Infrastructure Optimization Model

The vision of IO is to help customers realize the value of their investments in IT infrastructure to make the IT infrastructure a strategic asset that enables agility within their organizations and ultimately to help customers create an infrastructure for a people-ready business. The customers must have the ability to bring new products and services to market in a timely, cost-effective manner, by connecting people, information, and business processes to increase market responsiveness and help eliminate inefficiencies.

An optimized IT infrastructure, developed according to IT standards and operating efficiently and productively, helps ensure conformation to those IT standards, and supports cost reduction, security, and risk mitigation for the environment and users. The IO Model is most often used as a strategic tool, helping to evaluate the maturity level of an organization’s core technology infrastructure (management, security, and networking) and determine areas which a company can realize significant reduction in costs and improvement in capabilities.

The IO Model is designed not to focus on the type or manufacturer of technologies, but instead focus on the capabilities outlined for each stage. An assessment of a company’s technology adoption relative to the IO Model enables strategic discussions that focus on the business value of deploying new technologies and using the existing platform as a whole. Customers can optimize infrastructure across heterogeneous IT environments. The IO Model is a continuum of four levels or phases of progressively higher technological maturity: Basic, Standardized, Rationalized, and Dynamic. These phases can be broadly defined as follows.