Leading-edge companies are seeing notable results from making the transition to a true broker of strategic business services, according to a recent CIO MarketPulse survey of IT decision makers conducted by IDG Research. And, one of the foundational building blocks enabling IT’s metamorphosis to service broker is the software-defined data center.
IT’s evolution to a service broker also requires organizational and process changes in addition to a game-changing architectural approach. Defining the business value for the transition and aligning it to measurable metrics is a mandatory first step. Much of the process and related cultural change can be addressed through a cloud center of excellence (COE) to promote standards, foster knowledge sharing, and codify best practices.
As shown in the diagram below, survey respondents most often view better alignment between IT and business and increased productivity as important potential benefits of a cloud COE.
Also new on CIO.com this week, Accelerate strategist Mark Sarago shares his insight in an IDG Enterprise webcast on the results of the survey, and why more and more corporate executives are evaluating the benefits of migrating to a software-defined data center.
While IT’s journey to service broker to the business will be challenging, companies that are actively pushing virtualization to the next stage and embracing new concepts as part of a software-defined data center have a solid head start. The companion white paper, IT’s Next Step: A Journey to the Software-Defined Data Center, provides more information on the results of the survey and the concept of a software-defined data center.
