IDC publishes a framework to guide organizations through their digital infrastructure transition

Success in the digital economy requires organizations to move beyond a traditional, cost-sensitive view of infrastructure and adopt a broader recognition that a responsive, scalable, and resilient cloud-centric infrastructure will help drive revenue while aligning technology adoption and IT operational governance with positive business outcomes.

The transition to a cloud-centric digital infrastructure, which is already underway within many organizations, depends upon commitment to a digital strategy accompanied by a new set of key performance indicators focused on resource optimization, consistent resilience, and continual enhancement.

To guide organizations through this transition, International Data Corporation (IDC) has published the Future of Digital Infrastructure framework.

Digital infrastructure will continue to grow in volume and complexity, increasingly extending to assets deployed in the edge, such as multi-access edge computing nodes (MAECs), campuses, buildings, and metro colocation facilities.

It will include resources that facilitate rapid adaptation of applications and code to enhance customer experiences, embed intelligence and automation into business operations, and support ongoing industry innovation at edge locations.

The emerging digital infrastructure ecosystem will increasingly be built on cloud-centric technologies, more ubiquitous deployment options, and more automated IT operations.

Its focus will be to ensure ever faster delivery of innovative infrastructure hardware, software, resource abstraction, and process technologies to support the development and continual refinement of resilient digital services and digital experiences.

As organizations transition to the Future of Digital Infrastructure, IDC makes the following predictions:

• By the end of 2021, 80% of enterprises will put a mechanism in place to shift to cloud-centric digital infrastructure twice as fast as before the pandemic.
• By 2023, an emerging digital infrastructure ecosystem will be the underlying platform for all IT and business automation initiatives anywhere and everywhere.
• By 2024, 80% of enterprises will overhaul relationships with infrastructure providers to better execute their digital strategy for ubiquitous deployment of resources and for more autonomous IT operations.

“The digital services being developed to deliver modern and increasingly automated customer/work experiences and intelligent business operational systems depend upon having early access to innovative, but resilient and trusted technology at the physical and logical levels, anywhere,” said Rick Villars, group vice president, Worldwide Research and IDC’s global lead for Future of Digital Infrastructure research.

“By 2023, an emerging digital infrastructure ecosystem will be the underlying platform for all IT and business automation initiatives anywhere and everywhere.”