Application access strategy for an on-demand enterprise

The fatter chunk of IT budgets is spent on maintaining existing IT systems rather than new initiatives, says SOUMA DAS, managing director, Citrix Systems India

HOW do you digest the fact that on an average 70 percent of corporate IT spend goes into managing its applications in the total IT infrastructure? The Yankee Group, a top IT research firm, confirms that nearly 80 percent of IT budgets are spent on maintaining current IT systems, leaving little scope for newer initiatives. This at a time when what’s required is to reduce this expenditure and re-allocate resources to fuel IT initiatives which would help expand business horizons. Perhaps that’s the reason why ‘Access’ per se is gaining momentum.

In an era of distributed computing, there exists a rift between information demand and supply. As a result, IT departments provide access to information to their respective employees as and when they want it. Ubiquitous access to information and applications over various user devices allows employees to focus more on growth rather than just running the business. However, very few companies have a proper access strategy in place to succeed at this task. In fact, to meet the challenges of infrastructure access, it is essential for companies to build an enterprise-wide access strategy.

Empowering business growth

In the present day context, a typical organisation consists of employees, business partners, suppliers, buyers, etc. This expansion of an enterprise, known as the extended enterprise, has given corporates the flexibility to make decisions anywhere, but it has also created more complexity in terms of having to maintain a very complicated back-end infrastructure. In such a situation, there is a compelling need for a CIO to make information available at the click of a button, and to support the on-demand enterprise by giving employees access to information when it is required, where it is required and on whatever device it is required. This kind of information access may actually be critical to many factors including branch office expansion, mergers and acquisitions, increasing employee mobility, and streamlining supply chains. Access to information not only plays a vital role in growing businesses but also in reducing the complexity of an IT set-up which could inhibit growth. It is thus very crucial to have an on-demand access infrastructure for enterprise applications and information when it’s needed.

But just as we have reasons favouring an on-demand access infrastructure, there are many factors which could inhibit the growth strategies of any company. The inability to provide information at the right time can cause a great deal of damage to revenues. Large enterprises support a hybrid infrastructure consisting of mainframes, client-server architecture, Web infrastructure and Web-based apps—each coupled with its own set of complexities, resulting in the escalation of the cost of maintaining these devices. On the other hand, information demand has become more challenging to fulfill. The end-user dynamism has reached the top of its growth curve. Usage of multiple devices like PCs, laptops, PDAs and mobile phones has further added to the complexity. In this situation, a CIO has to provide support to the entire chain of information supply and make it available.

Importance of a corporate access strategy

With changing times, what is also changing is the strategy of a CIO. The new trends in enterprise computing are centralised management, consolidation of IT resources, outsourcing maximum functions and keeping strict control over the quality of the services outsourced. What is found missing is a strategy that could stimulate the decision-making process and empower employees to make business decisions faster, thus reducing the decision-making cycle. What CIOs really need to harp on is information and application access strategy which could provide a guarantee of consistent access on any kind of network or device, which could be scaled with the change in demand, which could be verifiable and extremely secure from any vulnerability, and which could support all kinds of applications and could be managed without much hassle. A corporate access strategy encompassing the above essentials could well transform the organisation into a real time, on-demand corporate.

Execution is the key

Once the access strategy is developed, there are certain ways in which a CIO can roll it out in his organisation. One way to execute it is to ‘webify’ everything, which gives limited access through a browser-enabled client device though it doesn’t solve the problem of complexity.

Another way of doing it is to outsource it to a third party. But this brings its own set of problems. The control of the whole infrastructure resides with someone else, while you, as a user, have little say in it.

The next approach is to create an ‘access infrastructure’ for your corporate based on business needs. It includes all the components and provides inter-operability and flexibility. As a CIO, you can deploy an access middleware, abstracting the access method from the application, the application platform and client devices. In this process, there is no need to replace legacy access infrastructure. This way,

an enterprise can address the intricacies of both IT infrastructure and information dissemination. Over and above, this solution supports the on-demand enterprise as new applications keep pouring in.

How should one build it?

As is evident, the most immediate function of an access infrastructure is to display, deliver, protect, organise and manage access to information. In an enterprise set-up, access methods are tightly linked to the applications, so the access infrastructure loosens it. What an enterprise basically needs to access functions from the individual applications into an access infrastructure are the following:

• Presentation and conferencing
• Information aggregation
• Personalisation
• Security and identity management
• Device and network services, and SLAs

This access infrastructure can become a utility if deployed properly. It allows access to any application, anywhere, and on any device, thus making a virtual layer between users and devices. This in turn saves expenditure on things such as buying new workstations, consuming expensive bandwidth and hiring human capital to maintain complex back-end infrastructure.

Don’t rip and replace

Another important benefit is that it mitigates complexity without replacing the legacy infrastructure. CIOs don’t have to rewrite applications or legacy code. An access infrastructure makes it possible for branch offices to contribute to revenues faster because of the drastic cut in the time taken for decision-making. Supply chains become more efficient with an access infrastructure in place. Finally, it helps reduce overall application deployment and management cost so that resources can be allocated to new initiatives.