Su mediana empresa se está expandiendo. ¿Cómo puede mantenerse al día con las demandas de infraestructura de TI?

Understand all your applications. Look at 3 dimensions, characteristics, infrastructure and behaviour. Align that back to how critical or not the application or service is. Don't forget personas and user experience, functional and non functional requirements. Then determine where to run and operate. Look at tooling (automation, deployment, monitoring and observability to name a few). Then create a treatment roadmap. Make this an evergreen process across you COTS, SaaS and in house developed apps.

Perform a thorough five-point analysis of your IT landscape. This assessment includes: System: Evaluate the necessity for hardware upgrades or optimization of inefficient processes. Utilize tools such as ManageEngine and SolarWinds for assistance. Network: Identify potential latency, bandwidth issues etc. Employ tools like SolarWinds and Wireshark. Storage: Conduct a detailed assessment of disk performance, storage capacity and efficiency. Consider solutions like NetApp OnCommand and Dell EMC Unity. IT Asset: Mitigate compliance risks related to software licenses through regular audits. This approach ensures a comprehensive understanding of your IT infrastructure, allowing for strategic improvements and enhanced operational efficiency.

Start with functional/nonfunctional requirements. Assess your as is state, costs, partners, age of estate etc to determine your risk profile. Then form a remediation plan to address/focus on your end state and any interim stages to achieve your objectives.

Before starting any technology project, it's important to assess the requirements. What are you using today? Is it fully utilized? What do you like? What don't you like?

Few steps: 1- Assess Current and Future Needs, starting with a thorough assessment of my current IT infrastructure and identify areas that need scaling or upgrading. 2. Cloud Computing to leverage cloud services for scalability and flexibility. 3. Consider outsourcing for specialized IT needs or handle peak loads. 4. Implement Virtualization to allow efficient hardware utilization and make my IT infrastructure more flexible and easier to manage. 5. Invest in Scalable Solutions by choosing IT solutions that can scale as my company grows (e.g hardware that can be easily upgraded and software that offers modular add-ons or scalable licenses) 6. Automate Routine Tasks to handle routine IT tasks (e.g. backups, updates, and network monitoring).

As your mid-sized company , to keep up the infra demand, ensuring your IT infrastructure keeps pace. Here's a strategic roadmap for success: Embrace scalability and agility: Leverage cloud platforms and software-defined infrastructure for on-demand resource provisioning and flexible adaptation to changing demands. End use Self service Portal: provide end user self service portal to ensure infra automation end to end ,proactively monitor performance to maximize resource utilization. Cost : Plan and invest: Conduct a thorough IT infrastructure assessment to align future needs with current capabilities. Explore a hybrid cloud approach and strategically evaluate open-source alternatives for cost-effective solutions.

Assess your current IT infrastructure and identify all gaps between what you have and your goals including (1) Assess current infrastructure (2) Assess your cost management and budget (3) What are the prediction of future growth and needs ? (4) Any requirements to achieve to the next steps of your infrastructure changes?

Self awareness is the key to success, so first need to know what you have by simply answering to the following X questions. 1. What are the current needs? Output: first list of metrics 2. Does current system covers them? Output: current system values of the metrics in the first list 3. What are the new/future goals? Output: second list of metrics 4. How current system will cope? Output: current system values of the metrics in the second list 5. What should we scale or change in the current system to meet the second lisr requirements? Output: list of changes required to do (roadmap) Always remember no need to refactor the thing that is working (and will work) or could be scaled. Note! While doing the 5th point look to the future.

To keep up with IT infrastructure demands as a mid-sized company expands: 1. Prioritize scalability. 2. Automate processes. 3. Leverage cloud services. 4. Monitor and optimize performance. 5. Ensure security and compliance. 6. Plan for disaster recovery and business continuity. 7. Embrace agile development and DevOps. 8. Regularly assess and upgrade.

Growing shouldn’t be about doing big changes. Start smart and grow smart. Big changes will often lead to chaos. Do metrics and measurements. If you don’t know the current state, you are most likely going to make changes for the worse. Don’t overdo the metrics, very simple and most often free tools can give you more than enough data. Do small and measured changes. Build up an understanding of the issue you are improving. After perceived improvement, check that its repeatable. Often people are trying to improve things by adding resources. As example: Some process that can only run on a single CPU core. But the “solution” is to add more cores to the system. Simple metrics would catch that. Being smart is often better for the environment.

We need to understand the business goals and expected level of business expansion before we can plan for the digital expansion. To do so Enterprise Architects need document the business architecture, processes, as well as the information architecture. These products should be aligned with the business value-chain and strategy. They can then plan the digital transformation journey and how to reach the goals of business expansions with no business interruption.

Assuming the business goals are clear and well defined, we should be able to glean from it and associate the IT infrastructure demand to the stated business goal. Then EA should lay out a clear hosting & storage policy/strategy for the company which helps with meeting the demand. Typically cloud first policy / strategy should guide application teams to deploy infrastructure in an automated fashion with speed and accuracy.

“If a man knows not which port he sails, no wind is favorable.” - so without a goal you can achieve nothing. I personally prefer to have three plans on my hand. Those are short-term (an iteration or two), mid-term (from 3-6 months) and long-term (at least 1 prefferably 5 years long) plans. The further the more general and high level it gets. The rest is "technical" - just thing to do. With those in hand you can definitely achive any goal.

Having a roadmap on where you want to be is good, but never carve it in stone. Your company changes, world changes, IT changes. Your most difficult task will be to decide when you need to change and bend with the times and when you need to stand steadfast behind your roadmap. Always reflect on the goals and roadmap you have followed. Remember what information you had in hand when you made the decisions. And learn on what you need to know the next time. Frameworks and methods are tools to guide you, but your attentiveness and experience are the driving forces behind the decisions. Learn from your own failures and from others’.

As a mid-sized company expands, strategic selection of architecture styles is crucial to meeting escalating IT infrastructure demands. Choose a flexible and scalable architecture, such as microservices, to accommodate growth seamlessly. Leverage cloud-based solutions for enhanced agility and cost-effectiveness. Adopt modular architectures for easy integration and maintenance. Prioritize security and compliance measures to safeguard sensitive data. Regularly assess and update architecture based on evolving business needs. By carefully choosing architecture styles that align with expansion goals, a mid-sized company can ensure its IT infrastructure remains robust, adaptable, and capable of supporting the organization's evolving needs.

Now it's common to hear about ALMIGHTY MICROSERVICES, but they are NOT. I see lots of people falling into that trap. I'd suggest not to use same tool/architecture/technology everywhere. There is no universal solution that covers everything. So be ready to adapt. The best thing you can do it's to have a lot of cards in your sleeve. Learn approaches, technologies, tools and patternsand why not best practices the old and new. Having all that knowledge you will have a tools to fix everything. Combine those to get even better solution. Don't be the "a man of one book".

Decouple the technical architecture from understanding the problem you are trying to solve. There isn’t one correct way of doing things in IT when it comes to architecture. You will need to understand what you are trying to solve. Build as much understanding on what you are working on. That understanding will be valuable in any architecture you pick. Don’t be afraid to do quick tests on multiple solutions. Just understand to fail fast if things don’t work as expected. I’d say pay less attention to expected growth than doing what you need at current time well. Overengineering can be fatal and expensive. Many growth issues can be solved before they are critical by having good metrics in place.

I recommend distributed Architecture: Distributed architecture involves spreading the load across multiple servers, technologies, and third party applications to improve performance and reliability. This can be achieved through load balancing and distributed databases. Benefits: Improved performance, fault tolerance, and scalability, also you can use the many resources on the web to help increase your system features.

Medium-sized companies are not really our usual target, but we have worked on them a few times. The preferred architectural tools were the following: - virtualization and cloud computing. The opportunities offered by virtualization and cloud computing allow greater flexibility, scalability and reduce dependence on physical infrastructure. - we recommend the adoption of IT security solutions to protect sensitive company data and to keep security systems constantly updated to deal with evolving threats; - we introduced IT asset management tools to monitor system performance, manage software updates and identify potential problems before they occur. With these tools we have helped mid-sized companies keep up with their IT architecture needs.

You will get plenty of outside consultants and salespeople offering solutions. If someone has an interesting solution that might help you: Always go through all the options on the market (remember Open-Source). You will most likely learn a lot and possibly find the best tool for you. Which is best for you, that is up to your needs. One solution doesn’t fit everyone. See which solution provider listens in a meeting instead of just talking their pitch. Hold onto those ones. Best advice is often free. Never be ashamed of the current situation of you IT or try to keep up a false facade. Converse openly with experts and get help. If you are talking with experts, you will get advice and help. Otherwise, you aren’t talking to an actual expert.

IT infrastructure needs are always ever evolving in any organisation, any organisation change increase or decrease has to be adequately supported at the same time no one wants to have extra assets lying around. So the best way to plan for expansion 1. Access current utilisation of the infrastructure 2. See what are the current challenges preventing maximum utilisation and address then first on priority 3. Estimate for a 6-9 months period and put in order in advance to keep the team adequately supported.

In navigating the expansion of a mid-sized company, adopting best practices is paramount to meeting rising IT infrastructure demands. Implement robust cybersecurity measures, ensuring data integrity and customer trust. Embrace cloud technologies for scalability and cost-efficiency. Regularly audit and optimize IT processes to enhance efficiency. Foster collaboration between IT and other departments to align technology with business goals. Invest in ongoing employee training to stay current with industry trends. By adhering to these best practices, a mid-sized company can build a resilient IT infrastructure that not only accommodates growth but also ensures sustained success in the digital landscape.

Your priority one best practice: KISS (Keep IT Simple…) That said, you will need to be aware of the regulatory and security environment where you are operating. I recommend reading the original legal texts that affect you the most and not just the executive summaries. You will also have your company architectural choices and your customers’ needs to consider. IT decision maker must work out how those things affect their company and IT. Take the responsibility of understanding. Don’t try to push it down the line to someone else. When you have the understanding, you can see what specifics everyone else needs to know. Don’t overwhelm others with responsibility.

In the face of expanding operations, a mid-sized company must embrace a culture of continual learning and evolution to meet escalating IT infrastructure demands. Prioritize ongoing training for IT teams, ensuring they stay abreast of emerging technologies. Embrace scalable and flexible infrastructure solutions to accommodate growth dynamically. Foster a culture that encourages innovation and experimentation to find optimal solutions. Regularly assess and update systems to align with evolving business needs. By instilling a commitment to learning and adaptability, a mid-sized company can not only keep up with IT demands but also stay ahead in a rapidly changing technological landscape.

IMHO, going with the cloud would be the best suited solution. It’ll help to expand as you go on pay/use basis without impacting the overall businesses and infrastructure plans.

Undoubtedly choose scalable architecture and massive use of cloud based infrastructure, such as IaaS, PasS, DaaS, etc. When developing softwares, pay attention at this matter that the software should be cloud-native or cloud-ready (at least).

Avoid cloud first like the plague. People will be telling you to go all in. DON'T. You don't have the expertise, you don't have the staff, you WILL get a nasty shock when that first bill comes. Scale up first THEN look at cloud. Don't forget human factors. Having done this, people get used to working one way & as you scale procedures & processes need to be introduced that people aren't used to. THIS will be your greatest challenge NOT the technology stack.

These days most companies move to the cloud for most IT services. So it's important to decide 1. How many users you need to support (Target) 2. How big you want your inhouse IT support team to be? 3. Which cloud services to choose? 4. What redundance and disaster recovery plans are there. 5. Security for access for users and IT support