Gartner recently issued a warning that
IT managers must consider what Gartner calls “alternative IT delivery models”
or risk being bypassed by business units that will take matters into their own
hands.
Specifically, Gartner noted that IT must undergo a
transformation, shifting to a more service-oriented approach to supporting
users. Rather than buying hardware and software for specific applications,
projects, or business initiatives, IT resources will more likely be offered as
some form of shared service in the near future.
“Traditional practices of technology lifecycle ownership,
where the organization buys, configures, manages, optimizes and retires
technology for its own use, are being questioned as to their efficiency and
effectiveness, so alternative delivery models for technology and services are
emerging,” said Mark Margevicius, research vice president at Gartner.
“Alternative delivery and acquisition models include new channels for
acquisition, use, and payment. In some organizations, alternative models
involve only users and business units, bypassing the IT function.”
Prominent among these alternative models are storage as a
service, software as a service, shared IT infrastructure architectures that
will be offered on-demand and priced based on usage, grid computing, utility
computing (using server virtualization, dynamic provisioning, and dynamic
workload management), capacity on demand, Web 2.0 applications that take
advantage of service-oriented architecture, and software-based appliances.
In most organizations, many of these technologies are being
employed and evaluated separately today. But Gartner notes there are
synergistic benefits when some of these approaches are deployed together.
Additionally, Gartner believes the convergence of these new IT delivery models
will fundamentally transform the way organizations consume and interact with IT
in the next three to five years.
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This article first appeared in Bio-IT World’s Inside IT newsletter.
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