The way enterprises purchase and use technology is shifting rapidly…This is because business is changing, forcing technology to change too.
Digital disruption is causing widespread changes across a number of industries, and it shows no sign of slowing down. HPE Synergy can help businesses prepare for this.
HPE Synergy is an open platform that allows companies to support traditional IT functions while also creating new software defined businesses.
The purchase and use of technology in the enterprise is changing so rapidly because business is undergoing a similar change. HPE believe that hybrid IT will solve this dilemma and future proof the current infrastructure.
Gartner estimate that by 2019 as many as 70% of businesses will utilise multi-cloud services, compared to just 10% today. The upgrade to a hybrid infrastructure would allow enterprises to manage this much more effectively.
Hybrid systems can do this in two ways, they provide a reliable and cost effective platform for legacy systems, such as databases and ERP systems as well as supporting digital disruption. New digital solutions are often mobile, and hybrid technology helps manage these more flexible platforms. Currently the digital transformation market in the UK is smaller than that of traditional IT but it is growing much faster in comparison. Between 2017 and 2019 the IT market is expected to grow just 1% from £14.4 billion to £14.5 billion, conversely the digital transformation market is expected to jump a huge 33% from £1.7 billion to £2.4 billion.
Digital disruption continues to have an effect on just about every industry imaginable. Simple solutions to age old tasks such as Air BnB and Dropbox have forced traditional rivals to make drastic changes in order to remain competitive.
One of the key things to bear in mind with digital disruptors is that they don’t just use technology, rather they build their entire business upon it.
These digital disruptors have welcomed these new technologies and as a result they have been able to take advantage of hybrid infrastructures, benefiting from both cloud and on premise applications. This has allowed them to manage their resources more effectively and ultimately reduce costs.
The term hybrid IT may sound like a buzzword but most businesses today already run a hybrid infrastructure. If a company doesn’t have at least some internal IT then they are paying far more for technology than they should.
Adversely, even those businesses who feel as though they rely almost entirely on traditional IT will use some form of cloud service in their company.
One of the potential challenges posed by hybrid IT is that it’s often difficult to control, especially if it has developed haphazardly without a long term plan. Growth without oversight can lead to systems having interoperability and monitoring issues. However, these issues can be easily overcome with the introduction of intelligent automated systems such as HPE Synergy.
Looking beyond hybrid platforms HPE can ease the journey to truly composable infrastructure. Essentially, composable infrastructure is a way of utilising hardware that can be deployed and run as though it were software.
This hardware defines its resources in three categories, compute power, storage capability, or network functions. These three resources can then create a platform for just about any application. Common functions
can then be performed by templates, whereas applications which do not run as regularly can use a bespoke deployment.
Upon completion of the task in question the resources return to where they started, making them available to any other task required. This can create a much more flexible infrastructure capable of meeting the demands of a business that requires constant change. Composable IT is a big positive step into the world of flexible infrastructure delivered as a service.
At the core of the HPE Synergy strategy is the reality that many IT departments find themselves plagued by the complexity of these networks and infrastructures. The HPE Synergy management suite simplifies this process by being the only infrastructure built to be composable, allowing businesses to reduce costs by being able to deal effectively with any disruption.
As well as making everyone’s life that little bit easier, the ability to deploy resources and applications with ease can also reduce the cost of licensing by up to 30% and that’s just for starters.
HPE says that a well managed HPE Synergy application could lead to businesses achieving up to 90% of resource utilisation, whereas the rest of the industry averages at just 50%. If resources can be used in such an effective manner then this can lead to the effective retirement of ageing legacy systems and investiture for innovation.
HPE Synergy also operates using just one API, which also allows for simple integration with any external or third party tools.
HPE estimate that moving from Bladesystem to HPE Synergy could reduce the amount of servers required by 25% which would lead to 12% more virtual machines and the cost of VMware licenses falling by as much as 30%.
Similarly, on a Bladesystem platform installing a typical three stage set up of a 24 node VM cluster would take approximately 7 hours and 26 minutes and the need to add 12 node capacity. HPE estimates that using HPE Synergy this process would take just over one hour.
This level of time saving and increased automation can lead to attention being focused on other areas such as improving the business, instead of just maintaining it.
HPE Synergy provides the open platform on which to build a system for the future because it can support both the traditional IT functions as well as the software-defined, cloud-based and application-centred business of tomorrow.
For more information visit hpe.com/uk/synergy or contact your HPE Account Manager.
