TECHNOSPECTIVE
DATA CENTRES
Connecting mobility tactics and strategy in the data centre
By IT in Canada staff
“We see enterprise networks as being on the brink” – Dave Fredrickson, HP
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hen we think about mobility, we don’t generally start by considering data centre issues. However, the systems that enable mobile workers to access essential data and resources reside within the “glass house,” and effective planning around central system access and security is a key step in delivering on the productivity promises of smartphones and untethered work styles. To explore the key considerations in aligning data centre tactics and strategy with mobility requirements, IT in Canada spoke with Dave Fredrickson, VP and general manager for HP’s enterprise servers, storage and networking business. Here are some of the issues as we see them, and some of Fredrickson’s observations.
DF: To me, it’s about the software
IT in Canada: What kinds of stress does mobility put on data centre operations?
IT in Canada: What data center technology, or technology standards, do you think are most in need of change, to allow IT to provide “always on, always up, all information” access to mobile workers?
Dave Fredrickson: Next to people, the most important asset is information. Access to information at the right place at the right time can be a key competitive differentiator, and will allow for greater service and drive greater revenues. This has put new demands on IT infrastructure – a number of organizations are having difficulty because of the silos of data within their legacy environments.
IT in Canada: That’s consistent with what we’ve been hearing – that the first issue with mobility, at least from a data centre perspective, is information access. Mobility delivers productivity and customer contact benefits to the organization, but requires fundamentally different methods of assembling and accessing data within (and across) corporate systems – and of course, multiple and changing access points create another set of issues... 12 / IT in Canada September/October 2011
side. We look at it on three levels. There’s the application level that says, “How do I gain access through a data warehousingtype facility, drilling down to the information that’s required?” Next, there’s, “How do I pull resources together through the middleware offerings that actually link the various systems?” And then there’s the third level; “Okay, how do I make sure that my data’s protected, and that I’m not allowing for unwanted intrusions into the walls of the data center – and any other systems that I’ve got?”
DF: We see enterprise networks as being on the brink. Customers are facing new challenges associated with personalization and with the explosion of mobile devices and data. Networks are often weighed down by legacy architectures that were built for basic connectivity. [It’s essential to] unify the network silos by ensuring that protocols are implemented consistently across all network devices and throughout the enterprise. And then what’s very important is delivering comprehensive security and access policy management.
IT in Canada: Beyond the network, what does data center management need to focus on, as they roll out and evolve a mobility strategy within their organization?
DF: Security is the number one or number two topic that comes up with any of the executives that I speak to. We find that organizations are looking to heighten their security intelligence and devise a plan for implementing security policies and management strategies to monitor mobile access.
IT in Canada: Are there skills that the IT staff should try to build to help secure mobile users? DF: Organizations need to implement more robust training with analytical tools so that they make sure their people are aware of threats and can react quickly. Many organizations still are a little bit ostrich-like, pretending that threats are not out there because they haven’t happened to hit them. I’d say that there is a large number of organizations that are at risk because they haven’t implemented – at the application level, or with pattern analysis, or with robust prevention technology – the right levels of security for the data centre.