IT professionals have a reputation for craving the latest technology, but the truth is that every IT environment has at least some digital devices that are two, three, and even four generations old. That means organizations must reduce technical debt and modernize their disparate infrastructure into a single, integrated, and efficient environment across both cloud and on-premises systems.
Creating a cohesive whole from a multigenerational IT environment can contribute to long-term success for any business. Unfortunately, mission-critical legacy applications are often immovable, either for technical, cost, or data privacy reasons. Often, the best path forward is to focus on integrating older resources with modern ones.
Indeed, there are extremely attractive options for improving the cost, performance, and manageability of legacy systems by giving them cloud-style functionality without having to reconstruct them. Attaining a universal cloud experience is a popular approach. The key is choosing proven and effective solutions that can be used to modernize key elements of the legacy environment while retaining the flexibility needed when different components of the existing infrastructure require different modernization options.
Making this transition need not be painful or costly. Leading solutions have been designed to address challenges, not create new ones.
Unified hybrid cloud can help
Organizations can benefit from unified hybrid cloud solutions conceived at the outset to mitigate the effects of technical debt, utilize multigenerational infrastructure, and enable IT to better support new initiatives. The focus should be on the key enhancements that are reasonably possible, not on setting an artificial goal across all systems. Finding the best option for each generation is not only possible, but preferred.
Unified hybrid cloud enables as-a-service offerings, end-to-end visibility, and consistent management. A unified hybrid cloud environment allows your organization to:
- Blend newer systems with siloed legacy systems. Using infrastructure-as-a-service, it is possible to reduce the reliance on legacy equipment by augmenting it with modern infrastructure. This enables IT teams to start moving toward a more efficient and effective future. Surrounding legacy with modern functionality is a core strategy for retaining the value of these systems while making them less disruptive.
- Streamline ITOps across the infrastructure. Bringing the management of different elements of the infrastructure into a single, cohesive system is the foundation of a unified experience. Using a single control plane to monitor, operate, and orchestrate infrastructure resources reduces contention for resources and improves utilization. And modern ITOps solutions work across on-premises and cloud infrastructures to ensure a comprehensive and accurate picture of the IT estate.
- Focus on performance and responsiveness from the outset. Tomorrow’s highly demanding workloads will use vast amounts of data and demand substantial compute resources. This will be particularly important as AI technologies are deployed in new and existing applications. With a unified hybrid cloud and consistent performance monitoring, it is possible to prepare for that future state, provisioning additional resources on-the-fly and ensuring that performance meets demands.
Choose the optimal solution
However, not all unified hybrid cloud solutions are created equal. Key features and capabilities must be part of the chosen solution, and it should use proven methodologies and frameworks that align to your specific implementation. This reduces time to solution, minimizes flaws or problems during deployment, and easily provides the metrics and data necessary to show ROI or support FinOps.
The solution must also have proven functionality for supporting a wide range of legacy environments, and it must offer the most modern features and a management schema that provides detailed data about the system, offers a comprehensive view of the entire multigenerational environment, and enables IT to act in a timely and effective manner. An often-overlooked capability is enabling IT teams to responsibly decommission older equipment without interruptions or downtime.
The project to integrate and leverage multigenerational infrastructure is not a quick, six-month effort. It will take a long-term commitment. But choosing a partner that can accommodate current and future elements of the IT estate will help ensure that the benefits will be gained.
HPE offers proven technology solutions and professional services for both reducing technical debt and supporting multigenerational IT infrastructure. Its unified hybrid cloud infrastructure solution focuses on delivering agility, cost savings, and the ability to strategically reduce technical debt going forward. Leading management tools, as-a-service pricing models, comprehensive visibility, and support from the cloud to the edge are just some of the capabilities that help you rethink your organization’s multigenerational environment and put you on an accelerated path to the future.
