What Optimizing Your IT Infrastructure Looks Like
The only way to effectively manage the IT at your company is to build and take advantage of IT infrastructure. Having a strong infrastructure optimization plan in place is critical to aid in project delivery, reduce organizational risk, and prevent service disruption, among other things.
But without IT consulting services, what does that process look like?
While the process might seem intimidating at first, the experts at Merit Technologies have broken it down into three simple steps: Audit, Planning, and Implementation. Let’s explore each of the steps below and see how you can optimize your IT infrastructure.
We’ll also cover any issues that may arise during the optimization process, and why outsourcing to an IT consultant might be a good idea in the long run.
Step 1: Audit
In the “Audit” step, you determine the main reason for optimizing your company’s IT architecture, visualize the consequences, and determine the performance of your resources after the optimization process.
There are two main things to consider during the audit step: on-premise and cloud infrastructure auditing, which each have unique challenges.
On-premise infrastructure auditing
For on-premise, you need to know the number of available computer systems or machines in your business, as well as the available processors and memory capacity. Then, you should determine the total number of these resources required by your company to function properly.
Cloud infrastructure auditing
For the cloud, you need to know the available and required cloud resources at your disposal. A detailed audit of your available infrastructure may require a team of DevOps professionals if your data is hosted on-premise.
After the auditing step is complete, the results will provide you with knowledge of the required infrastructure optimization, and then you can start Step 2: Planning.
Step 2: Planning
In the “Planning” step, your business decides how to carry out the optimization process. Just like in Step 1, you’ll think about on-premise and cloud infrastructure. For on-premise, you need to consider how you’ll go about reducing the number of computer systems, their processors, or memory capacity while making sure your company’s business operations aren’t put in danger.
For cloud infrastructure, you’ll have to discover detailed insights into how the optimization benefits your company, reduce costs and risks, and improve performance, as well as finalize how to carry out the process to achieve the desired results.
Next, we move on to Step 3: Implementation.
Step 3: Implementation
In Step 3, the optimization approach is applied to the business’s internal IT. For on-premise systems, this involves decreasing the system’s processor or memory capacity.
For the cloud infrastructure, however, there are multiple ways of optimizing the way data is stored. Here are the most common methods:
- Re-hosting, otherwise known as “lift and shift,” involves simply migrating existing data and applications to a new cloud server. Since it is so simple, this method is best suited for beginners with little or no knowledge of cloud environments that require significant code modification.
- Re-platforming involves migrating your existing data and making architectural changes to it so that it will work in your new cloud environment. This method requires changing some codes, making it unsuitable for beginners.
- Retaining doesn’t involve data migration or moving applications and instead leaves them in place.
- Repurchasing, or “drop and shop,” happens when the business opts out of the existing cloud environment licensing and purchases another cloud environment.
- Modernizing entails breaking down existing applications and rebuilding them in a way to improve performance and costs less to run. It necessitates a high level of coding knowledge.
- Rewriting involves (you guessed it) the rewriting of an organization’s entire application and data to properly optimize performance and cost.
What Issues Can Happen During Optimization?
While bottlenecks may appear during an IT structural upgrade, it is important to note that each company has its own approach to dealing with them. Some common issues include:
- A prohibitively expensive cost of scaling your business
- Selecting security assessment processes due to continuous iterations
- Tracking the usage/capacity of your old tools
How An IT Consultant Could Help Optimize Your IT Infrastructure
Businesses have to have a digital strategy to be successful going forward. With so many changing trends, the IT landscape is also changing and requires constant monitoring and analysis by people who can help you navigate this tricky terrain.
Our team of IT experts at Merit Technologies can play an integral role in your business by working with you to create a strategic IT roadmap that aligns with your business objectives, so you can achieve your business goals faster than ever before.
Just like optimizing your IT infrastructure can be broken down into a simple 3-step process, so can working with Merit:
- Talk with an expert
- Discover true IT service
- Know your company is in good hands
Talk with an expert today to see how we can help your organization thrive.
