20 Trends for Infrastructure Management and Operations in 2009

Posted by Ram-C-Mohan in

 Infrastructure Management

Jan 16, 2009 | Total views: 277

12

Ram-C-Mohan
Sr. VP and Head of Infrastructure Management and Tech Support
More articles by the author

Hello:Let me first wish you a very happy and prosperous New Year.

I am so excited to start this blog on the Infrastructure Management and Tech Support (IMTS) area. Through this blog, I intend to discuss with you various issues, matters and subjects related to this space.

I am currently working as Sr. VP and Head of IMTS in MindTree Ltd. In this role I manage business and delivery of this Business Unit across the globe. I have 24 years of experience in IMTS in various management capacities.

I intend to use my blog on IMTS as the platform to share my knowledge and experience in the field of IMTS and, in turn, learn newer aspects from you, who as an expert or an enthusiast having a point of view and a lot of knowledge to share with the larger world. Let’s make this a knowledge sharing platform.

The year 2008 saw an economic turmoil all across the world. Many developed countries were gripped with recession. Even the fast growing countries like India and China slowed down their pace significantly. Year 2009 is not going to be any better at least the first 9 months as pundits predict the minimum time to recover will be nine months and may be longer.

Though Infrastructure Management and Operations have non-discretionary spending patterns, the overall situation will have a significant impact. Following are my predictions in the Infrastructure Management and Operations area in the year 2009.

1. The enterprise IT organizations will have no options but to reduce their IT spending. The desired needs in the areas of upgrades, new technology adaptations, new tool implementations, will be curtailed or deferred or even cancelled. The IT operations will move to efficient “Lights On” operations.

2. The directive from the CIO will be to improve the efficiency of operations

3. Infrastructure Maturity will be assessed. Processes implementation will increase across the IT organizations to reduce the dependence of people and increase the efficiency.

4. There will be increased implementation of ITIL based framework

5. Virtualization and Data Center Consolidation will increase.

6. Costs will be the primary driver for outsourcing and offshoring IT Operations.

7. Low cost IT management tools and open source tools will be evaluated against high cost Enterprise Management Tools like HPOV, Tivoli and CA platforms. Enterprise Management Tools will be now offered in SaaS model to counter this trend.

8. Green IT – Shifting to more efficient products and approaches can allow for more equipment to fit within an energy footprint. Now Green IT will be looked as another measure to reduce cost

9. The large size organization will cut back on operations cost, there by affecting large out sourcing deals. Increasingly, the enterprises will consolidate the IT vendors and look for reduced cost

10. Managed Services will move towards front and enterprises will move from staff augmentation to “SLA driven Managed Services”. Risk Reward models will emerge in Operations as well.

11. The small and mid sized enterprises, who traditionally resisted offshoring IT Operations will increasingly look at offshoring IT Operations to reduce costs

12. IMTS vendors will face price pressures, specifically who are engaged in staff augmentation in T&M mode

13. Customer Satisfaction and End User Satisfaction will come to the fore front. The SLAs will be tied to Customer Satisfaction

14. Solutions offered to reduce operational costs will have maximum attention from CIO and CFO.

15. Most of the long term tied IMS contract will end in couple of years. Clients will go for selective outsourcing and remote infrastructure management with 1 to 3 years contract rather than 10 year contracts

16. Outcome based pricing models will emerge

17. Vendors will be measured not just on the SLA adherence, but also on the value they bring to the table

18. Security concerns will increase, thereby increasing non-discretionary security spending

19. Small and Mid sized enterprises will tend to work with Tier 2 IMTS vendors to gain management attention and to have a flexible and agile delivery model.

20. Off shore IMTS vendors will gain acceptability to provide remote production support

What do you think? Let me have your views and comments.

Ram Mohan