Section 3

Step 1—Identify your requirements

Start with an analysis: What do you have from a hardware and applications perspective, and what applications will you want to use in the future? What is the condition of your current infrastructure?

Evaluate your IT environment to understand your infrastructure requirements. Get a thorough understanding of your technology requirements, including your servers, processes, and applications, both on premises and in the cloud. That way, you’ll have a grasp of what is necessary to grow and improve your system—not just for the hybrid IT implementation, but for the future. Gaining the benefits of hybrid IT is impossible if your organization’s on-premises systems are out-of-date, overwhelmed, and poorly managed.

If you have outdated infrastructure, it might simply be impossible to implement a hybrid approach—but that’s a problem true of outdated infrastructure in general, which makes it difficult to compete successfully in this digital age. When running applications in a hybrid IT environment, you need modern servers for faster processing to decrease latency. Modern networking gives you higher bandwidth to ensure fast transfer of data from your on-premises IT environment to the cloud and back again. And modern storage ensures you have enough space for growing amounts of data.

Ask yourself:

How can you leverage your current IT investments?

What do you need to change?

Will you need faster processing, higher bandwidth, or more scalable storage?

Is your existing IT environment efficient and easy to manage?