Today, we have the means to prepare appropriately for future infrastructure scenarios that we can't begin to imagine yet.
(1888PressRelease) March 01, 2010 - The evolution of information technology (IT) will continue to be as dynamic - and therefore as disruptive - as it has been all along the continuum of the move from mainframes to client servers and, eventually, the Internet.
That's the view of Dexter Wee, general manager for Network Integration and Performance Optimisation at Datacraft Asia, who says in the past eight years, IT has matured, with organisations gradually realising that it has strategic - and not just tactical - value.
"And that," he adds, "has led to many new, more sensibly targeted projects being started, while others have been placed on the back burner or simply cancelled. In the process, organisations were left with considerable redundancies. Equipment has aged beyond existing manufacturer capacity - or, in fact, willingness to support it cost-effectively. Older systems either predate compliance regulations such as Sarbanes Oxley, or have not been aligned to well-documented best practice standards. This in turn has put organisations at risk of non-compliance.
"Yet, there are more challenges ahead," warns Wee. "There's Web 2.0, software as a service (SaaS), video, voice and mobility applications to bed down. In addition, there's the drive to save costs through initiatives such as virtualisation and standards-based IT service management. Furthermore, there are the trends towards pervasive connectivity, convergence, and standardisation on IP. IT network robustness and performance are also becoming ever more urgent.
"The difference between the past twenty years and the next ten is: in the past, we didn't have the time to develop infrastructure lifecycle management best practice - nor the tools to automate it. Today we do.
"Now, we have the means to prepare appropriately for future infrastructure scenarios that we can't begin to imagine yet - by simply understanding what our infrastructure assets are right now. In other words, organisations can minimise the financial, operational, and financial risk of future technology enablement."
Datacraft's TLM Assessment enables the ongoing simplification of client networks, along with improving the efficiency and performance of those networks. It achieves that by automating both the identification of assets and the evaluation of asset status. Automation speeds up these processes as well as improving the accuracy of the information gathered in what are, in most cases, extremely complex technology environments. It also allows for the easy comparison of asset status against best practice.
Specifically, the service is designed to identify basic security, configuration, and end-of-life network device issues so that they can be proactively addressed.
"Our reports provide an organisation with a high level of visibility into its network, giving it the time, knowledge, and insight to plan for upgrades, make informed decisions on prolonging the use of certain assets, and budgeting for those that need upgrades or spares," Schofield says.
"An accurate inventory of its IT infrastructure also empowers an organisation to reduce its carbon footprint and enhance its environmental standing overall - by rationalising equipment and processes, prioritising workload, reducing energy consumption, and reducing the space allocated to equipment."
According to Wee, Datacraft's TLM Assessment evolved out of the company's original network assessment service because of what it learned about processes during its more than 300 assessments conducted globally during the last two years.
"We built that learning back into the service, making it even easier and more cost effective for our clients to remove risk, waste, and uncertainty from their network infrastructure management," he says and points out that the 300 assessments provided proof that most organisations are at financial, operational, and reputational risk because of lack of knowledge of their network and other technology assets.
Indeed, an overall average of 73% of networking devices are running with vulnerabilities that are well understood and documented by vendors but have not been remediated by the client. In addition, there is an average of 30 configuration issues per network device.
The most frequently misconfigured category is authentication. Almost half of all network devices are at a point in the obsolescence cycle where spares, support, and fixes are no longer available.
About Datacraft
Datacraft is a wholly owned subsidiary of Dimension Data plc (LSE:DDT), a US$4 billion leading global IT solutions and services provider. Datacraft operates in over 50 offices across 13 Asia Pacific countries. We help clients plan, build, support, manage, improve and innovate their IT infrastructures. Datacraft combines an expertise in networking, security, data centre, storage, Microsoft solutions and converged communications & contact centre technologies, with advanced skills in consulting, integration, training and managed services to craft IT solutions for businesses. For more information, please visit www.datacraft-asia.com.
About Datacraft's TLM Assessment
Datacraft's TLM Assessment comprises six steps:
IDENTIFY: this involves a business discussion about the network's technology lifecycle, and the organisation's existing and best fit longer-term network architecture, considering risk, cost and strategic factors.
DISCOVER: this incorporates business and technical reviews with the key stakeholders to ensure that the relevant information is collected and lifecycle milestones as well as security and configuration issues are identified. An asset list is required at this stage and if the organisation does not have an up to date list, a network scan will be required to create one.
ASSESS: using automated tools, the asset list is analysed against security, configuration, and end-of-life databases. A technology roadmap is created, based on the prioritised, recommendations from the analysis. This includes configuration remediations as well as security and maintenance recommendations.
RECOMMEND: this is a consultative step in which Datacraft specialists and key stakeholders discuss the findings so far and determine how to act on recommendations based on risk, cost and strategic factors. An action plan is developed.
EXECUTE: IT operations execute the recommendations. These may include allocating resources or working with a third party to address the security and network remediations that are required, reviewing maintenance and support contracts, and/or planning for equipment upgrades. As this is a multi-year planning approach, there are likely to be steps executed in future financial periods as the organisation's needs dictate.
IMPROVE: Networks and markets are dynamic. Configurations will drift from best practice standards over time and additional products deployed will enter the end of lifecycle. In order to ensure the benefits of this approach over time, repeat assessments should be considered.
For more information, please visit http://www.datacraft-asia.com/TLMAssessment
For further information, please contact:
Esther Quah (Datacraft Asia)
Tel: (65) 6322 6688
Email: esther.quah ( @ ) datacraft-asia dot com
Tng Szu Lin (Datacraft Asia)
Tel: (65) 6322 6605
Email: szu-lin.tng ( @ ) datacraft-asia dot com
Today, we have the means to prepare appropriately for future infrastructure scenarios that we can't begin to imagine yet. 
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