Complexity and Scale Drive IT to Industrialize
It’s interesting to note the growing drumbeat of support for the notion that virtualization and cloud will force a transformation in how systems are managed.
What isn’t new: Acknowledgment that these architectures will compound system volume—what I like to call “a cap ex boon and an op ex bust”–where cap ex gains are traded for new op ex costs.
What is new: An (overdue) examination of what this means for system management practices at massive scale.
Last week, I commented on Dan Wood’s excellent post on Forbes.com, “Virtualization’s Limit’s.” Dan’s point is that application complexity will be a gating factor to successfully exploiting these new technologies.
Further advancing this premise is a Forrester Consulting report commissioned by CA. Its findings bolster the argument that expansion of virtualization and cloud will introduce new system complexity that will threaten the stability of services.
The report presents seven key findings–all interesting, but two stand out for me:
- Moving to internal clouds requires changes to processes and automation management tools–as virtualized servers become clouds, IT departments have to change the way they manage systems.
- A top-down application-centric approach is needed. IT must shift orientation from infrastructure to applications. (If you’ve even taken a passing glance at this blog, you know how strongly I agree.)
For me, it’s heartening to see these issues under scrutiny–issues that are so fundamental, yet often swept under the rug in the mainstream discourse.
What does this all mean? To me, it’s the beginning of the industrialization of IT.
The American Industrial Revolution was about making manufacturing consistent, predictable and controlled—often by way of deep automation—to accommodate unprecedented volume and demand.
That sounds remarkably like what needs to take place in IT.
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