IT Leadership in the Future

The role of IT managers is changing. Changing from selecting boxes and pipes that run the business transactions and communications to selecting and negotiating IT service contracts, managing SLA’s and seeking out new technologies to boost business performance.

Today, 75% of IT budgets are spent on keeping the lights on. This is severely restricting allocation for business building technologies such as business intelligence. However, cloud computing will change that. The strategies and concepts around cloud computing and BI are challenging IT managers to rethink and restructure the role of IT in business. To many, the fear of being made redundant to outsource providers keeps many IT managers awake at night. However, the reality is more that the role of IT will change, rather than reduce. A change that will see IT become more engaged with the business outcomes of IT, rather than the technology itself.

Just as markets have evolved, communication formats have evolved, and IT hardware has evolved - IT infrastructure has evolved in its entirety. Just as the provision of electricity moved from individual generators to centralized mainstream services, so too are IT services.

It will be the role of IT to keep abreast of new technologies and work with the business to understand how this might help the business become more productive and more profitable. Combined, BI and Cloud computing have already bubbled to the surface of the business – from being part of backend, ‘under the covers’ infrastructure to being the center of strategic strength of the business. Those CFO’s and CEO’s who understand this will be the industry leaders of the future.

With the launch by VMWare of its innovative cloud operating system vSphere 4, virtualization has almost been demoted from being the latest word on everyones lips, to being a small part of something much bigger – and something much more exciting.

Cloud networks keep the lights on – and let IT managers sleep at night. Not only are cloud infrastructures intelligent in recognizing that a network is failing to meet a client SLA, they are self healing, adding additional resource or capacity on demand. No IT intervention required. This is exciting news for many businesses who are struggling with their BI programs through underperforming infrastructures, and prior to vSphere the nightmare of ungrading to meet the processing demands on BI.

Rather than being afraid of upcoming technology, IT managers should be rubbing their hands together in delight at the prospect of no longer having to go to the business begging for more budget, just to keep the basics alive.

More about VMWare vSphere 4

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