From The EditorDynamic and Optimized
Joshua Trupin
In the months to come , you'll likely be hearing about two IT strategies from Microsoft: Dynamic Systems and Infrastructure Optimization. These two initiatives will help you do your IT-related job more successfully now as well as set you up to face the challenges of the future.
The Dynamic Systems Initiative defines a framework for tools and applications that combines four key areas of technical innovation to help guide tomorrow's IT approaches. To achieve a dynamic environment, your infrastructure and software should be unified and virtualized, process-led and model-driven, service-enabled, and user-focused.
Creating a dynamic IT environment is not, however, limited to products from Microsoft. Your company can put more of its investments into creating business advantages with IT, rather than simply trying to manage its burgeoning complexity. By using Infrastructure Optimization models to look at where your business is headed over the next two years, you can both make the most of your current systems and plan for a more dynamic future.
Broadly speaking, a company's IT lifecycle exists in one of four stages. Basic: "We fight fires." Standardized: "We're gaining control." Rationalized: "We enable business." Dynamic: "We're a strategic asset." These stages are each discussed in detail at microsoft.com/io. You can use the guidance there to analyze your infrastructure and plan for its future. By applying the Dynamic Systems concepts, you can turn your IT organization into a key business asset.
Once your organization reaches the Dynamic stage, your IT systems will be self-managing, strategic business assets. Aaaaah, IT Nirvana. The best way to progress from stage to stage in your quest for Dynamic IT is through the System Center family of IT management solutions. System Center provides configuration tools, deployment apps, an operations manager, and much more—it encompasses the full IT lifecycle of planning, deployment, and maintenance.
And, of course, TechNet Magazine can help you get a leg up. This issue focuses on the System Center suite of solutions. Starting with broad overviews of two key components: System Center Configuration Manager 2007 and System Center Operations Manager 2007, we also look at deployment and operations, and even how to manage branch offices successfully.
How does your infrastructure measure up? Come visit our blog at blogs.technet.com/tnmag and tell us where you think Dynamic IT will lead you. —Joshua Trupin
Joshua Trupin
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