Network, server and storage, datacenter and desktop: The services of the IT department have so far been based on existing infrastructures. Over the last few years, the focus was on cost reduction and transparency. This led to first use of cloud services due to the exact billing according to consumption and the saving of administrative costs.
Paradigm change
But this is no longer the case today: from the business requirements, innovations have been developed and implemented for more user productivity, efficiency and satisfaction. In addition, for the first time, users are driving new IT developments by their wishes.
Step 1: User profiles
The trend is "Bring your own Device" (BYOD), which is the use of private mobile devices at the workplace. In addition, the communication and collaboration applications across the devices as well as the access of the employees to the company network on the road or from other branches or from the home office.
Step 2: Applications
As a result of the increasing pressure of the employees, the adaptation cycles of the infrastructure are becoming ever shorter. And today's colleagues are no longer waiting for the use of their brand-new smartphone by the IT department.
Step 3: Devices
Companies must therefore adapt to flexible use of their infrastructure. Accordingly, the modern workplace has to support different working styles and environments as best as possible. For new devices, applications or work processes, it is then quick to adjust.
Nevertheless, of course, safety must be guaranteed by strict guidelines and technical precautions. In addition, the costs must be taken into account. How can businesses meet these different needs?
Since the user can make in principle what he would like because of the technical possibilities, companies have to find out in the first step which wishes he has. How do users currently work in the company? Which devices do they use, what applications do they use, where do they work?
These investigations lead to the creation of general user profiles: the typical office colleague, the field staff or the developer. For each user profile, the company should identify which resources are actually used and which are the optimal working media.
Afterwards, you will find out which applications the individual users need exactly. There may also be significant differences within a department. For example, developers work with different programming languages or designers with different CAD programs.
To what extent personal preferences are taken into account, the company has to balance. For e-mail or presentations, a uniform software is usually useful. In addition, new devices need to integrate comprehensive communications and collaboration applications such as collaborative document processing, instant messaging, social networking, presence information, telephony and video.
When looking for the optimal end devices, companies should focus on the most suitable systems such as smartphones, tablet computers, desktops or thin clients, and not on brands or individual products. Because it is a big difference for an salesperson whether he simply needs a mobile phone or has to take a full-sized notebook with him - regardless of the provider of the device.
In this step, profiles, applications and terminals must be correlated. Many applications run nowadays only on certain systems. If they are to be used on other devices or operating systems, the software may need to be adapted for partial or complete compatibility.
For this purpose, the corresponding costs and time must be taken into account. In the case of outdated applications, porting to modern smartphones may not be possible at all. A project can fail in these questions.
Step 4: Compatibility
The applications can either be deployed natively on any device, centrally in the data center or virtually in the cloud. In the first case, both the administration costs for updates as well as the license costs are very high. Both improve with central availability and even more when using a cloud.
In the latter case, however, many companies still hesitate because they have concerns about the security of sensitive or business-critical data. All options must be guaranteed by a strictly controlled access and encryption, as well as reliability through high bandwidths.
Step 5: Deploy
Once all decisions have been made, it is important to involve users early on in the implementation of the new infrastructure. This should tell the users why certain devices and applications are allowed to be used and others are not.
In addition, companies should take the wishes of the employees into consideration as far as possible and only reject them in justified cases. It is also important for a high level of acceptance that the individual desktop is as identical as possible on different devices and is easy to use.
Some employees will suggest that, in principle, all devices and applications should be allowed for each user. This is technically feasible, but not for reasons of cost. The corresponding licenses must be available in sufficient quantities.
Step 6: User Acceptance
Not everything is possible
Conclusion
Since many providers charge the charges by the number of maximum users, they quickly get out of the way with unnecessary software. In the age of cloud computing, some are already thinking about and also offer billing according to actual usage, but these have so far been individual cases. For example, today companies often need to weigh flexibility and cost.
An interesting alternative are therefore cloud models, which already today bill the services offered after usage. Here, companies do not have to worry about provisioning, updates, security or data protection every day as the service provider does this. However, they should be signed according to strict SLAs and contracts that contain a clear liability.
Because of the administrative costs to be saved today, companies with fewer than 1000 employees are opting for an external cloud provider, while larger companies are installing internal cloud solutions at their own data center or using the IT service provider's cloud for security reasons Br>
Standard solutions are available for all cases. This allows companies to take advantage of the services offered by external cloud providers, as well as to install prepared systems in their own datacenter. The development of such reference architectures is very complex as the interdependencies between applications, devices and processes are very high.
For this reason, these standard architectures are only developed once and are adapted individually with corresponding SLAs, functions and interfaces. For efficient use, this is usually sufficient.
Both the integration of mobile devices as well as virtual desktops on thin clients are today important drivers for a new infrastructure, in which the users are the focus. Companies need to know the needs of users and provide the necessary devices and applications with the right technology.
This requires new management platforms for future requirements, in particular for mobile device management and access to company data. For this, reference and standard architectures are already available, which can be adapted to the individual needs of individual companies with little effort.
Users can work flexibly, productively and as efficiently as possible. And the companies are equipped by new service models for the future.
Tobias Geber-Jauch
