![]() ![]() Indeed, its most promising opportunity for cost savings often lies in reducing the number of people required to maintain systems. Moreover, architectural modernization is about more than lowering capital expenses by transitioning to the cloud and eliminating on-premises servers. In a competitive landscape being redrawn continuously by technology disruption, time-to-market can be a competitive differentiator. For example, inevitable architecture-which also embraces open-source/open-stack approaches-provides the foundation needed to support rapid development and deployment of flexible solutions that, in turn, enable innovation and growth. It’s not difficult to recognize a causal relationship between architectural agility and any number of potential strategic and operational benefits. Taken together, these elements can make it possible to move broadly from managing instances to managing outcomes. Likewise, on-premises, private cloud, or public cloud capabilities can be deployed dynamically to deliver each workload at an optimum price and performance point. Systems are loosely coupled and, increasingly, automated to be self-learning and self-healing. In this cloud-first model-and in the leading practices emerging around it-platforms are virtualized, containerized, and treated like malleable, reusable resources. In the next 18 to 24 months, CIOs and their partners in the C-suite may find an answer to this question in a flexible architecture model whose demonstrated efficiency and effectiveness in start-up IT environments suggest that its broader adoption in the marketplace may be inevitable. As they assess the capacity of current systems to meet future needs, many are likely asking, “If I could start over with a new IT architecture, what would I do differently to lower costs and increase capabilities?” Increasingly, CIOs are thinking bigger-picture about the technology stacks that drive revenue and enable strategy. While these and other modernization strategies can be necessary and beneficial, they represent sprints in a longer modernization marathon. Likewise, Tech Trends has tracked IT’s increasingly warm embrace of automation and the autonomic platforms that seamlessly move workloads among traditional on-premises stacks, private cloud platforms, and public cloud services. Previous editions of Tech Trends have examined strategies that CIOs are deploying to modernize and revitalize their legacy core systems, not only to extract more value from them but to make the entire IT footprint more agile, intuitive, and responsive. Likewise, almost a quarter deemed the performance, reliability, and functionality of their legacy systems “insufficient.” 2 In Deloitte’s 2016 Global CIO Survey, 46 percent of 1,200 IT executives surveyed identified “simplifying IT infrastructure” as a top business priority. 1 Heavy customization, complexity, security vulnerabilities, inadequate scalability, and technical debt throughout the IT environment have, directly or indirectly, begun to impact the bottom line. But in an era of rapid-fire innovation with cloud, mobile, analytics, and other forces implemented on the edge of the business fueling disruption and new opportunities, architectural maturity is becoming a persistent challenge-one directly linked to business problems. Sure, this legacy IT footprint may seem stable on a day-to-day basis. In some companies, systems architecture is older than the freshman tech talent maintaining it. These steps, taken individually or as part of larger transformation initiatives, are part of an emerging trend that some see as inevitable: the standardization of a flexible architecture model that drives efficiency, reduces hardware and labor costs, and foundationally supports speed, flexibility, and rapid outcomes. Moreover, they are leveraging automation aggressively, taking steps to couple existing and new platforms more loosely, and often embracing a “cloud first” mind-set. Organizations are overhauling their IT landscapes by combining open source, open standards, virtualization, and containerization. ![]()
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