4.2 Rethink IT
IT must operate in a new way—moving towards IT as a Service (ITaaS). IT organizations must become more service oriented, aligning IT services to business-consumable services that must be available on-demand, with the assurance that they be capable of scaling with business growth.
Becoming a service orientation is transformational for an IT organization. The first step in the transformation, server virtualization, has already been taken. Virtualization allows sharing of resources, and IT organizations are investigating other initiatives to further enhance this capability. such as:
Implementing a comprehensive vCloud strategy.
Automating Infrastructure Management
and Operations.
Virtualizing business-critical applications.
Building new, modern applications for a post-personal computer era.
Cloud computing is critical to the success of the ITaaS model. For VMware, it is a logical follow-on to virtualization. A VMware vCloud enables IT to realize cost-effective pooling and sharing of resources without increasing overall IT complexity and costs. vCloud models also allow for a consistent, repeatable architectural approach, thus reducing support costs.
Another important aspect of this new model is that IT moves to a more proactive role, that of an effective business partner that enables business objectives to be met. The IT supplier and business consumer come together to focus on better quality of delivered services, using negotiated service level agreements and a process of continuous improvement. This enhances communication between IT and business, improving transparency, flexibility., and cost visibility.