design and planning phases.

 

Design

During the Design phase, developing the technology framework occurs.  This is a guide to prioritize IT initiatives and projects.  This phase also stack ranks the key technology strategic initiatives for the organization.  All of the data and requirements collected during the Assessment Phase are used to inform the development of the IT Framework.  The Zunesis team then creates and documents the Framework process and procedures.  The IT infrastructure Framework along with the selected IT initiatives (priority and order) are presented, discussed, revised, and finalized.

 

Plan

The Planning Phase is where we build robust plans to ensure the successful implementation/deployment of the prioritized IT infrastructure projects.  Zunesis recommends the development of a Technology Deployment Roadmap / Plan to describe the prioritized projects and the timeline for the implementation of those projects.  Given resource, financial, and business constraints, the Technology Deployment Roadmap may define a 12-month timeline up to a 60-month timeline.  It is most common for a roadmap to be 2-3 years long.

For each infrastructure initiative defined during the design phase, the associated IT projects and objectives to achieve them are defined.  The hardware, software, and personnel need to accomplish these projects are also clearly defined.  A detailed plan is developed for each project.  We review each project plan thoroughly with the client and validate against resource, timeline, and financial constraints.

 

Execute

The Execution phase involves the actual implementation of selected IT projects to meet strategic IT initiatives and priorities.  The IT infrastructure Framework and Roadmap are guides that inform every step of the project.  All of these architectural, strategic, and structural documents ensure consistency and predictability during the execution/deployment phase.

The Zunesis team produces a Portfolio Management methodology and strategy including an organizational structure and process for management of the project portfolio defined in the Planning Phase.  Documents and templates are created to support the management and communication processes during the execution phase.

Zunesis provides clients with a time-proven and efficient methodology for the development of a next-generation IT infrastructure.  Our staff of consultants and engineers make the process as simple as possible while ensuring thoroughness and professionalism.  Please reach out to Zunesis to see how we can help you with your IT infrastructure

Composable

 

Have you heard the term “composable infrastructure” and aren’t really sure what it is? You’re not alone. There’s a lot of confusion out there about infrastructures of all types, from converged to hyper converged and now composable, so we understand the confusion. First, let’s talk about three types of infrastructures to give you a bit more background:

 

• Converged Infrastructure. This is a hardware-focused, static (aka it doesn’t change) infrastructure that supports both private and cloud environments.
• Hyper Converged Infrastructure (HCI). In an HCI environment, the infrastructure is software-defined instead of hardware-focused like a converged infrastructure. All of the various technologies (compute, storage, networking, and virtualization) are integrated together into a hardware box from a single vendor.
• Composable Infrastructure. Here, nothing is static. It consists of compute, fabric, and storage modules that you can access and use as you need them.

 

The main differentiator for a composable infrastructure, specifically one from Hewlett Packard Enterprise, is that it’s completely programmable and software-defined. This means that you can access your composable infrastructure to configure and reconfigure all of the resources—compute, fabric, and storage—for whatever your particular workflow needs are at that moment. Composable infrastructure is hallmarked by these three differentiators:

 

• Fluid Pool of Resources. Your compute, storage, and fabric resources are pooled together and provisioned to use at will.
• Software-Defined Intelligence. This is where you define the resources you need and manage the resource lifecycle.
• Unified API. The HPE OneView is a programmable interface that you use to set everything up through just one line of code.

 

 

Synergy

 

For composable infrastructure, we work with HPE Synergy. Maybe you’ve heard of that, too, and aren’t sure what it’s all about? Let’s dig in.

 

Consider this: You need to test something, and in order to do that, you need resources. So, to deploy those necessary resources, you would go to the Synergy template and request the exact resources you need in the form of an infrastructure. Synergy then quickly gets to work to compose the exact infrastructure you need from the pool of resources. When you’re done with what you’re working on, you then go back into Synergy and release those resources back into the pool for others to use.

 

Now that you know more about it, contact us to learn how we can help you make the move to composable infrastructure.

 

 

 

Every New Year we make individual goals and resolutions to improve ourselves and our overall well-being. We understand the importance of taking care of our bodies both mentally and physically, but do we take the time to do a wellness check on the thousands of dollars we spend on our IT infrastructure?
How important is it to you and your organization that your IT infrastructure is running at its utmost operational efficiency? Can your organization afford to be down for minutes, hours, or days? Now is the time to evaluate your upcoming IT goals and initiatives for 2015 and give your IT infrastructure a New Year’s wellness check.
Assessment Services help you determine your IT and network infrastructure’s compliance to best practices and policies as well as readiness to support a new technology, application, architecture, or solution. Ultimately, IT assessments provide an aid in helping to:

• Decrease deployment costs and adoption delays,
• Improve your organization’s ability to support new strategies and solutions,
• Effectively budget accurately for additional investment requirements.

Is Your Network Healthy?
Find Out With The Zunesis Network Health Check!

 

Zunesis, an industry leading solution provider in Information Technology integration and professional services, offers many different assessment services to help organizations meet their operational strategies. Zunesis assessment services can provide you the information you need to make informed decisions on your cloud strategy, data growth and analytics, social medial approach, and more.
Contact Zunesis today or visit the Zunesis website to find out how one or more of the Zunesis assessments can help your organization stay sharp and ready for the New Year and beyond.