http://www.infostor.com/backup-and_recovery/disaster-recovery/2010/the-next-decade-solving-the-big-3-it-problems.html
by Russ Fellows
INFOSTOR
November 29, 2010
The next decade will bring challenges in many
areas of information technology. Although new ideas and technologies are
constantly emerging, only those that can deliver real value to
businesses and consumers will be successful. In working with IT
consumers, Evaluator Group has identified several issues facing
businesses -- the so-called ‘big IT problems’ of the next decade.
The issues outlined below are topics that
Evaluator Group has engaged in detailed conversations about with both IT
consumers and IT producers. Nearly every business relies on
information technology, and as a result will be affected by the arrival
of these changes to the IT landscape.
The three big challenges facing information technology over the coming decade are:
· Data Center Transformation – Enabling businesses to efficiently manage and deploy IT
· Data Analytics – Deriving value and business insights from data that is captured
· Integrated Data Management – Intelligently managing data placement, protection and archiving
Solving these challenges will require significant technology,
business, and operational expertise. One of the reasons why these
problems are proving difficult is that existing technologies cannot
solve these issues cost efficiently. In some cases, the technology
required is still emerging and will require integration with existing
products and processes.
Evaluator Group has published studies on each of these topics, and the papers are available at no charge on the Evaluator Group’s website.
Enabling technologies
Solving business challenges will require new technologies that are
now emerging. Data center transformation, data analytics and integrated
data management all require technologies that optimize cost and
performance, while enabling massive scale and security. Solving these
challenges has been attempted in the past with various degrees of
success. However, the scope and scale of the problems have outgrown the
capabilities that existing technologies are able to deliver.
Next generation solutions will require multiple technologies in order
to be successful. Convention says IT departments should standardize
and consolidate their equipment in order to improve management
efficiencies. Next, they should virtualize components in order to
improve efficiency without adding to management complexity. With these
moves, it is possible to create standard business catalogs of services
offerings at specific quality and price levels. Finally, these services
can be integrated into ongoing operations through automation in order
to maintain efficiencies and productivity gains.
A few of the technologies needed to solve these challenges include:
· Virtualized infrastructure: The key technology that enables scale, efficiency and flexibility
· Scale-out and scale-up: Required to support the growth in data and information processing
· Efficiency: Achieved through process and product standardization and management
· Flexibility: Ability to support changing requirements
· Security: A requirement in hosted, cloud, or distributed work environments,
· Multi –tenant design: Supports multiple clients/tenants simultaneously
The concept of virtualization is nearly as old as computing itself.
It has been applied with various degrees of success to computer memory
access, processing, storage and networking. However, virtualization is
now beginning to be made visible at an external level and is being used
to transform major elements of IT.
Other design requirements include efficiency, which requires
standardization of interfaces and operational automation. The ability
to scale both up and down, while meeting workloads that change over time
requires flexibility in both the technology and management of the
infrastructure.
Securing information in a multi-user, distributed environment is both
challenging and necessary. Without adequate security, the promise of
hosted cloud computing cannot succeed. Even within public cloud
settings, security and data governance is a growing issue, which must be
solved in order for the next wave of IT solutions to deliver value.
Management of information must be performed holistically, across the
enterprise regardless of time or place. Data governance, protection
levels, placement and security of information must be protected by
polices that can span the virtualized environment.
Finally, the ability to request, configure, manage and consume IT
resources will require a new wave of tools designed to allow for
“virtual system management,” encompassing logical elements rather than
physical products. So-called multi-tenant management tools must support
securely managing multiple clients and administrators, all with
separate logical views, while using common infrastructure.
Data Center Transformation
At its core, transforming the data center is as much about business
transformation as it is about technology. Perhaps the biggest component
driving this change is the movement to IT as a Service (ITaaS). The
most visible example of this is the emergence of the terms “cloud” and
“cloud computing.”
Evaluator Group began talking with our clients about the business
drivers behind cloud computing and ITaaS, along with the emerging
technological changes, and quickly realized that what companies were
seeking was a way to transform their data centers and operations, a
“data center transformation.”
Updating corporate data centers has been an ongoing process since the
inception of IT. Evaluator Group began to use the term “data center
transformation” in late 2008 as a way of explaining the fundamental
shifts that were emerging in the way IT departments and CIOs were
looking to deliver IT to their constituents. The term “cloud computing”
began to emerge during this time as well; however, the term meant very
little to most people.
What is clear is that business users are looking to gain flexibility
in how, when and where they consume IT resources. Businesses in
particular are now looking for a better alignment between the needs of
their business and the cost and service offerings that IT departments
can deliver.
Data Analytics
Traditional data processing and data warehousing are narrow examples
of an emerging area known as data analytics. Common techniques in place
are relatively slow and unable to scale to solve the analytical
processing of thousands of data streams in near real-time. Business
users are now looking to process information using multiple data sources
concurrently.
“Big data” requires the ability to scale out information processing
and management, while still providing information protection and
security. Standardization of components along with virtualization can
help drive efficiencies. Moreover, the technologies outlined are all
required to meet the challenge of data analytics.
The challenge is to break problems into those that can be processed
or analyzed in parallel. Techniques have emerged, including MapReduce
and others, as methods for efficiently processing these types of
problems.
Some of the techniques include massively parallel processing,
high-speed data access coupled with hardware and software integrated
appliances. The first wave of products was typically based on commodity
hardware and software with a significant amount of tuning and
integration required. More recently, integrated solutions, which rely
in part on proprietary hardware or software, are now coming to market.
Integrated Data Management
Data protection, tiering, and archiving have all been topics of
discussion within companies and IT organizations for decades. Often,
these discussions are independent, focused on solving a particular
problem. Business application owners and IT workers alike are now
looking for a way to solve these challenges in an integrated fashion.
What is needed is a strategy that encompasses all of these topics
holistically. Evaluator Group began using the terminology “Integrated
Data Management” (IDM) to discuss these areas of interest. Past efforts
have realized that these aspects were related but placed too much
emphasis on particular tools or techniques to solve the problem.
Within IDM are three areas of focus:
· Data protection (backup, point-in-time copies, replication, security, etc.)
· Tiering (moving data within a system and between systems for cost, performance, and efficiency)
· Archiving (storing information for long-term preservation)
These three aspects of IDM are all related. They are part of a
bigger picture of managing data cost effectively, while meeting business
objectives. Understanding their importance and relationships are
critical for building and operating optimal IT operations.
The three areas outlined will certainly not be the only challenges
within IT. However, these are the topics that we feel have the
potential to revolutionize how IT organizations provide and deliver
information and how people consume and leverage that information within
both personal and business settings.
Russ Fellows is a senior partner with the Evaluator Group research and consulting firm.
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