These days, IT architectures are in flux.

Some major IT trends – like Big Data, AI, IoT, and virtualized everything – have led to a radical change:

The underlying networks + nodes of enterprise IT are now designed to harmonize with futuristic tech.

When applications employ AI, IoT, and the like, they increase the demand on certain resources: GPU, CPU, memory, I/O, and bandwidth.

To make matters more complicated, hardware lifecycles are lengthening. 

Servers + switches have always been built to last 3 years. Today, we see them running for 4 or often 5 years, thanks to improved chipsets and the ease of upgrading machines with improved components throughout their useful life.

So, here’s the thing: 

Your customers are being pushed to deploy the latest-and-greatest applications to support their business . . . and they need the supporting infrastructure that goes hand-in-hand with digital transformation. 

How do you maintain your place as a trusted advisor during these disruptive times?

You open a dialogue that proves your value + expertise.

Talking to Your Customer About Changing Architectures

Have your customers embraced these applications, like IoT and AI?

If so, then it’s the perfect time to continue the conversation:

• How’s the switch going?
• Do you need anything else to complete your transition?
• Where have you successfully implemented cloud?
• . . . And what’s best-suited for private or on-premises infrastructure?

Next, bring attention to the change in their spend – that is, where their entire IT budget actually goes.

In our analysis, we’re seeing a big shift – obviously to more subscription- and consumption-based expenses – but within core IT assets as well.

We see two key examples continuously:

First, network bandwidth (now measured in double-digit Gigabit speeds) is making network upgrade projects cost as much as a small server farm did a few years ago. 10G and 40G connections drive costly optical hardware, and cybersecurity threats require businesses to monitor network traffic like never before.

Second, useful memory capacities in a virtualized workload have exploded over the past decade as management software has improved. Just last week, we quoted a server with 3TB of memory in one host. 3TB of RAM!? Times sure have changed. The memory alone represented 92% of the cost of the server.

The main takeaway?

A few key resources consume your customers’ IT budgets. To continue to show up as a trusted advisor, your mastery of today’s marketplace shift is simply imperative.

Over to You

Is your customer’s IT architecture under construction?

That’s a big undertaking.

As your architect, we’re here to help you plan – and make every transition a smooth one. As your construction worker, we get into the nitty-gritty of troubleshooting and implementing your solution.

Our whole team speaks engineering, and we save customers hours upon hours of frustration.

How?

We review and validate customer configuration documents – and we stay up to date on changing architectures.

You – and your customers – can make a smooth transition to the latest hardware.

And we can help you remain the trusted advisor.

Do you have any questions about your latest update?

Email us with your questions/thoughts about changing architectures!