infrachat

The focus is on business solutions driven by LOBs. The convo is more around integration than piece parts.

I'm not sure that any recent conversation I've had has been about hardware. It's all about business benefit

I might suggest that if you're still talking about hardware that you're missing the point

3 words – achieving business outcomes. Discussions are much more business oriented rather than tech

Its about driving business value by aligning IT resources to support business requirements, not what cool stuff hardware can do.

More focus on leveraging infrastructure to increase biz agility and driving service differentiation

Quantifiable business results/outcomes

One concern is lowering power consumption and cooling costs. The temperature tolerances of System x servers will enable it to run in most environments without air conditioning. #ASHRAE standards matter.

Toured a retailer recently that clearly had not looked at performance requirements for good user experience when deploying in-store apps from the cloud.

@TDStone0722 What are some examples of quantfiable business results / outcomes?

@jtmcarthur56 That's a great example of why IT orgs need to collaborate more tightly with business lines

@jtmcarthur56 we will increasing see this trend as mobile workloads increase underlying platform scalability will become more of a req...

@JohnPEaston Agreed. But it is about the business benefit of high availability enabled by software and quality hardware.

@jtmcarthur56 True - but many organisations work on the basis of 'good enough' or are writing apps in a different way to build on platforms that are inherently less reliable than a traditional enterprise server

@jtmcarthur56 trying to build a 99.999%+ service based on commodity components is doomed to failure, need to build with the best components...

@srf512 Overall cost savings, reduced speed times, SLA improvements, store more data for less, fewer security risks... Set specific targets to measure improvements.

still too much manual intervention

I see rate of change and complexity of new solutions

Adding cloud to the mix is a step too far for many today

The top challenge from our recent #IBVStudy is the ability to securely move data to the right location at the right time

right @MMORALES13 but also managing massive amounts of data

Rapid growth of transactions due to mobile esp. in Banking

I think that security would be a challenge, also.

Ability to cut storage costs and the ability to maintain a secure environment are also top tech challenges

Undoubtably - and there will be new threat vectors too that we haven't seen before

The infrastructure they currently have in place is not flexible enough to support the dynamic nature of new workloads

complexity, legacy, building for availability and QoS...

Depends on the industry. For some the biggest challenge is application availability, manageability & performance for services delivered in branch offices and remote locations. IBM has a great server platform for hostile environments.

@StevenDickens3 I think that differentiation comes in NFRs like availability and security. Choose the right platform and that comes 'for free'. Choose the wrong one and its a costly add-on

what about telcos? @kenjm0154 users expect to wait less to get services a microsecond faster makes the difference

@StevenDickens3 I think that many MSPs look at the base cost of the platform rather than thinking about the cost to deliver the service their customers need / are willing to pay for

Check out IBM System x ASHRAE A3 ratings.

anytime anywhere, anyway access

@IBMSDE And that calls for the Software Defined Environments. Determining the value, sensitivity and placement of the data, etc. is one of the challenges in organizations moving to SDE.

Agreed. The security/privacy discussion at CIO Perspectives last week was fascinating. Privacy and security after the Marathon Bombing was a huge issue for hospitals.

@johnpeaston agree, MSP's need to look to differentiate based not only on cost as this is become harder with likes of AWS, rather need to focus on QoS, Security and availability

Great point. Unlocking data providing secure access to it is absolutely key

also about how you get to it from multiple end points i.e. web, mobile etc.

It is about having the data current enough and close enough to its point of use to be of value in real-time decisions.

Some omni-channel retailers, for example can provide near-real-time inventory status across online and physical store channels. Others can't tell you what's in the store down the street or even in their own store.

Establish a formal IT requirements process between IT ops and LOBs. Recognize IT ops as a service provider.

Focus on the right solution first and foremost – leave the platform decision to later. Why does the business care?

IT needs to understand how business value is delivered rather than being driven by technology dogma which restricts this

Bring biz leaders along in the buyer’s journey. Give them a seat at the table to help scope out investment requirements

@IBMSmrtrCmptngMany times we need to help close the gap between LOBs & IT

@johnpeaston can you elaborate on the technology dogma restricting IT leaders?

I see too many orgs that decide on the platform first and then worry that the solution won't run

Should be the other way round.

analyse non-functional requirements, security, QoS and availability an build a platform choice decision tree

be involved in the business forecast and strategy, integration not alignment

@JohnPEaston You have to make the decisions together, because the "right" application solution may not be available on an affordable platform. What looks good in the lab, may not look good at scale.

@jtmcarthur56 Yes. Any project needs to be cost-effective

@jtmcarthur56 e.g for analytics... any platform needs to be multipurpose, scalable, cost effective and agile. It also needs to be partner-ready and compliant. Lots of attributes to play with / set off against one another

@JohnPEaston totally agree. Having a platform that compatible with current and future technology so you can keep cost down