Consumers are rapidly adopting mobile computing. This is forcing solution and service providers to turn to cloud, sophisticated analytics and emerging technologies to speed the development and delivery of new services. The resulting disruption of enterprise and IT operations makes staff utilization, efficiency and infrastructure optimization a major issue. The solution lies in increasing orchestration[1], integration and automation across the enterprise.
What’s
the source of all the complication? It comes from:
1.
Data centers that
automatically expand and contract services to meet ‘spikey’ service demands;
2.
Trading-floor apps that
be rapidly evolved to maintain a competitive edge longer than 72 hours; ;
3. Complex process automations that ease access to technology
are altering market dynamics by expanding consumer choice and raising
competition to global levels;
4. Users a click away from alternative services, suppliers and
products.
These
combine to drive demands for faster delivery of evolving solutions/services
while forcing prices and costs down. To
compete, the enterprise and IT must be fast, agile and adaptable. Traditional
automation can only provide a starting point. Focusing on isolated tasks leaves
IT and enterprise operations susceptible to bottlenecks, inconsistent response
times and sporadic failures.
Integrated end-to-end orchestration
provides the answer by bringing together multiple interdependent tasks and
functions (both business and IT) to operate more effectively. For example, in
dev/ops it can start with automating system configuration and provisioning for
development then extend to test, deployment and production. Or, combining
business and IT functions; IT automate and
centralize data collection, using a mobile device able to read inventory
data collected by walking around a warehouse – transmitting data to a
centralized repository for inventory control, capacity planning, purchasing,
accounting, etc.
IT, focusing on user expectations, must
now operate in a mode of continuous innovation breaking traditional patterns. Service
requests for new systems, services, or development environments must be
satisfied in near real-time.
Orchestration provides IT the
opportunity to breakdown and work across functional silos that isolate
enterprise functions. IT and business functions work together to identify
opportunities to apply existing expertise and procedures to resolve the
problems and challenges inherent in enterprise operations.
As interest grows, tools and solutions for piecemeal automation proliferate. A number of ‘integrated’ solutions exist, that, in reality, integrate, only at the ‘pane of glass’ UI. There are also solutions composed as hastily assembled collections of tools lacking any coherent, supportive architecture.
Implementation of a comprehensive
orchestration solution requires significant experience and sophistication along
with an investment in software and hardware. Until recently such an investment
was affordable only by large enterprises. This is changing as vendors scramble
to satisfy interest.
[1]
Follow our video and white paper commentaries on orchestration here: http://www.ptakassociates.com/it-orchestration/
[2]
IBM sponsored this paper; see more on their offerings at: http://www-03.ibm.com/software/products/en/ibm-cloud-orchestrator
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