Today’s workers are increasingly – if not completely – reliant on applications to conduct business and perform their job. Whether applications are hosted on-premise or in the cloud, the pressure is on IT to deliver top app performance with little to no downtime, anywhere access and flexible architecture.
The ability to accomplish this is made significantly more difficult when the complexity of modern IT infrastructure is considered. According to a recent SolarWinds survey, nearly all IT pros agree that infrastructure complexity has affected their role over the past three to five years, with 52 percent saying it has “greatly affected” their responsibilities and another 42 percent saying it has “somewhat affected” their job.
This increasing complexity is also highlighted by the fact that over half of all IT departments now manage virtualization, mobility, compliance, data analytics, SDN/virtual networks, BYOx, cloud computing and self-service automation. Add to this that multiple service providers could be involved in the mix, each offering varying levels of visibility into the performance of their own infrastructure.
To troubleshoot issues between these many moving parts, IT pros need to be able to connect the dots between the full application stack (AppStack); that is, the application code, software, middleware (database servers, directory servers, application services, server operating systems) and hardware components required for an application to operate at peak performance. This also includes infrastructure such as virtualization, storage, server hardware and networks.
With the high levels of complexity now common across the board, IT pros must seek a top-to-bottom view of the technologies supporting applications. In short, today’s IT pro must now become the app-centric IT pro.
Here are ten tips and best practices IT pros can follow to better meet the challenges of the app-centric world:
By taking these best practices into consideration, IT pros will not only be better prepared to face the challenges of today’s app-centric workplace, but also meet future demands as IT continues to grow in complexity.
About the Author
Michael Thompson (News - Alert) is director of the systems management business at SolarWinds. Prior to this role, he served as principal, product marketing and director of business strategy for virtualization and storage. Michael has worked in the IT management industry for well over a decade, including leading product management teams and portfolios in the storage, virtualization and cloud markets for IBM (News - Alert). He holds a master of business administration and a bachelor's degree in chemical engineering.