Blog Why automation will revolutionise the role of IT in an organisation
By Insight Editor / 17 May 2023
By Insight Editor / 17 May 2023
For many people, a workday without Microsoft Teams has become unthinkable. We use the application for both quick one-on-one conversations and for much more extensive team meetings. As end users, we just want the tool to work and make sure that all participants can hear and see each other. No one cares about the infrastructure in the background, let alone which virtual machine in the Microsoft Azure data centre supports the call.
Of course, there is no need for users to worry about the infrastructure an application uses. But that way, they also do not realise how much effort it takes to make that infrastructure available and serve users as soon as possible. As with Teams, every application in an organisation needs a solid framework running in the background. Many companies hand over this responsibility to service providers.
In a traditional data centre, it can take a long time to make the necessary adjustments to run a program. Sometimes a rack has to be added by one person, while another is responsible for installing the software and yet another has to handle the configuration. The result? Lead times of up to three or four weeks and many disgruntled business users who denounce their IT department for always taking far too long to get things done. The shift to the cloud has significantly reduced those lead times but two or three days is still pretty long for a fairly simple request.
The real gamechanger is automation. Today, we can offer solutions that allow users to make their own requests and specify what they need. The technology can then automatically run the commands in the background and deliver a virtual machine in minutes. Needless to say, this is a revolution in the world of infrastructure, bringing down lead times to almost instantaneous.
Automation is not a magic solution, so you still need a good service provider to manage everything. On the one hand because of the wide choice. There are multiple ways to automate and it is challenging to see the forest for the trees. Just as pasta comes in many flavours, shapes and colours, there are a thousand and one ways to perform integrations. The right service provider knows exactly what pasta you need to prepare a spaghetti dish that will be completely to the liking of your business users.
On the other hand, the complexity of an environment also requires the hand of a professional. There are so many dependencies that even the slightest adjustment can make a design collapse. Separately, most components are easy to manage, but they can become very complex when they need to work together. Compare it to Office 365 tools like Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Any user can create an excellent presentation with PowerPoint until they want to include a slide with an Excel sheet. To combine these tools, you need guidance from someone trained in using the more advanced features.
Fortunately, Insight provides the professionals you need to cook and flavour your most complex pasta dishes. We have brought together the best technology partners, experienced in-house automation experts and the right specialists who can see the bigger picture of any type of architecture.
