Digital transformation has been an objective in the back of mind for many organisations, but in recent years it has been thrust front and centre in terms of priorities.
The chaos of the past two years has made sure of this and any organisation that is not well on its way to enabling digital transformation or at the very least planning to adopt it shortly, runs a serious risk of being left behind by competitors.
While most organisations are happy with their legacy systems as a result of familiarity, the decision to not investigate up-to-date or next-gen technologies will prove a costly one.
It is why those companies open and willing to embrace open-source technologies stand a better chance of delivering digital transformation objectives than those that are stuck in a state of hesitancy.
Embracing the new to power the performance of your platform was a key topic of discussion during a recent webinar involving executives from Datacentrix, IBM and SUSE.
During the informative session, insights were shared, advice given freely and the best way forward was unpacked. Here is why all three organisations believe enabling digital transformation starts with embracing open-source technologies.
The constant state of flux
The rate of change when it comes to new technologies can prove daunting to many, especially when it comes down to what to spend money on and where to prioritise focus.
This is an issue that Graeme Dendy, Operations and Systems Z brand manager at Datacentrix, is acutely aware of and points out at the beginning of the session.
“Our customers are seeing on a daily basis, from a processes perspective, a lot of work on infrastructure optimisation, implementation projects, as well as some customisation of consolidation on operating systems. This leads to improved management of those platforms,” he explained.
When speaking about the technology layer of an organisation, Dendy also refutes the notion that a piece of tin is simply a piece of tin regardless of what name or brand is on it. The key differentiator in his view between the myriad options out there is the competitive advantage that can be delivered.
“Technology helps when it comes to speed to market. It gives clients, or rather our clients, a competitive edge when they need it and it also has the capability to bring new routes and ideas to market,” he highlighted.
“These technology changes quite simply speed up your performance,” emphasised Dendy.
In order to deliver said speed, Datacentrix has deepened its partnership with IBM and leveraged Linux-based and open-source technologies significantly in recent years. It is part of the reason why Quintin Brussow, Solutions Specialist, recently joined the team at Datacentrix.
“My role within the company is to go to our business partners and find the value for them out of these Linux platforms,” he noted.
“People are definitely looking at the technology stacks and outside of a competitive edge, they need their technology to give them results quickly. It is important for them to make decisions as quickly as possible from data that has been analysed. This is the only way to propel business in the way you want it to be propelled,” he asserted.
The power of open-source
The embracing of open-source is said to be growing significantly, according to Magnus Källkvist, Sales director for the SUSE-IBM Alliance, who says that, “Open-source and IBM are a very good fit.”
“If I look at the Power machine and your business wants to scale out or have the most powerful server configured for environments like SAP HANA, Linux is a perfect fit for it,” he enthused.
The members leading the webinar also noted that while IBM and open-source would have seemed like diametrically opposed concepts a couple of decades ago, the company is one of the largest contributors to open-source projects across the globe.
This should serve as an indication of the dramatic shift in terms of how open-source technologies are viewed and their potential application in terms of tackling pertinent issues for the business like digital transformation.
“Linux and open-source are indispensable,” asserted Yasal Akgun, Technical Sales leader for IBM in Middle East, Africa and Turkey.
“Being able to reconfigure, being able to modernise, being able to meet the changing demands, especially during the pandemic, is a key requirement of today’s systems infrastructure. We have to respond faster to business demands, we need to protect data from core to cloud, and we have to streamline insights and automation,” Akgun laid out in terms of the requirements of modern enterprise infrastructure.
With established and trusted organisations like Datacentrix, IBM and SUSE all acknowledging and leveraging the capabilities of up-to-date technologies like Linux and open-source, the time to embrace is now.
To find how your organisation can do so, reach out to Datacentrix here.
[Image – Photo by Anders Jildén on Unsplash]
