EXPERT OPINION
John Young, Solution Architecture and
Engineering, Sungard Availability Services
don’t fly too close to the sun and find
themselves back at square one after
a failed migration. The right hybrid
solution, backed by a trusted partnership
of a data centre and cloud provider, will
be key to this.
IT
Similarly to hybrid IT, efforts to identify
risk in modernisation strategies should
also be focused on the resilience of both
logical and physical IT components. When
we think of protecting IT, we typically
think of cybersecurity or cloud recovery.
While these are imperative, businesses
must also consider how the environment
in which physical hardware is kept could
ultimately pose a risk.
Some questions businesses must ask
themselves include: where are server and
storage units kept? Does it share space
with pipes carrying water or gas? Is the
atmosphere temperature and moisture
regulated? What would happen if the
Uninterruptable Power Supply (UPS)
failed? Personal experience demonstrates
that outside of weather-related incidents,
most IT and business impacting events
were caused by power and/or network
outages, which in many cases were to
some degree foreseeable with proper due
diligence planning.
It may seem outside the remit of the
executive board but with IT becoming
increasingly mission-critical to operations,
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Issue 12
these are the questions that need to be
addressed to ensure business continuity.
These factors must also be reviewed on
an ongoing basis. As technology becomes
more powerful, it generates more heat
and consumes more electricity, requiring
additional systems to prevent damage
and/or disruption. living up to expectations and learning
from the experience. With resilience
embedded into every facet of a
modernisation strategy, businesses
can ensure their transformation is a
continuous journey upward. ◊
The resulting CAPEX and OPEX required
to keep on-premises hardware resilient
ultimately become another deciding
factor when choosing hybrid cloud
solutions. Businesses may ultimately
choose instead to rent space in a third-
party colocation facility, where the
building, infrastructure and maintenance
is handed to a provider for a predictable –
and lower – monthly cost. WITH RESILIENCE
EMBEDDED INTO
EVERY FACET OF A
MODERNISATION
STRATEGY,
BUSINESSES CAN
ENSURE THEIR
TRANSFORMATION
IS A CONTINUOUS
JOURNEY UPWARD.
Final thoughts
Today’s IT landscape is shaped by a huge
number of businesses and organisations
running increasingly complex, increasingly
mission-critical applications. These
businesses and organisations are
also becoming more reliant on these
applications for their businesses to be
able to function. At the same time, cloud
computing is accelerating innovation at an
unprecedented rate.
It’s no exaggeration to say that the world
is moving so fast that if you’re ‘rightsized’
today, you’re probably already going
backwards. Being at the front of the queue
isn’t really good enough anymore; you
need to be ahead of the curve, not just
monitoring the current environment but
able to predict how it’s going to flex and
how to adapt to the change.
That being said, take it at a measured pace.
Modernisation must ultimately be about
making the business grow and growth
never came from diving in headfirst.
Ensuring resilience is an ongoing
task, comprised of making a thorough
assessment of risk and rigorously
checking your assumptions along the
way. It’s also a matter of reviewing
the cost/benefits of new technology
implementations. Resilience means
knowing to admit when things aren’t
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