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Workshops uncover insights into the state of IT and Digital Transformation

By Richard Arneson

Let me get this out of the way first—IT transformation isn’t the same as digital transformation. The former is more a means of getting your organization to the latter (Read more about digital transformation here). OK, now let’s get down to IT transformation.
GDT premier partners Dell EMC and VMware covered the country from coast-to-coast to conduct workshops on IT transformation. Wait, this just in—they conducted workshops across the globe! In the workshops, Dell EMC consultants worked with CIOs and their direct reports to evaluate their current IT state against where they’d like it to be. From that, they discussed strategies and tactics to bridge that gap. But, best of all, IDC performed an analysis of this information and published the results for all to enjoy (you can read about them here). Following is a brief synopsis of the report:

CIO’s Top Priorities

Portals. Yes, portals ranked as the highest priority of all projects, primarily because they have the most visibility and represent how companies experience the effects of automation and efforts to improve infrastructures.

Hybrid Cloud Architecture

Dell EMC discovered that over the last three (3) years more and more companies (from 65% to 84%) want to utilize a hybrid cloud architecture to support production apps. However, the key word is “want”. They’re not there yet—currently only ten percent (10%) of the CIOs interviewed were using this hybrid cloud approach.

DevOps

Sixty-seven percent (67%) of the CIOs want DevOps to be an integral part of the organization, and all would like to get there, and are planning on it, within eighteen (18) months. Here’s the biggest reason—it currently takes them at least six (6) months, on average, to deploy a new release.

Network Virtualization

While it doesn’t trump Hybrid Cloud or DevOps in importance, it is where the CIOs believe they have the largest infrastructural gap. On average, they would like at least forty percent (40%) of infrastructure to be virtualized within the next 12 to 18 months.

Automation

While Infrastructure as Code (IaC) and automating changes and management ranked high on their priority list (90% wanted it), only 5% claimed to already be there.
Over eighty-five percent (85%) of the CIOs interviewed wanted to do a better job of proactively, and promptly, addressing performance and capacity issues through automation and alerts. And they would like to have automated metering and an automated analytics engine in place that delivers metrics and trends for all IT services.

Top Challenges

Changing the current operations model is the hardest part of transforming a new approach to IT. When lined up in a row—service delivery transformation, new infrastructure deployment and management, and how the IT organization needs to be re-structured—IT transformation becomes an even more daunting task than first imagined.

What are the most prevalent changes made by the top performers?

According to the CIOs interviewed by Dell EMC, the top performers—those in the top twenty percent (20%) of targeted goal achievement—had already achieved the following:

  • Executive-level, top-down support of a documented strategy and roadmap for IT Transformation.
  • IT resource provisioning taking no more than one (1) week.
  • The utilization of Cloud-based Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS).
  • The virtualization of almost one hundred percent (100%) of their infrastructure.
  • Automation implemented to deliver IT services.

Call on the experts

IT Transformation, like Digital Transformation, is no mean feat. It involves organizational changes, and lots of them, all while keeping up with technical advances across a wide range of disciplines. That’s why talking to professionals who’ve helped companies automate processes to enhance operations and grow their bottom line should be a key element of your technology roadmap.
GDT’s tenured, talented solutions architects, engineers and security analysts understand how to positively incorporate change by designing and deploying innovative solutions that help customers realize greater productivity, enhanced operations and more revenue. GDT utilizes key partnerships with best-of-breed technology companies, like Dell EMC, to help organizations transform their legacy environments into highly productive digital infrastructures and architectures. You can reach them at SolutionsArchitects@GDT.com or at Engineering @GDT.com. They’d love to hear from you.

Want more information about IT and Digital Transformation? Check them out here:

Unwrapping DevOps
Autonomics and Automation–is there a difference?
Answer: you get a solution better than your current one
A-M-D-I-L-L: Unscrambled, these letters represent some of the hottest topics in the IT Industry
A Robust Solution for the entry-level storage customer
Don’t put off ’til tomorrow what you must do today
Want to read about a cool, real-world Blockchain application?
When being disruptive is a good thing

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