Operating in an environment of shrinking data center space and power availability, data center professionals and corporate executives find themselves challenged to satisfy the growing demand for data storage, networking and high-bandwidth applications. At the same time, tight budgets for capital expenditures and an unforgiving credit market are leading many enterprises to outsource IT infrastructure.
To meet these challenges, organizations can benefit greatly from determining what their current IT Infrastructure Outsourcing (ITO) profile is, which IT services to outsource, and which functions should remain in-house to realize savings on capital expenses and reduced total cost of ownership.
For purposes of this article, we are defining IT infrastructure as not only the servers that power an organization’s data needs, but also the management of the storage, security and network systems that permit an enterprise to run properly in a data center environment.
Enterprises typically align with four ITO profiles:
Off-site’ refers to a company ready to move their IT infrastructure to a secure, redundant powered ‘off-site’ data center facility.
‘Off-load,’ describes a company that seeks to ‘off-load’ some or all non-core management of select resources, such as security, storage or backup.
‘Optimize,’ is used for companies with increased requirements for additional infrastructure management resources that seek tightened financial performance and more control.
‘Outsourced’ refers to a company that seeks support for their above-platform applications and turnkey services, in turn shifting segments of their IT systems, processes and/or functions to service providers specializing in managing IT functions on a captive or shared tenant basis.
Source:http://blog.softheme.com/it-outsourcing-profiles-and-why-they-matter/
