Demanding customers in the application economy are forcing IT teams to redefine their IT infrastructure management approach. They not only need to resolve issues before customer experience suffers but also have to support faster application deployments required for delivering multi-channel experiences. In order to achieve this, IT teams need an agile IT infrastructure management approach. The importance of agility is unquestionable but there seems to be confusion amongst team on how to truly drive agility (just as Kip is experiencing in this comic) across today’s hybrid and complex IT infrastructures.

Here are four key ingredients required for building an agile infrastructure management approach:

Unify tools and approach:  In the application economy there is no time for blame games while the customer experience suffers.IT can no longer afford to be tangled in complex tools and views of various infrastructure elements and disciplines such as servers, networks, capacity, and energy utilization. A unified view is necessary to reduce complexity and mean time to repair. In addition a unified management approach also speeds application deployments and upgrades.

Switch gears from reactive to proactive: Customers these days are unforgiving and have low switching costs. Your competitor is pretty much an “app” download away.  In order to ensure an optimal customer experience, IT needs to switch gears from reactive to proactive.  They need to leverage predictive analytics and techniques to identify and resolve issues before their customers’ experience suffers.

Build Intuitive workflow that spur productivity:  Demands form IT have never been higher, yet resources remain limited. Their management tools and approach need to provide easy to use, consistent and persona based workflows that allow IT administrators to identify performance bottle necks faster and ensure their day to day administrative tasks are not killing their productivity.

Ensure efficiency and flexibility:  New technologies such as mobile and social will continue to put pressure on IT infrastructures. Despite minimal resources, IT needs to ensure that their infrastructure management approach is scalable and will meet their organization’s growing needs. To help accomplish this, they need to need to future proof their approach with tools that provide “plug and play” capabilities for supporting new technologies and applications.

Are you looking to drive agility in your IT infrastructure? How successful have you been? What are your biggest challenges? Share your thoughts in the comments section below.

Also, take a look at this comic series in which Kip & Gary highlight even more everyday challenges IT teams face in an entertaining comic series. And vote on your favorite. Have they convinced you to redefine your infrastructure management approach?

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