Digital transformation is making a significant impact on the enterprise. Organizations in all industries are realizing the need to enhance the customer experience through IoT, social media, big data, and mobility. Not only are each of these opportunities transforming IT’s role within the enterprise, they are ultimately changing how organizations operate.
To keep pace, numerous organizations are integrating flash storage into their infrastructure for many of their newest applications. But while flash is easy to deploy in satellite applications, integrating this valuable data back into the legacy storage infrastructure can be harder than expected. Aggressive deployment can be problematic, and enterprise networks often struggle to keep up with the higher performance.
Given those considerations, you need to ask yourself whether your current approaches and investments are enough to support your enterprise, especially as the digital evolution matures. No one knows the future, but there are both practical and strategic steps you can take to future-proof your storage infrastructure investments.
Value visibility. The reality of the digital economy is that expectations are at all-time highs. Performance, reliability, and security aren’t luxuries, especially as your customers demand 24/7 access to their financial accounts, make online purchases, or otherwise engage with your organization. This places a significant, unceasing burden on your IT infrastructure. Visibility with real-time analytics lets you know if your IT environment is performing optimally, and provides insights into potential tweaks that could assist in meeting demands.
Find flexibility. The evolving digital environment is by nature disruptive. Your organization must be flexible enough to adapt to the future as it becomes the present. Agility is a key part of flexibility. For instance, if your organization needs to reallocate resources – say, to deploy new services (or applications) – you must be able to do so without causing any downtime. You also need the ability to rapidly scale the entire array when demand dictates. This is where embracing self-configuring, self-healing systems makes sense. These software-based approaches provide the agility and flexibility necessary to empower new environments as they come along, while providing backward compatibility to protect your existing investments.
Understand efficiency. As the digital environment evolves, your company is likely asking IT to reduce operational costs. This starts with staying on top of current technology trends. But as new systems from emerging vendors come into play, you need to assess functionality. For instance, while some of the latest offerings may serve as great storage appliances for limited-scope functions (like VDI) or proof-of-concept validations, they may lack some key functions needed to perform mission-critical tasks. Likewise, deploying flash arrays requires you to have the right tools on top of the system. As you redefine application performance with flash storage, networks that deliver low-latency, high-capacity bandwidth and reliability are essential. Efficiency only occurs in a balanced infrastructure where each component can operate optimally.
Focus on the bottom line. Future-proofing isn’t just about predicting what tomorrow will bring. It’s about accepting that the market is changing rapidly, and you need to continually seek solutions that yield the right mix of agility, flexibility, visibility, and efficiency in an intelligent, evolutionary manner. Embracing a platform with these capabilities not only enables you to grow amid systemic disruption, it empowers you to drive innovation within your business.
For additional guidance on modern storage strategies for the enterprise, visit our Network World blog page.
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