Are you spending your time on systems integration or on service delivery? Information technology executives face a challenge earning earning a seat at the table. Modern IT demands that we run our business with the same level of discipline as the revenue generating side of the business. But I’ve seen that IT practitioners still spend a lot of time with their minds on integration.
Twenty years of change in information technology
Think of what has happened in the last twenty years. Just two decades ago we were concerned about scaling the technology and applications as the business came to rely upon technology. Sales CRM and finance packages consolidated and automated many business processes that were once dependent upon manual processes. Then Y2K came along and the business noticed how dependent we had become upon technology. The Dot Com bust happened in 2002, and suddenly IT was subject to audit. We looked at our asset utilization and noticed that the client server model had become so capable that we had a consolidation opportunity. Next thing you know, virtualization turned the infrastructure into a services pool.
From integration to managed service delivery
Looking back, it’s easy to see that we have arrived at moment where the practice of IT is less about making things work and more about managing service delivery. We expect that infrastructure and applications are utilities that should just work.
Nobody wants to discuss “Can we make it work?” We are expected to deliver services, govern the use of data and manage how IT can propel the business forward. The good news is that there is a host of cloud services that just work. While this creates an agile IT environment, it also makes life a bit more interesting. We are confronted with a need to manage internal IT and external private cloud as one federated infrastructure.
This is the opportunity that the cloud brings us: IT becomes integrator, governance for the use of company data, and a supply chain manager that sources IT services.
Converged infrastructure needs a converged tool
You could buy many IT management tools. If you did, you would have to integrate each tool. lovingly handcrafting an IT management environment that uniquely manages your business. Even if you chose one tools supplier, you still get the pleasure of integrating all of the tools because most comprehensive tools have grown through acquisition.
Enter Vistara ITOP. Vistara ITOP was developed as a single, integrated tool that manages the whole IT lifecycle. Vistara ITOP is a SaaS platform, so it shows up on the first day with ALL the parts integrated. Easy, Efficient, Effective.
As the new year approaches, I’ll leave you to think about why that might be important. Please have a merry Christmas and a happy new year!
Image credit: Wikimedia Commons
