Virtualised infrastructure is delivering more efficient information technology (IT) functionality from existing infrastructure, says IT company Hitachi Data Systems (HDS) emerging markets COO Tony Reid.

Virtualisation focuses on abstracting software from hardware to enable automation of routine functions, including storage, compute and network hardware provisioning, to support various business processes.

“The aim of automating as many functions as possible, whether on new or existing infrastructure, is to enable more efficient use of IT resources and reduce costs for companies. These deferred IT resources, including employees and hardware, can then be assigned to fulfil other functions to support business operations,” he says.

The virtualisation of hardware functions also allows for these resources to be made aware of the needs of the business processes they send data to, which enables resources to be used more efficiently and makes network traffic more efficient.

HDS also provides virtualisation systems for midtier storage platforms, which often include older storage formats in data centres. Virtualisation enables the old storage systems to inherit new storage systems functionality, adds Reid.

“Our goal with software-defined infrastructure is to lower costs, provide a new lease on equipment reaching their end of life and enable more human resources to be deployed for other, more strategic purposes.”

Reid adds that skilled IT employees often spend time on mundane tasks, such as ensuring that IT infrastructure operates, rather than developing systems to support more complex and strategic business demands.

To support this, HDS has released its new IT management command suite, which enables easier provisioning of hardware based on best practice standards.

He explains that the command suite provides best practice guides and templates to enable IT administration staff to easily and remotely configure hardware for specific functions, such as configuring Oracle or Structured Query Language servers. The templates detail the specific requirements for each function, such as Flash storage space for Oracle servers, Reid adds.

The driver behind these changes is the increasing demand for self-service and rapid response to business needs, he notes.

“Business units want to provision network and storage resources for their own use as and when they need it, and within seconds. This is becoming increasingly important for business, but it must be done securely, as companies cannot afford a rogue workload to affect other production workloads.”

Policies governing internal self-provisioning in companies are created in accordance with the company’s and/or the industry’s legal and business risk requirements, he says.

Hyperconverged infrastructure environments expected to emerge over the long term will be governed according to similar policy-based and secure administration interfaces, as well as role-based identification and permissions.

“One of the benefits of virtualisation is that data are becoming more mobile and easier to move, share and manage between applications,” states Reid.

Companies can use new technologies and systems to make their existing systems significantly more responsive to develop and deploy applications rapidly, as demanded by business units or line functions.