About once a generation, the IT landscape undergoes a significant shift.
In the 1950s, the commercialization of mainframe computers resulted in the 1st Platform: centralized, time-shared computers accessed by text-based monitors. In the 1980s and 1990s, open systems ushered in the 2nd Platform, which featured a client/server architecture that leveraged a new kind of global network called the Internet. We’re now seeing the emergence of a 3rd Platform that is based on Cloud, mobile, social and big data technologies and delivers applications and information to users via any device, anywhere.
Today, many enterprises find themselves between platforms, deploying hybrid Cloud solutions that combine premise-based internal applications with Cloud-based applications. In addition, most companies expect to shift their data centers to a software-defined data center (SDDC) model that will allow them to encapsulate and automate servers, storage, networking and security. Servers won’t disappear from the IT landscape, but they will need to adapt and re-define their value to align with the key IT initiatives of the future such as Cloud, mobile, social and big data.
So what will the servers of tomorrow look like?
They’ll be much faster. Technologies such as Flash memory will enable the new breed of servers to process data and transactions much faster than before. This is critical for big data applications and most other situations where enterprises are looking to get maximum performance with a minimum footprint.
They’ll be smarter. IT departments are shifting their focus away from managing IT operations and focusing instead on enabling business innovation. This means that enterprises are looking for servers that provide more self-management capabilities, from troubleshooting to performance optimization.
They’ll handle much more data. Here again, big data lives up to its name by placing higher demands on data servers. The servers of tomorrow will need to scale quickly to handle the explosive growth of business data, including higher performance during peak transactional and analytical workloads.
They’ll be invisible (when you need them to be). For most enterprises, it’s not a question of If they should virtualize or move into the Cloud, but What and When. Tomorrow’s servers will need to be able to support these new environments quickly so that enterprises can take advantage of performance and cost efficiencies while still leveraging their hardware investments.
Of course, if you really want to see what the servers of tomorrow will look like, take a look at the new HP Proliant Gen8 servers. They’re faster, smarter, handle more data and merge seamlessly with virtualized and Cloud environments to meet the new IT requirements of the 3rd Platform.
To learn more about HP’s latest industry-standard servers, talk to the HP experts at AdvizeX. We’ll help you get a leg up on your move to the 3rd Platform with servers that you can count on for years to come. ▪