IT is under immense pressure to continually improve, scale, consolidate, and optimize application and other services delivery. The data center modernization mandate never ends: cheaper, faster, more secure, more features, higher availability, better performance, easier to use. What has changed is where these data center demands originate: non-IT groups such as application owners, users, business partners, and customers.

Because business can now go elsewhere (outside of the data center) to get the services they need, IT is being forced to meet LOB requests. How IT handles these demands and enables these groups—is the difference between long-term success and failure. New data center technologies are constantly hitting the market, but understanding the best approach to modernizing takes careful, strategic planning; technical experience; and IT operational knowledge.