Enhancing IT Operational Excellence with Infrastructure as a Service

Complex, evolving challenges in today’s enterprise IT environments require a proactive, strategic approach to plan for growth, minimize downtime and seamlessly adopt new technologies. Achieving operational excellence in IT operations is key to overcoming these challenges and enabling sustained business growth. Investing in skill development is also crucial for driving innovation and staying competitive in rapidly evolving technology landscapes.

Regardless of whether your organization is characterized by the entrepreneurial flexibility of a tech startup or the steadfast stability of a legacy industry giant, it is certain you will share one thing in common. The success of your business operations today is more dependent than ever on the agility of your IT and data infrastructure.

Common IT Infrastructure Challenges

Of course, no two organizations are exactly alike, so their IT infrastructure challenges are destined to be equally unique. Capabilities will vary across industry sectors and based on a variety of influences and inputs, including IT maturity level, geographic footprint, history of M&A, and more.

Yet despite these potentially vast differences, there are a number of common themes to the challenges faced, including:

1. Complexity and Scalability:  Managing multiple infrastructure vendors can lead to fragmentation, making scalability a challenge. Simplifying integrations and choosing scalable solutions from the outset is essential. Effective IT operations are crucial here, ensuring seamless integration and scalability to support business growth.
2. Downtime and Reliability Downtime disrupts customer experiences and internal productivity. Reliable IT solutions minimize downtime, ensuring continuous service availability and reducing costs associated with lost revenue and customer trust. Operational excellence in IT is vital to maintain high reliability and minimize disruptions.
3. Adopting Emerging Technologies Implementing AI and ML requires specialized skills and infrastructure. Businesses need the right technology and talent to leverage these tools effectively. This  underscores the importance of finding or developing new skills within the organization. Operational excellence in IT enables the smooth adoption of these technologies, driving innovation and competitive advantage.

Overcoming Common Infrastructure Challenges

Businesses where data processing and application performance are critical to their daily operations are today overcoming these infrastructure challenges using what up until recently may have been considered a non-traditional approach in some industries; infrastructure as a service (IaaS). Two excellent vertical examples of how this helps include:

1. The Insurance Industry A large insurance company leveraged infrastructure as a service to optimize their hybrid cloud operations. With support from Hitachi Vantara, they integrated ServiceNow using hyperautomation tools, implemented topology mapping for better root cause analysis, and set up machine learning for pattern detection and behavioral analysis. This resulted in a 90% reduction in alert volume within four months and boosted operational efficiency, relieving staff of labor-intensive, hands-on tasks, and enhancing end-user satisfaction.
2. Financial Services A major stock exchange leveraged infrastructure as a service to integrate their systems using hyperautomation to achieve a 70% reduction in Mean Time to Detect (MTTD) and Mean Time to Repair (MTTR). With the support of artificial intelligence for IT operations (AIOps), major outages were prevented and root cause analysis expedited. Machine learning was used for pattern detection to reduce alert volume, for alert enrichment and auto-escalation, and for behavioral analysis and anomaly detection for predictive, proactive and zero-touch remediation. These improvements led to increased operational efficiency and significant cost savings, enhancing overall business performance.

Different Levels of Service for Different Kinds of Needs

Hitachi EverFlex Infrastructure as a Service offers three service levels to meet diverse requirements of enterprise IT across industries like these and a broad range of others. So organizations can choose IaaS offerings with just the benefits they need to meet the requirements of their organization.  

1. Consumption Level – Consumption-based pricing provides value above infrastructure leasing with flexible capacity, consumption and billing reporting, matching costs to actual business use.
2. Foundation Level – Enhances consumption level with EverFlex Control, a heterogeneous SaaS (software as a service) infrastructure management tool. It offers operational efficiencies ranging from basic capacity reporting and billing to advanced alert management with auto-remediation and 360° heterogeneous observability, ensuring peak infrastructure performance and uninterrupted service delivery. Optional Residency professional services consultants can provide integration with your existing systems like ServiceNow.
3. Managed Level – For a fully managed IaaS, we provide comprehensive managed services tailored to your unique business needs. With 24/7 IT service management (ITSM) our expert team ensures alignment with your business objectives, backed by the highest contractually agreed SLAs.

Optional Professional Services Let You Do More

Hitachi Vantara Professional Services can extend your staff and expertise to perform migrations, for data management and install and configure both Hitachi and many third party systems. Residency Services from Hitachi can be crucial for unlocking the full value of IaaS investments and integrating our EverFlex Control hyperautomation tools into existing heterogenous infrastructure and operations. Key benefits include:

• Access to Expertise – Integrating IaaS and streamlining operations.
• Knowledge Transfer – Enhancing in-house team skills and capabilities.
• Flexibility – Tailored support for short-term projects or long-term assistance.
• Risk Mitigation – Reducing project delays and skill gaps with seasoned professionals.

Infrastructure Services May Be Just What You Need

Hitachi EverFlex IaaS offers a cloud-like experience with on-premises infrastructure, delivering superior TCO. This comprehensive solution is crafted to elevate operational excellence by simplifying complexity, ensuring reliability and enabling the adoption of emerging technologies. EverFlex empowers businesses to excel in a competitive landscape. Additionally, Residency and Professional Services enhance this value by providing expert support and seamless integration, streamlining daily operations.

Connect with us today to learn more about getting your IaaS journey started.

Read more

• Blog: Understanding IT Infrastructure Residency Services and Their Value
• Blog: Take Charge of Your Hybrid Cloud Estate with Hitachi EverFlex Control
• Blog: IT Infrastructure Modernization for Business Agility with Hitachi EverFlex
• Brochure: Hitachi Vantara Professional Services – Maximize the Value of Your Infrastructure