Chapter 7

IT infrastructure Emerging
Technology, Trends and
Issues
7.1 Emerging Trends of
IT Infrastructure
7.1.1BIG
DATA
Big Data Infographic
Big Data Architecture
 7.1.2
VIRTUALIZATION
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPkEqOoQSu4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9AiN7oJaIM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=iBI31dmqSX0
Virtualization is the creation of a virtual copy of a
physical computer. The benefits of virtualization are
vast – it cuts hardware expenses, and increases the
productivity and speed of operations.

What is virtualization?
Network Virtualization
Server Virtualization
Desktop virtualization
Hardware virtualization Refer to
this link for
Software virtualization detail
explanation
Storage virtualization

https://itmagic.pro/blog/10-benefits-of-virtuali
zation-guide-to-advance-your-business

Types of Virtualization
Benefits of Virtualization
https://itmagic.pro/blog/10-benefits-of-virt
ualization-guide-to-advance-your-business

Benefits of Virtualization (cont)

7.1.3 HYBRID
CLOUD
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=_n5Le8aePB4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=3kGFBBy3Lyg
Hybrid cloud is a cloud computing
environment which uses a mix of on-
premises, private cloud and third-party,
public cloud services with orchestration
between the two platforms.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqnyOHBZus4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WIJ4axzFlU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_n5Le8aePB4

What is HYBRID Cloud?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_J0E
hlstPxY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WIJ
4axzFlU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=315oizyjH_U

Videos on Hybrid Cloud

 On-premises, private infrastructure that’s directly accessible.
 Not being pushed through the public internet. This greatly reduces access
time and latency in comparison to public cloud services.
 Ability to have on-premises computational infrastructure that can support
the average workload for the business, while retaining the ability to
leverage the public cloud for failover circumstances in which the workload
exceeds the computational power of the private cloud component.
 Building out the private end of a hybrid cloud also allows for flexibility in
server designs.
 Capacity expansion
When the incremental cost of adding capacity on-premises is high –
think upgrading power and cooling in a data centre to accommodate
additional racks or building a whole new data centre – a hybrid
approach is a viable alternative. But going hybrid doesn’t have to
impact existing operations; selecting a hosted cloud that supports
bare metal and extending the on- premises network could allow existing
technologies, tools and techniques to be reused.

Advantages of Hybrid Cloud

 Dev/test
Dev/test workloads are highly elastic; they are regularly stood up
and torn down, and the number of instances at any one time varies
widely based on the development phase. Placing these workloads on the
hosted cloud allows you to scale capacity to match demand and pay only
for what is used.
 Planned temporary need
Most needs are known in advance, such as new product launches,
holidays, peak season and so forth. When given time to plan and
execute, most applications can be scaled. Much like dev/test,
scaling the workload to the hosted cloud enables tailoring the hardware
to the problem being solved and paying for what is needed when it’s
used, turning a large capital expense into a smaller operational
expense.
 Network optimization
Hosted cloud provides the opportunity to shift the heavy lifting of
the network off-premises and, in the process, improves the availability,
scalability and reliability of the connection by leveraging the
provider’s network investment.

Advantages of Hybrid Cloud

 Cost
While the public cloud can offer an attractive option for its
flexibility and relatively low cost to operate, building a
private enterprise cloud requires significant expenditure and can
become expensive very quickly with all the physical
hardware necessary.
 Security
Cloud computing is not inherently any less secure than
traditional computing, and in fact faces fewer attacks, but
there are still considerations to take into account when building
out a hybrid cloud. The proper precautions must be taken to
ensure data is properly protected and that control is maintained by
the right people. Additionally, depending on the industry,
there may be certain regulatory requirements that prohibit data
from being stored off-site, which would prevent the use of a
public cloud entirely.

Disadvantages of Hybrid Cloud

 Data and application integration
Applications and data exist in a symbiotic relationship, with each
one being useless without the other. Oftentimes they’re chained
together. So when considering where to store each of them, it’s essential
to ask whether the infrastructure they’re placed on matters. For
example, if an application lives in a private cloud and its data lives in
an on-premise data centre, is the application built in order to access the
data remotely? Technologies like copy data virtualization can decouple
data from infrastructure and make this problem less of a headache.
 Compatibility
Compatibility across infrastructure can prove itself to be a major
issue when building a hybrid cloud. With dual levels of infrastructure, a
private cloud the company controls and a public one that it doesn’t, the
chances are that they will be running different stacks.
 Networking
Will very active applications be living in the cloud? It’s necessary to
consider the bandwidth usage they could take up on the network
and whether or not it could cause problems in bottlenecking other
applications.

Disadvantages of Hybrid Cloud

 7.1.4
HYPERCONVERGENCE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=5iQic0T_j7s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=N46PFNZE9zM
is a type of infrastructure system with a
software-centric architecture that tightly
integrates compute, storage, networking
and virtualization resources and other
technologies from scratch in a commodity
hardware box supported by a single
vendor (EG: Hewlett Packard, Nutanix)).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cs48Yr_lUxc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbKCukjgJVs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jOewMqQlxo8

What is Hyperconvergence?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IUX
6swaOC4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbKC
ukjgJVs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1bZ
Iv4_Pz4
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=cs48Yr_lUxc

Videos on Hyperconvergence
7.1.5 NEXT GEN OF
FIREWALLS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=y8zZzG9fsmU
A next-generation firewall (NGFW) is a hardware-
or software-based network security system that
is able to detect and block sophisticated attacks
by enforcing security policies at the application
level, as well as at the port and protocol level.
Traditional firewall - includes a device that is
able to control the traffic that is allowed to enter
or exit a point within the network. It can typically
do this either using a stateless method or a
stateful method depending on the type of
protocol being run on it.

What is NGFW?
 To understand what the word Stateful refers to, let us
look at an analogy.
 Consider the scenario of a telephone call. In this case, the
connection is maintained from the beginning to the end of
the call to ensure continuous communication.
 The connection is validated first, and only then will the
session be established indefinitely until the end of the
talk.
 This is exactly what a stateful protocol is. If a client
delivers a request to the server in a stateful protocol, it
expects a response of some sort.
 If it does not receive a response, it will send the request
again.

Stateful vs Stateless Network

Protocol
 In order to comprehend what Stateless means, let us
consider a scenario just like we did in the case of
Stateful.
 Consider the event of sending an SMS. Here, the
receiver’s availability is not confirmed, and the sender
just sends the SMS to the recipient.
 There is no confirmation from the receiving device to
the sending device that the message has been received.
 Despite being transmitted, the communication may or
may not be received.
 There can be no cross-verification of status or retries.
This is what stateless is all about.

Stateful vs Stateless Network

Protocol
https://www.interviewbit.com/blog/
stateful-vs-stateless/
 7.1.6 IoT
Internet of
Things
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=LlhmzVL5bm8
 a system of interrelated computing devices, mechanical and digital machines,
objects, animals or people that are provided with unique identifiers and the
ability to transfer data over a network without requiring human-to-human or
human-to-computer interaction.
 Broadband Internet is become more widely available, the cost of connecting is
decreasing, more devices are being created with Wi-Fi capabilities and sensors
built into them, technology costs are going down, and smartphone penetration
is sky-rocketing. All of these things are creating a "perfect storm" for the IoT.
 Simply put, this is the concept of basically connecting any device with an on
and off switch to the Internet (and/or to each other). This includes everything
from cellphones, coffee makers, washing machines, headphones, lamps,
wearable devices and almost anything else you can think of. This also applies
to components of machines, for example a jet engine of an airplane or the drill
of an oil rig. As I mentioned, if it has an on and off switch then chances are it
can be a part of the IoT. The analyst firm Gartner says that by 2020 there will
be over 26 billion connected devices... That's a lot of connections (some even
estimate this number to be much higher, over 100 billion). The IoT is a giant
network of connected "things" (which also includes people). The relationship
will be between people-people, people-things, and things-things.

What is IoT?
 The new rule for the future is going to be, "Anything that can be
connected, will be connected." But why on earth would you want
so many connected devices talking to each other? There are
many examples for what this might look like or what the potential
value might be. Say for example you are on your way to a
meeting; your car could have access to your calendar and already
know the best route to take. If the traffic is heavy your car might
send a text to the other party notifying them that you will be late.
What if your alarm clock wakes up you at 6 a.m. and then notifies
your coffee maker to start brewing coffee for you? What if your
office equipment knew when it was running low on supplies and
automatically re-ordered more? What if the wearable device you
used in the workplace could tell you when and where you were
most active and productive and shared that information with
other devices that you used while working?

What is IoT?
7.1.7 Beacon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGJYaku0V9Y
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=2YorsgulwdU
 Beacons are small computers, roughly the size of a
standard Wi-Fi router. As part of indoor positioning
systems, beacons use proximity technology to detect
human presence nearby and trigger pre-set actions to
deliver informational, contextual, and personalised
experiences.
 When a user walks past an area where an indoor
positioning system is set up, a beacon sends a code
with a message to their mobile device. Here app
solutions come forth: this coded message, which is
shown in a form of a notification, can only be viewed
with a mobile app (third party or brand mobile app).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=lwnmx-5mBLM
 http://www.xentralmethods.com/beacon/

Where Beacon is applied in

Malaysia?
7.1.8 Wearable
Technology
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=hrLX8Woiak8
 7.2
Issues/Problem in IT
Infrastructure
There are several broad classes of problems with IT infrastructure:
• Configuration management problems.
Historically, many configuration management initiatives have failed because
the information needed to document what is required for an IT service is found in
too many different places and cannot be pulled together in real-time, or even near
real- time. Because these efforts have often been done manually, they are not real-
time, or even near real-time enough to actually be able to show benefit to the
business. Configuration management is a pre-requisite for achieving overall
success in IT. However, it certainly is not an island unto itself. It requires other
pieces to be in line such as monitoring, backup, incident tracking, performance
management, etc.
• Performance problems:
Slow response time, unexpected changes in performance, bottlenecks
caused by faults, outages, and delays
• Lack of availability/downtime:
due to hardware/software failures, etc
• Catastrophic events
like hurricanes, floods, fires, problem with electricity supply, air conditioning
failure, etc
 7.3
Challenges in IT Infrastructure
 TOP IT INFRASTRUCTURE MANAGEMENT
CHALLENGES TOWARDS ORGANIZATION IN THE
FUTURE
1. Lack of Powerful Computing Platforms
Challenge - The major challenge in growing processing power of computers has been the lack of energy
and space to power supercomputers. IT managers have always been on the lookout for better and faster
systems which will help in the faster processing of the large amounts of data available today.

Solution - A simple solution to this challenge would be to employ new general purpose graphical
processors or multi-core platforms. By using better systems, the existing software will have to be
optimized and adjusted to provide the best results. Many projects have been started to develop faster
computers which will be available at low costs and energy needs.

2. Data Acquisition Problems

Challenge - Firewalls which protect emails, applications and web browsing can cause important packet
losses in the TCP/IP networks. This can result in important data loss and reduce the network speeds
considerably, making the online collaboration impossible. Similar losses can occur due to the switches and
routers which do not have the required high-speed memory.

Solution - IT managers need to look out for high-performance computing resources with huge data sets
and a secure bridge to collaborate with dispersed scientific teams. They will also need to employ more
sophisticated means to collect, filter and store using high-speed networks.

3. Compute Management and Provisioning

Challenge - One of the biggest challenges for IT managers is the humongous amounts of data that is
available today. High-performance computing of these large data sets will require virtualization and
automation to avoid adding more people to these processes. The major challenge for IT managers is to
simplify these tasks and speed up the processing.

Solution - This challenge can be solved by using distributive systems. These systems divide complex tasks
into smaller independent bits which can be processed by individual computers which are connected to a
network. Grid computing consists of virtualization of resources and supports computations across multiple
administrative domains and helps in speeding up the processing of complex tasks.
4. Lack of Efficient Data Storage Architectures
Challenge - Cloud storage has taken over in most of the cases in the modern world. Though it is a cost-
effective and scalable alternative for data storage for IT managers, it does not provide the required data
storage architectures which can accommodate a variety of applications. The IT community needs
something more flexible which is beyond space and cost in cloud storage options.

Solution - It is important that the cloud storage options become more flexible to improve the IT
infrastructure. It should be easy to optimize the cloud storage architecture according to the application
which is being deployed. It needs to be more reliable, efficient and be able to handle a variety of
applications and needs of the user community. The cloud storage options need to serve as long-term and
archival instead of a short-term solution for the IT community.

5. Dearth of Ways to Improve Data Analytics

Challenge - Currently there are not many methods in place which can be used by IT managers to separate
quality data from the humongous data sets. It is important to identify patterns in the data and correctly
analyze it and use it to take business decisions in infrastructure management.

Solution - The best solution to solve this problem would be to have an ideal system which would consist of
a standards-based framework facilitating easy data transfer between different tools and layers. This will
help in faster data transfer and hence better data analysis. This analytics would be used for industrial
control systems and for network and IT monitoring.

6. Improper Networks and Connectivity

Challenge - For any organization to work smoothly, it is important that there is a good and reliable
network in place. Without a reliable network connection, IT infrastructure management can be a difficult
task for any IT manager of the organization. New software-based methods and network architecture
design are required for the optimization of data.

Solution - The ability to migrate the IP address would help to allow application services to be migrated to
other hardware. Another solution to this challenge would be to add intelligence to the wired as well as Wi-
Fi network connections. This will help the networks to optimize the traffic delivery to contain costs and
improve the service.
12 Challenges Facing by IT
Professionals
1. New Technology
 Technology advances rapidly and shows up in media on all sides. This
means users, managers at all levels and even competitors pressure IT
staff to implement this new technology just because it is new. The real
challenge is deciding which of these new technologies will work to the best
interest of advancing the organization and which is better to avoid for
now.
 Organizational priorities and long-term goals tend to remain relatively
static. Technology has become much more fluid and changes more rapidly.
IT management must evaluate the organizational value each technology
offers to determine when and if it is a good fit.
 New technologies such as cloud, big data, virtualization and mobility all
become tools for experienced IT managers who understand their
organization's priorities. Since every organization is different, the IT value
of each new technology will vary with the organization's strategic goals.

To address this issue:

To make the most of any new technology, an IT manager needs a solid

understanding of the organization and the challenges its users and markets
face. Prior to jumping into a new trend in technology, IT managers must ask
one question: "How does this help us address our current challenges or meet
our strategic goals?"
2. Cloud
 Many organizations have yet to make cloud plans. They choose to keep
their data and applications in-house and manage everything themselves.
 With the advances of cloud offerings and to future-proof the network,
preparing the organization for a potential future cloud move is simple
common sense. For example, what happens when organizational
management decides to set up an internal cloud solution. Maybe that is a
step toward moving applications and data off-site.
 The main point: You must create portable applications today that won't
hold your company back in the future, whatever that may hold.

To address this issue:

This comes down to software and hardware architecture. New applications

must be built using an open architecture that lets them run on any platform
or with any database. Doing so means the organization's applications will run
on the in-house servers, an in-house cloud or in an external cloud. The extra
benefit is that any move to a cloud-based solution can be completed without
new applications.
3. Big Data Analytics
 Data is projected to grow by 800 percent in the next five years. The big challenge is
that more than 80 percent of it unstructured. Unstructured data varies in its
formats, including plain text, email, blog, formatted document, standard and non-
standard image, video, voice, animation, sensor input and web search logs.
Unstructured data is growing faster than structured data. As a relatively new and
untapped source of organizational insight, unstructured data analytics has the
potential to reveal more important information interrelationships that were
previously very difficult or impossible to determine.
 Part of that unstructured data includes data from communities, groups and social
networks outside the organization known as "the collective". Data mining the
collective is a great way to understand the organization's market and customers.

To address this issue:

To provide the best value to the organization, big data analytics requires new
approaches to capturing, storing and analyzing data. The massive amount and growth
of unstructured data rapidly outpaces traditional solutions and calls for new volume
handling. Big data is collected from new sources. Traditional data management
processes fall short in coping with the variable nature of big data. New analytics offer
methods to process the variety. Data is generated in real time and the demands call for
usable information to be ready as needed. Solutions like 100 GB Ethernet, parallel-
processing, and SSDs (Solid State Drives) offer good response times.
4. Virtualization
 Virtualization continues to expand from desktops to servers to switches, routers and
firewalls. Virtualization will provide a much higher level of control of these devices
rather than saving money. In fact, the organization's infrastructure will require
larger servers, more VM licenses, and emulation software in addition to the
continuing cost of desktop licenses.
 A virtualized data center requires many of the same management tasks that also
must be performed in the physical server environment. These tasks need to be
extended into the virtualized environment as well as also integrated with the
existing workflow and management processes.
 One example is that IT organizations must be able to automatically discover both
the physical and the virtual environment and have an integrated view of both
environments available for monitoring and managing. That view of the combined
virtual and physical server resources needs to stay current as VMs move from one
host to another. The view must also be able to indicate which resources are involved
in the case of fault or performance issues.

To address this issue:

The Distributed Management Task Force (DMTF) set its Virtualization Management
(VMAN) standard. That includes a set of specifications to address the management
lifecycle of a virtual environment. VMAN's Open Virtualization Format (OVF)
specification provides a standard for describing virtual machines and applications for
deployment across various virtualization platforms. VMAN's profiles now standardize
many aspects of the operational management of a mixed vendor virtualized
environment.
5. BYOD and BYOA
 For years, IT has controlled user's devices. With the advent of
smartphones and tablets, that has changed. Users now bring in their
own devices without IT's knowledge. They use them for both
personal and work-related tasks. IT's initial plan was to attempt to
maintain control. The facts are clear: Controlling user-owned devices
in an organization's network is nearly impossible.
 When a user brings their own device, they will also bring their own
applications that they have grown used to using. That is a plus for
productivity and a challenge for IT security. IT managers and CIOs
will need to decide what to secure: the network infrastructure or the
organization's data.

Suggestions:

Controlling users' mobile devices, is a losing battle. IT staff, even with

automation, can't possibly monitor every device that links to the
network. The solution moves to controlling data access. First, secure
the data on servers. Then provide users access to that data in the form
of mobile web apps. This lets them access the data on any server they
are authorized to access, but doesn't store any data on the mobile
device.
6. Shadow IT
 IT continues to have a poor image inside organizations.
Whether it be slow response times, dictatorial actions, or
software challenges, many IT departments are facing users'
preference of going to intra-department super users for help.
Add the easily available cloud software and services,
organizations see users and groups head toward bypassing the
IT department altogether. They find and purchase third party
SaaS (Software as a Service) packages to meet their needs.
 Other departments like sales, marketing, accounting, etc. are
considering independent arrangements with outside IT service
providers.

To address this issue:

When end users and managers are less satisfied with the service
and support they receive from IT, they begin to look for other
options. The solution is less about controlling an emerging
Shadow IT. It's really about training the IT department to better
communicate with and support the needs of the organization.
7. Boomers
 Starting in this year, about 10,000 baby boomers will become eligible to
retire every day for the next 15 to 20 years in North America. A lot of
those potential retirees are IT people who have years of both IT and
organization-specific knowledge and experience.
 The entry-level people coming into the workforce are much more loyal to
themselves, what they know and in some cases, to their peers than to the
organization. They arrive with different skill sets and new ways of looking
at and using technology.

To address this issue:

To deal with retirements and the possibility that younger workers may stay
less time, there are two basic alternatives. One choice is a mentoring
program so those people who need to be replaced can share their knowledge
with their potential replacement in sufficient time to complete the exchange
smoothly before retirement. Another solution is giving newer IT workers
projects outside of their comfort zone, more training and other opportunities
to learn something different and as a result become less vertically focused.
As they complete these projects they move to other new areas and projects.
8. Interoperability
 Users and customers are more demanding of the products
on their desktops and mobile devices. It all comes down to
communicating with each another. Systems need to send
and receive data that will be compatible on all user
platforms.
 Open applications and systems built on open standards are
the way of the future. Development efforts must focus on
the system or application itself as well as how that
system/application works with others.

Tips to address this issue:

At the most basic level, developers must avoid proprietary

architecture and use only open architecture and frameworks
that communicate easily with other systems.
9. User Systems
 Desktops, laptops, notebooks, tablets and smartphones are already an
integral part of many users lives. In some cases, it has become
increasingly difficult to draw the line between them. Will tablets replace
laptops and notebooks? Will desktops go the way of the dinosaurs?
 Tablets and smartphones already perform many tasks previously
completed by desktops. That means organizations must adapt to a
multiple user systems. These days, internal users and customers may
access organizational data and applications via many different methods
depending on their current location.

To address this issue:

IT managers must develop applications that adjust to the device the users
have available. Some will turn to responsive design that creates a more fluid
display to adjust to the screen size variations. Others use the adaptive
approach that designs the display to match the desired screen size.
10. Energy Efficiency
 According to most estimates, a 25,000 square foot data center will use
about $4 million in energy this year. At that rate, a savings of just a few
percent can make a big difference to an IT budget. With an increasing
trend of expanding green initiatives and alternate sources of energy,
organizations are working on ways to improve energy monitoring and
efficiency.
 There's an emerging market of tools for energy monitoring and efficiency.
More than 25 vendors have entered this market. These tools monitor
consumption at the device level and, in some cases, at the application
level.

To address this issue:

Resources and tools are readily available to help IT and data center
managers benchmark energy use, monitor ongoing trends, identify any
savings opportunities, and adopt the most energy efficient practices.
11. Creating value
 This is a recurring IT issue. It's now a priority. IT
departments must focus on improving service to the
organizational user and to the organization's departmental
needs. To do so, IT managers must remove any non-
essential activities that are in the way.
 That means a different way of outsourcing non-core
activities to keep the focus on value creation. This
outsourcing means moving as many services to the cloud
as possible. Why own or maintain software or hardware?
Small or mid-sized firms can easily rely on the cloud for
standardized services.

To address this issue:

This is relatively simple. Ask, "Does this task/activity

improve our organization's core priorities?" If not, figure out
how to eliminate that function and focus on the mission-
critical tasks.
12. Social Networks
 Customers, suppliers and others are currently talking
about every organization on some form of social media.
This may include Twitter, Facebook, Foursquare, LinkedIn
and YouTube. At minimum, IT and marketing departments
need to monitor and participate in those conversations.
Semantic analysis tools can help companies mine that
social dialog to shape new product and upgrades, improve
customer service, sales and marketing initiatives.

To address this issue:

Establish a social presence and determine what is being

shared. The biggest challenge here is the struggle with
shifting from providing a platform to sell products and
services to delivering strong customer solutions.
IT managers and staff will continue to face issues
and challenges brought to them by users,
customers and departmental managers while they
continue to work toward providing IT solutions that
best support organizational priorities.
This topic provides a light on the challenges and
will encourage IT and organizational management
some guidelines for prioritizing issues.
Presenting them in this way may also show
providers areas that they can help IT managers
overcome them.

CONCLUSION