The Middle East and Africa (MEA) enterprise market is seeing unprecedented levels of business change as organisations strive to optimise the utilisation of their resources and simultaneously drive down their operating expenses.
A key facilitator of this ideal has been the emergence of converged infrastructure, with IDC’s Worldwide Integrated Infrastructure and Platform Tracker showing that MEA investment in this area increased 102 per cent year on year in 2013, compared to a global average of just over 50 per cent. But what exactly is converged infrastructure, and what is driving its adoption at such a rapid rate?
Let’s start with the basics. IDC defines converged infrastructure as pre-converged, vendor-certified systems that contain server hardware, disk storage systems, networking equipment, and basic element/systems management software.
By combining all of this ‘under one roof’, it provides all the essentials required to run a datacentre with the certification and service of a single vendor, thereby facilitating more straightforward deployment and enhanced troubleshooting capabilities.
So what of the benefits? Well, the most obvious advantage of deploying a converged system is improved efficiency. Whether pre-configured or assembled on-site, these systems are ‘tuned to task’, meaning they are well balanced and aligned to the unique requirements of the organisation. This improves performance and eases management, as the IT capacity requirements can be dynamically controlled and monitored through a single platform that provides a complete view of system resources.
Converged systems also contribute to the efficiency bottom line by being both easy to deploy and easy to manage.
Such benefits can make even the most belligerent of organisations sit up and take notice, but the appeal of converged infrastructure intensifies further still when one considers the additional complexities that are being piled onto IT departments through the deployment of desktop virtualisation, mobility, and cloud.
With computing, connectivity, and storage all becoming inherently more complex, we see a very pressing need to simplify troubleshooting and management, a key provision of converged infrastructure.
And it doesn’t stop there; converged systems can also offer significant advantages in terms of simplification and agility for banks, telcos, government agencies, and retail organisations that are dependent on heavy mission-critical applications.
But it’s not all sweetness and light. Like any emerging technology, converged infrastructure also comes with its own set of challenges. While some of these are perceived, some are real issues based on previous use cases. Aligning technology replacement cycles can be a challenge across the server, storage, and networking areas for organisations that plan to introduce converged systems during their refresh cycles.
Furthermore, some CIOs have encountered problems while integrating converged systems with existing infrastructure and management processes.
There is also a perception among enterprises that converged systems pose a single point of failure, thereby raising concerns around reliability. One of the real challenges faced by organisations in the region is a shortage of skills within their IT staff.
Converged systems bring about a change in the typical responsibilities of the IT team, and while the overall management is simplified, the routine tasks require technical know-how in managing a suite of systems under a unified management console. In an attempt to address this issue, many converged vendors are now offering training and certifications on managing their converged systems.
Most server, storage, and networking vendors now include converged offerings in their product portfolios, IDC has identified are a number of key differences worth considering. While some have all the pillars of the system (ie, servers, storage, networking, and management) offered by a single vendor, others have formed strategic alliances whereby the converged system is branded and sold by a single vendor but draws on the core competencies of multiple parties.
The deployment methods also vary; some vendors have reference architecture of converged systems that are customisable and can be deployed on-site, while others provide fully preconfigured systems with only plugging, testing, and knowledge transfer done on-site.
So what does the future hold for converged infrastructure in the Middle East and Africa? There is tremendous scope for converged systems adoption within the region’s key verticals, including BFSI, oil and gas, telecommunications, and government. Converged systems may also prove extremely valuable to the region’s booming SMB segment, which can avail the computing benefits of a functional datacenter through the deployment of a single converged system with plug-and-play capabilities. The system provides the scalability and agility required by growing SMBs. The various Smart City initiatives springing up across the region are also expected to go down the converged route because of the huge, complex infrastructure requirements that these massive build-out plans entail.
The opportunities, then, are almost endless, with server, storage, and networking vendors having created a set of offerings that resonate well with data centre operators looking for the next level of infrastructure efficiency within their highly virtualised environments. Ultimately, though, the proof of the pudding will be in the eating, and IDC is confident that as word of enhanced agility, productivity, flexibility, and cost-saving capabilities spreads, the uptake of converged systems across the Middle East and Africa will reach grand new heights.
The columnist is group vice-president and regional managing director for the Middle East, Africa, and Turkey at global ICT market intelligence and advisory firm International Data Corporation (IDC).
