| IT infrastructure for an enterprise, traditionally, used to | | | | information technology would be available as a utility |
| be a collection of highly-specialized products (servers, | | | | like electricity. |
| racks, switches, routers, storage, cabling, software, et | | | | Essentially, the revolution is about how information |
| al) from multiple vendors all cobbled up together and | | | | technology assets are owned, located, and delivered |
| managed by an army of support organizations like the | | | | to the enterprise. Accordingly, the shifts one can |
| systems integrator, the network integrator, the storage | | | | expect are: assets would be public or commonly |
| specialist, and many others. The data center, which | | | | owned, would be located at places most convenient |
| housed all the gear, was the center of the IT | | | | and economical, would be delivered as per the |
| operations, though connectivity was extended to | | | | changing requirements of the enterprise. |
| employees through various network access | | | | Three factors would dictate this shift: efficiency |
| mechanisms. | | | | (seeking the lowest cost), availability (seeking the |
| For large organizations, a large part of the | | | | highest availability), and scalability (ability to meet |
| infrastructure operations were outsourced to | | | | changing needs). |
| specialized outsourcing vendors under one of the | | | | A few global infrastructure services vendors such as |
| existing models. This banked on complete handover of | | | | IBM, HP, Fujitsu, Unisys amongst others have already |
| operations including ownership, retaining ownership but | | | | started offering infrastructure services through |
| handing over operations, and many others. | | | | standardization, modularization, and automation of |
| The last few years has seen the emergence of | | | | components that make up the service. The principles |
| various technologies that makes the ‘hard' IT | | | | are very much similar to a modern manufacturing |
| assets much ‘softer' and the ‘soft' assets much | | | | operation. A term that is beginning to gain ground to |
| more available as a ‘service': virtualization, | | | | describe this is ‘industrialized IT'. |
| automation, utility computing, cloud-based infrastructure, | | | | Though the analyst and vendor community have not |
| service-oriented architecture, enterprise bus, | | | | yet converged on a definition for industrialized IT, the |
| middleware, and many others. | | | | trend is growing. For example, way back in 2006, |
| The overarching vision is to turn information technology | | | | Fujitsu used the process framework called Triole to |
| assets into a utility to be available whenever and | | | | achieve industrialized IT. The framework is based on |
| wherever. This is, in fact, similar to what Nick Carr | | | | the principles followed in automobile manufacturing. A |
| mentions in his book ‘The Big Switch: Rewiring the | | | | white paper on Industrialized IT using Triole states that |
| World from to Google', in which he says that | | | | industrialization is characterized by three factors. |