How IT Modernization Reduces Technical Debt and Propels Growth
Does your IT team constantly spend its time putting out fires? Is data growing at such a fast pace that you’re continually buying capacity? Are you under pressure to do more with less?
While legacy systems can save money in the short term, upgrading and maintaining infrastructure that’s more than 5 years old is a costly proposition, starting with the cost of the equipment itself. For example, where a storage array may have cost $500K five years ago, today you can get the same capacity for about half the price.
Managing aging systems only adds to the problem. Forcing IT teams to maintain these aging behemoths instead of using their valuable time to innovate can keep organizations from achieving their business objectives.
Continuing to carry this kind of technical debt is not in anyone’s best interests. Change is hard. But with the right partner, it’s manageable.
Case in point: 12 sites with multiple legacy infrastructure
A recent customer came to us with similar concerns. A communications company with 12 sites across the U.S, they were challenged to keep pace with ballooning data volumes and a costly, inefficient infrastructure that was taking more and more time to maintain.
They also had different infrastructure at each location, making it impossible to consistently manage and maintain them.
This customer wanted to head off any issues before they arose. In the process, they hoped to reduce their technical debt, simplify management, and lower costs.
We considered hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) as a way to modernize their environment. It’s easy to deploy, simple to manage, and scales compute and storage. But the simplicity of HCI comes with tradeoffs in performance, risks to uptime, and wasted resources.
This client wanted more. They wanted to re-think their architecture from the ground up.
Working closely to define the right solution
To understand their needs, Logicalis conducted a Data Center Workshop to better understand what was holding them back and to discuss their business requirements. We then put together detailed recommendations for technology solutions, as well as costs.
This customer knew what they wanted and moved fast. From our initial contact with them to purchase was a mere 6 weeks.
We proceeded to build a data center–in–a–box solution and implemented it at three sites. Once we’re sure that the solution meets our customer’s expectations, we’ll roll it out to the remaining 9 sites—all within about 6 months.
When this IT modernization project is complete, the customer will have a baseline to embark on a cloud journey or leverage a hybrid cloud methodology.
Modernize IT with HPE Nimble Storage dHCI
Their data center–in–a–box solution was built on HPE Nimble Storage disaggregated hyperconverged infrastructure (dHCI). Like HCI, dHCI allows storage, compute, and networking to be managed from a single management pane. But dHCI takes it a step further by decoupling compute, storage, and networking and enabling storage to be scaled independently from compute and networking—which doesn’t grow nearly as fast as storage—to optimize resource utilization.
In essence, it provides an HCI experience with business-critical speed and resiliency and independent scaling of compute and storage.
We added AI-driven HPE InfoSight to ensure that they automatically receive real-time predictions into application behavior and performance patterns to prevent disruptions and ensure mission-critical apps and data are always available and accessible. In fact, with HPE InfoSight:
- 86 percent of issues are automatically predicted and resolved;
- IT teams spend 85 percent less time managing and solving problems; and
- 54 percent of resolved issues are beyond the storage realm.
Even though our client purchased their hardware up front, HPE Nimble Storage dHCI offers the option for on-prem cost savings through HPE GreenLake. With HPE GreenLake, you essentially lease the hardware (and HPE-certified technicians to service it) through a consumption model. Pay monthly for what you use, convert capex to opex, and scale compute and storage on demand.
Benefits of HPE dHCI
HPE Nimble Storage dHCI and HPE InfoSight offer powerful business benefits:
- Simple – Stand up full stack infrastructure in minutes through the intelligent dHCI automation software and simplify ongoing management with VMware vCenter®. HPE InfoSight enables you to forecast resources across multiple tenants to optimize utilization.
- Resilient – Enjoy 99.9999% availability and keep applications running nonstop with HPE InfoSight. Predictive analytics capabilities extend across the infrastructure and every VM to quickly diagnose performance problems and identify root cause, driving an 85% auto-resolution across its installed base. Control VM sprawl and optimize app resources.
- Scalable – Avoid costly provisioning by growing compute and storage independently, across hybrid clouds, to meet the various performance and capacity demands of your workloads. Non-disruptive scaling is enabled through flexible storage options including all-flash, hybrid flash, and HPE Cloud Volumes.
- Cost-saving – Take advantage of modern time-saving capabilities—such as automation, AI and machine learning, and predictive analytics—by replacing costly IT gear. Reduce day-to-day maintenance costs and time by heading off issues before they occur with HPE InfoSight. Spend less time on IT maintenance and re-direct your talent to innovation that benefits your business.
When their IT modernization project is complete, our client will be able to consistently manage and maintain their infrastructure through a single pane of glass. They’ll spend much less time on IT maintenance because they’ll be able to intelligently detect and resolve issues before they occur. They’ll have the capacity and performance needed to meet their workload demands. Most importantly, if they choose, they’ll be well positioned to embark on a cloud journey with confidence.
Logicalis: Your HPE Platinum Partner and solution provider
An HPE partner since 1993, Logicalis has a strong relationship with the HPE team, is HPE-authorized in 15 countries, and knows HPE technologies inside and out. We’re also committed to delivering the right solution to enable your modernization initiatives.
To start, we’ll conduct an executive-level workshop with your key stakeholders to fully understand your needs and discuss real-world use cases of the latest technology solutions that could benefit your specific environment. We’ll then provide expert recommendations for next steps.
Contact us for more information or to schedule a workshop. We’re here to help you navigate change and meet your business goals.
Brandon Harris is the Senior Director of Data Center Technology Sales for Logicalis, responsible for helping to solve customers’ data center issues.