The Evolving IT Landscape: From Dedicated to Shared Infrastructure
As seasoned IT professionals, we’ve witnessed the ebb and flow of technology trends over the years. The familiar saying, “Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it,” holds true in the world of infrastructure. In this article, we’ll delve into the infrastructure trends that have shaped the industry and explore the nuances of shared versus dedicated infrastructure.
Let’s rewind the IT landscape about 20 to 25 years. Back then, your infrastructure ran on dedicated physical servers with their own local storage. Larger organizations might have utilized storage area networks (SANs) to share some components of storage. Fast forward to 15 years ago, when virtualization was in full swing, allowing you to share your servers and storage. Running dedicated servers and storage was a rarity and often avoided.
Now, let’s look at where we are today – “the cloud,” which started around 10 years ago. We now have a myriad of deployment models, both dedicated and shared, as well as a combination of the two. You have the freedom to create the infrastructure that makes the most sense for your organization. So, if “the cloud” is a hybrid of both shared and dedicated infrastructure, why am I considering this a dedicated wave? The devil, as they say, is in the details.
The Ease of Deploying Dedicated Infrastructure
You see, we now have a much easier time deploying infrastructure. Leveraging automation, code, and other tools has made this process far more straightforward compared to 25 years ago. Back then, it would have taken a significant amount of time and effort to approve, purchase, and provision infrastructure. Now, with the approval in place, the provisioning part has become a breeze.
But herein lies the issue: just because we can easily deploy dedicated infrastructure, doesn’t mean we should. Unlike “way back in the day,” when deploying dedicated infrastructure was a complex endeavor, it’s now easier than ever. Plus, we can now see how much a customer, department, division, or application costs. Isn’t this exactly what we’ve been striving for?
The Dangers of Embracing Dedicated Infrastructure
Yes, but at what cost? This is a classic case of “just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.” The business needs to ask itself a simple question: “Do I care about cost efficiency and profit?” If the answer is yes, then dedicated infrastructure should be avoided.
You see, we’re now back to the familiar territory of islands of underutilized compute and storage. You might argue that you’re charging it back, so who cares? In fact, now you can see how much to charge back, so things are great. But what’s interesting is that we’ve identified the actual problem you’re trying to solve. It was never about deploying dedicated infrastructure based on a genuine need. Instead, it’s about isolating infrastructure to enable easier accounting.
The Benefits of Embracing Shared Infrastructure
What if, instead of deploying dedicated infrastructure, we went back to a shared model? Customers, departments, and applications all sharing compute and storage resources. From a cost perspective, you’d likely see your cloud costs drop considerably. It’s rare that every customer, department, and application are using compute and storage at 100% capacity all the time. This is why virtualization was so popular back in the day. From a cost perspective, you were utilizing what you paid for, leading to much lower operating costs. Lower costs, in turn, led to more profit or funds available for research and development.
Another win for sharing infrastructure is that you tend to build bigger and better. When resources are isolated, you have to pinch every penny. Imagine a scenario where everyone has their own home. Some can afford fantastic chef-level kitchens and huge swimming pools, while others are lucky to have a washing machine and dryer. If we all pooled our resources together, we’d have access to an Olympic-sized swimming pool and a kitchen fit for a five-star restaurant. And it would still be underutilized to some degree. In IT infrastructure, the same principle applies. Pooling resources together means we all gain access to better, more robust systems. And chances are good that we’d coexist just fine.
Measuring Value Beyond Cost Tracking
I hear what you’re thinking: what about knowing how much X, Y, and Z are costing us? In some ways, I would challenge the importance of this from a big-picture perspective. What you should care about is profit. In life, we sometimes need to help those who struggle with our extra resources. It’s good for humanity, and I contend that it’s good for business in the right context.
This isn’t to say we shouldn’t figure out a way to understand the infrastructure cost for different components. Rather, it shouldn’t be the primary focus. What we need to focus on is how to measure value. That’s a problem we can solve independent of sharing infrastructure. If truly knowing the cost of infrastructure per billable dimension is a need, focus on how to solve that. Take the savings you’ll reap and divert some to cost-tracking tooling, whether that’s buying off-the-shelf tools or building your own.
Shared Infrastructure: The Caring Approach
“Sharing is caring,” as they say. We teach this to our children, and somewhere along the way, we’ve lost sight of this principle. I’m not suggesting we give away everything. Rather, there are other ways we can determine value. We can always figure out a way to charge back infrastructure. However, let’s first focus on making it as cost-efficient as possible.
At the IT Fix blog, we believe in providing practical solutions and insights that help our readers navigate the ever-evolving IT landscape. By embracing shared infrastructure, organizations can not only reduce costs but also build better, more robust systems that benefit everyone. It’s time to move away from the island mentality and embrace the power of shared resources.
Conclusion: Shared Infrastructure – The Way Forward
As IT professionals, we have the responsibility to guide our organizations towards the most cost-effective and efficient solutions. The pendulum has swung back to dedicated infrastructure, but it’s crucial that we challenge this trend and consider the benefits of shared infrastructure.
By pooling our resources and focusing on value rather than just cost tracking, we can create IT infrastructures that are not only more cost-effective but also more capable of supporting the ever-evolving needs of our businesses. It’s time to think out loud and embrace the shared infrastructure approach – a caring and forward-thinking solution for the modern IT landscape.
