Infrastructure management

What is infrastructure management?

In the context of an IT organization, infrastructure refers to the hardware, software and other systems that are necessary for delivering IT services in accordance with service-level agreements (SLAs). IT infrastructure management includes the management of IT policies and processes, along with the equipment, data, human resources and external contacts, such as vendors or security organizations, needed to ensure that IT operations run smoothly and efficiently.

Benefits of IT infrastructure management

IT infrastructure management deals with the oversight of key IT infrastructure elements that are required to deliver business services. These can include software applications and networking components, but the primary focus of IT infrastructure management is typically on physical components such as computer and networking hardware and the facility itself. The benefits of good IT infrastructure management boil down to financial and operational savings. These benefits include:

• Improved response times to changes in operations, disasters, and other disruptive conditions.
• Proactive measures stemming from more agile processes.
• Reduced financial costs from automation and better capacity planning.
• Streamlined employee operations and responsibilities to create work efficiencies.
• Reduction in integration and system downtime.

IT infrastructure management best practices

With IT infrastructure managers being responsible for the design, implementation, maintenance and retirement of each of the above IT infrastructure elements, it’s necessary to understand the best practices for managing them. These IT infrastructure management best practices include:

• Knowledge gathering
• Creation of standards
• Implementation of standards
• Maintaining consistency
• Documentation

IT infrastructure management vs. IT operations: what's the difference?

IT operations management focuses on managing the daily operational tasks that are necessary to maintain the infrastructure that is used to deliver IT services. The responsibilities of IT operations control can be broken down into six basic functions:

1. Running solutions (back-ups and configuration)
2. Managing infrastructure
3. Managing configurations
4. Evolving infrastructure
5. Mitigating disasters
6. Governing ITOps

Based on this framework, IT infrastructure management can be understood as just one aspect of the overall functionalities supported by IT operations.

IT infrastructure management & cloud services

Cloud service providers have changed the way that IT organizations choose to manage the infrastructure elements that are crucial for their daily activities. In the past, organizations that wanted to undergo a digital transformation had no choice but to own and operate their own IT systems. Today, thanks to the introduction and proliferation of cloud computing, it has become easier than ever for organizations to outsource infrastructure management according to one of three common models:

Infrastructure-as-a-service - In this model, an IT organization outsources its physical infrastructure and associated management needs to a third-party service provider. The provider will operate and manage networking, storage, servers and virtualization services for the IT organization.

Platform-as-a-service - In this model, an IT organization outsources its physical infrastructure and development platform to a third-party service provider. This includes networking and storage infrastructure, servers, virtualization, operating systems, middleware, and runtime.

Software-as-a-service - In the SaaS model, the IT organization accesses a finished software product through a web-based portal. On the other end, a third-party cloud service provider manages all of the IT infrastructures that are necessary to deliver the application. The SaaS model enables companies to access software applications that deliver business value without the added burden of managing and administering the software.

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