Infrastructure Improvements: Guidance on How to Be Successful

  Applications Delivery   Business Intelligence   Estimating   Information Technology   Procurement Management   Risk Management   Strategy   Knowledge Shelf  

Abstract
When technology managers talk about infrastructure, they are referring to foundational elements such as network switches, servers, backup systems, and security devices. There is also the software infrastructure of databases and core applications such as order entry that must stay up 24/7 to support the business. As these infrastructure elements age, you should start planning when they will be updated or replaced. We will look into three main areas of achieving this—making decisions, design success, and selecting vendors.

Making Decisions
The infrastructure platform risk calculator below (Table 1.1) provides broad guidance on how to approach these decisions.

• Instructions: Go to the right-hand column labeled “Your Platform” and enter selected platform name. Answer each category question by entering (1 = Low, 3 = Moderate, or 5 = High) to help you assess the right risk scale. Add up your values to get your risk total and risk level.

Predicting Infrastructure Design Success
Application infrastructure design is a tricky business: A poorly designed infrastructure could cause a loss of performance and even information. A well-defined and designed infrastructure should improve application availability, reliability, maintenance, and future growth. Proven design solutions should be able to be reused within organizations to reduce process …

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