Please describe each ITO profile and the services that would best fit their requirements.
Off-site: The typical off-site company is looking for more security, reliability and scalability than what its in-house data center capabilities can provide. It requires a colocation provider that can offer data center space, with redundant power and cooling to ensure 100 percent uptime and 24-7 physical security, where the company owns and maintains its own equipment and software.
Off-load: Companies seeking to off-load IT infrastructure management often leverage managed services provided by a colocation provider to augment their colocation solution. They want to take advantage of managed security services such as managed firewall and VPN, as well as intrusion detection and intrusion prevention services. Companies may want to leverage around-the-clock availability of certified IT professionals for ongoing monitoring and management of core network services for their production environment, as well as managed storage and managed backup for complete data protection. This can often be combined with geographically dispersed data centers for disaster recovery and business continuity plans.
Outsourcing: As an enterprise’s IT requirements for increased efficiency and consolidation become a strong fit for virtualization and managed servers, it may explore options of how best to achieve the ability to turn up and run its applications quickly with minimal involvement from its own technical resources. To gain the benefits of this approach without incurring significant capital investment, companies can leverage the packaged solutions offered by a data center service provider and turn the associated monthly charges into more manageable operational expenses that permit greater financial flexibility.
Optimize: This company desires the features, functionality and benefits of its business applications without the headache of managing and running them. They want to optimize their outsourced investment as well as the performance of their IT spend, and seek a provider or providers who can go beyond the infrastructure and provide above platform-level support and services.
What questions should an organization ask itself to understand what profile it falls into?
A company should first determine whether or not IT infrastructure management is one of its core competencies. The answer to this question goes a long way in determining the ITO profile that fits them best. Companies should consider what infrastructure improvements and additional capabilities can be achieved, and look at areas of IT spend that could more efficiently be managed by leveraging firms that provide IT infrastructure management as their core business. The decision will depend on their immediate and long-term goals and resource availability.
What type of provider offers ITO and what are the primary benefits of this approach?
In addition to the traditional IT consultants and contract firms for monitoring and maintenance services, the outsourced infrastructure providers are typically classified as data center or colocation providers, managed hosting and managed services providers. While each provides a distinct offering, finding a provider that can offer combinations of, or all of, these capabilities will often result in cost savings, as well as increased ease of management and control for the enterprise.
Don Goodwin is executive vice president of sales and marketing at Latisys. Reach him at [email protected].