Overview

In today’s business environment, Information Technology (IT) is not an option. The outsourcing of IT infrastructure is quickly becoming a critical decision for many businesses that are challenged to reduce costs, while maintaining their competitive advantage and planning for the future. Companies such as Amazon, Google and Microsoft are building massive data centers to provide for the needs of most businesses. While some of this is work in progress, today there are already many choices available to outsource your IT infrastructure. This course will give you the most practical, vendor-neutral perspective to make decisions on what is right for your business now and in terms of future choices for hosting your computing infrastructure externally.

Prerequisites

Experience in a professional setting developing strategy for a company or business unit No prior knowledge of outsourcing IT infrastructure needed

Intended Audience

This course is for you if you are a business owner, C level executive or a senior manager responsible for business and IT functions. It is also for you if your position is accountable for managing IT costs and maximizing the value of IT investments, or if you wish to learn more about the choices in outsourcing IT infrastructure and applications – as well as how to make these choices within the context of the business.

Course Outline

Why You Need This Course:

This course was designed to be vendor and product neutral. It will give you hands-on knowledge about IT delivery models and how to make smart decisions that will provide a competitive advantage for your business. It is led by two world class IT practitioners who will help you understand the key players in outsourced IT delivery, how to evaluate the value of available options, how IT delivery models impact your business, and how to establish specific action items for moving forward with confidence.

Training Objectives: What You Will Learn

• Recognize the issues that compromise the ability of IT infrastructure to support your business
• Know the basics of the IT infrastructure, including the services and makeup of IT infrastructure
• Evaluate various options available to take advantage of externally hosted platforms
• Understand how to select one of the available architecture/models for your business
• Be able to manage the ongoing relationship with the outsourcing partner
• Understand the current viability and future promise of Cloud (as-a-service) computing, including the actions needed to make the transition

Agenda:

• Context and overview of outsourcing IT infrastructure – implications of the choices made (e.g., cost, time to market, productivity, customer service, etc.)
• Progression of infrastructure provisioning and convergence of virtual machine capabilities, with the ability to manage infrastructure remotely is leading towards Public Cloud Infrastructure
• The infrastructure outsourcing continuum
  
  • Option 1: In-house Dedicated Hardware
  • Option 2: In-house Virtualized Hardware
  • Option 3: Co-location of Servers
  • Option 4: Managed Services
  • Option 5: IT Applications Outsourcing
  • Option 6: Cloud Based Computing (Public and Private)
• Comparative Matrix of Infrastructure Provisioning – risks and statistics on the usage of each infrastructure provisioning alternative, across industries and size of company
• Current and potential future viability of Cloud-Based Infrastructure
• Vendors of IT Services (product choices, costs and benefits)=
• Case Study: Co-location
• Case Study: Managed Services
• Cloud Computing: Custom vs. as-a-Service Offerings – alternatives and decision tree for custom versus as-a-service provisioning in the realms of Processes, Applications, Platforms and Infrastructure
• Scope and viability of each as-a-Service Offering – including SaaS, PaaS, and IaaS
• Comparative Matrix of Custom vs. as-a-Service – relative costs, time to market, flexibility, productivity and risks of each alternative
• Making the Transition – actions necessary and risks in making the transition to Cloud/as-a-Service offerings
• Case Studies and Exercises
• Managing outsourcing vendors (contracts, SLAs, relationships)
• Sustainability implications – impact of outsourcing, infrastructure consolidation and sharing infrastructure on sustainability
• Overview of the Information Technology Infrastructure Library (ITIL)
• Go Forward Strategy and Action Plan