Seeing the Future of IT Infrastructure

Global services predicts that the IT Infrastructure space will come to outsource more and more to offshore players.

Traditionally, infrastructure outsourcing carried with it the burden of “transfer of assets” with the provider taking on the assets and people of the customer company. However, going forward, customers are more likely to be lured by offshore players who are leveraging enhancements in communications infrastructure, remote-management tools and labor-cost arbitrage.

Offshore IT-infrastructure service providers are creating a new business model to tap into the $80 billion opportunity. By 2010, offshore providers are expected to have a market share of 20 percent, up from 3 percent in 2005. According to Everest Research Institute, these companies are growing at a 61 percent CAGR, while the traditional players are growing at 7 percent CAGR.

Click Here to know more about some considerations while offshoring your IT Infrastructure.

Though Global Services also predicts that:

The managed-services model will drive the market, and fewer and fewer companies will opt for the staff-augmentation model.

Companies that have so far outsourced only application development and maintenance will be the prime contenders for sourcing infrastructure services

Companies will look to source services such as server management, security and network monitoring and data-center management.

With MDS round the corner with the advent of outsourcing, smaller players will get more of the pie.

The Cloud Visage

The term cloud is used as a metaphor for the Internet, based on how the Internet is depicted in computer network diagrams and is an abstraction of the underlying infrastructure it conceals. Typical cloud computing providers deliver common business applications online which are accessed from a web browser, while the software and data are stored on the servers.

These applications are broadly divided into the following categories: Software as a Service (SaaS), Utility Computing, Web Services, Platform as a Service (PaaS), Managed Service Providers (MSP), Service Commerce, and Internet Integration. The name cloud computing was inspired by the cloud symbol that is often used to represent the Internet in flow charts and diagrams.

What do they own?

In general, cloud computing customers do not own the physical infrastructure, instead avoiding capital expenditure by renting usage from a third-party provider. They consume resources as a service and pay only for resources that they use. Many cloud-computing offerings employ the utility computing model, which is analogous to how traditional utility services (such as electricity) are consumed, whereas others bill on a subscription basis. Sharing "perishable and intangible" computing power among multiple tenants can improve utilization rates, as servers are not unnecessarily left idle (which can reduce costs significantly while increasing the speed of application development). A side-effect of this approach is that overall computer usage rises dramatically, as customers do not have to engineer for peak load limits.In addition,"increased high-speed bandwidth" makes it possible to receive the same response times from centralized infrastructure at other sites.

What does the Shift Mean?

The shift would affect companies a few different sub-industries including software companies, internet service providers and hardware manufacturers. Companies in each of these industries will face significant change if cloud computing is to be the next step for the industry. While it is relatively easy to see how the main software and internet companies will be affected by such a shift, how companies in the internet and hardware industries will be affected is slightly more difficult.

So, its a mixed bag. Good for some providers whereas it makes life a little difficult for others.The term cloud coined a couple of years back, is basically the outsourcing of all IT.

London to Boast Energy Giving Datacenter

As energy costs seesaw wildly and public concern over the environment grows, data centres have landed in the corporate cross hairs.

How ironical is it, that landed under pressure governments and enterprises are realigning their priorities to give back what they had been using to the people.East London will now seea green data center by next year that will use energy/heat given off by racks of servers to power residential and business properties in the surrounding area.

This construction will also be capturing waste heat for re-use. With carbon dioxide levels increasing at an alarming rate, this endeavour will start off what is called as" giving back to the environment". To read more of the report click here.

With the Copenhagen summit in full flow and countries playing hard on their visions to reduce global warmimg, the U.K. Government will see this card as a feather to the crown.