The IT industry continues to experience significant disruption, and in the face of this turmoil IT operations must remain robust. In addition to responding fast to rapid technology innovation cycles, IT leaders also need to be prepared to weather unexpected market events.
When Broadcom acquired VMware in 2023, it triggered substantial changes to VMware’s long established product offerings, licensing models and partner programmes. For many organisations, the impact of these disruptive changes underscored the risks of being overly reliant on a single vendor and the importance of having more flexible technology stacks.
The message for IT leaders is clear: in addition to responding to disruptive tech waves, crafting long-term strategies that prioritise resilience is a must have for riding out unforeseen market shifts.
The flexibility imperative
With disruptions coming from all directions, IT leaders face a growing challenge when it comes to their strategy and investment plans.
Reinventing operational models for agility is vital for organisations that want to harness new tech fast and the rapid evolution of AI solutions in the marketplace is a case in point. According to McKinsey, over three-quarters of organisations are now using AI in at least one business function and are “rewiring to capture value.”
Meanwhile, it was the changing market conditions created by the Broadcom/VMware deal that highlighted for many it was time to re-evaluate their procurement strategy and reduce their exposure to single-vendor dependencies. Confronted by a revised licensing model that prioritised enterprise data centres over edge sites and small/medium enterprise use cases, many organisations faced a difficult choice: live with substantially increased licensing costs or undertake an extensive migration programme.
It was a wake-up call that has prompted companies to explore alternative and more adaptable infrastructure solutions that enable them to avoid vendor lock-in, diversify their technology stacks and pivot to different types of hardware, OS, hypervisors and software tools. All of this insulates them from the challenges that can arise in the wake of a supplier acquisition scenario.
Future planning: accelerating agility
Infrastructure underpins everything, so rethinking IT investments is a critical first step for organisations that want to facilitate the integration of new technologies and shield themselves from market fluctuations.
As IT leaders are discovering, flexibility must be designed into the infrastructure itself. This explains why hyperconverged infrastructure (HCI) and edge computing are proving such a compelling proposition for organisations looking to simplify their operations and withstand market volatility shocks.
With the global HCI market projected to grow from almost $12 billion in 2024 to over $60 billion by 2032, HCI has rapidly grown from a niche solution to become an established mainstream approach.
By combining storage, compute and networking into a single unified platform, HCI simplifies the management of data and supports various hardware configuration, software and deployment models. Robust IT systems are vital when market shifts result in key software providers changing direction unexpectedly. Crucially, there are now plenty of HCI solutions that are based on open-source technologies that offer the flexibility needed to maintain business continuity and minimise disruption.
The edge market is similarly booming. Set to grow from over $400 billion in 2024 to $5 trillion by 2034, edge computing’s popularity is the increased demand for real-time data processing fuelled by the rise of AI and IoT. With edge, organisations not only benefit from the lower costs and reduced latency that makes the deployment of these services viable, they can also ensure that operational continuity is maintained as they look to reduce their cloud dependency and improve real-time decision making.
Moving towards a more adaptable future
Technological advancements, sector consolidation and other hard-to-predict factors mean that the frequency and speed of disruptive events is accelerating. With constant disruption now the established norm, what steps should organisations take to become more proactive and resilient?
- Diversify the supply base – Companies that maintain strategic relationships with multiple vendors have consistently shown greater flexibility during market shifts. This isn’t about playing vendor against vendor; it’s about creating a purposeful ecosystem that eliminates the risk of single points of failure and over-reliance on a single vendor.
- Enable a more adaptable IT environment – Organisations that embrace software-defined technologies can achieve a level of adaptability that is difficult to match with hardware-centric approaches. While enabling organisations to respond dynamically to rapid change, it’s a shift that will require both technical and cultural adjustments.
- Adopt a security-first mindset – When planning a HCI migration, ensure that security teams are included from day one to ensure that robust security measures such as data encryption, access controls and MFA are integrated into the HCI platform from the get-go. Bolting security on post migration isn’t an option and risks introducing new vulnerabilities.
- Build an agile IT culture – Organisations that invest in and empower agile teams before disruption hits typically recover from disruptive events dramatically faster. By adopting an agile ethos, where training and curiosity are valued and those learning new systems or technical practices are rewarded, organisations can harness the expanded capabilities and skillsets of their people to adapt better to technology and industry changes.
As disruptions continue to plague the IT landscape, it has become more apparent than ever that IT systems need to remain sturdy and reliable to keep operations up and running even when vendor reliability waivers. Businesses need solid infrastructure and trusted systems to manage their IT needs and HCI could just be the solution.
Bruce Kornfeld
Bruce Kornfeld is Chief Product Manager at StorMagic, helping customers solve real technology and business problems for their computing and storage needs at the edge. Bruce is responsible for product roadmap, planning and delivering industry-leading low failure rate software to customers.
