01.03 — IT INFRASTRUCTURE

01. What are the different types of infrastructure?

The two primary types of infrastructure are traditional infrastructure and cloud infrastructure.

Traditional infrastructure:

Traditional infrastructure is made up of usual hardware and software components, facilities, data centers, servers, networking hardware, desktop computers, and enterprise application software solution. Typically, this infrastructure setup requires more power, physical space, and money than other infrastructure types. Traditional infrastructure is typically installed on premises for a company or private use.

Cloud Infrastructure:

A cloud computing infrastructure is like a traditional infrastructure. However, the end user can access infrastructure via the internet with the ability to use computing resources without installing on-premises through virtualization. Virtualization connects physical servers maintained by a service provider at any or many geographical locations. Then it divides and abstracts resources like storage to make them accessible to users almost anywhere an internet connection can be made. Because cloud infrastructure is often public, its usually referred to as the public cloud.

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02. What is an optimal IT infrastructure?

IT infrastructure setup varies by business needs and goals, but the same goals are universal for every enterprise. The optimal infrastructure will provide a business with higher performance, storage, a low latency, network, security on an optimized Wide Area Network (WAN), virtualization, and zero downtown.

1. High-performance Storage: High-performance Storage systems store and backup data and include a data recovery system in case of disaster.
2. Low Latency Networks: Low Latency Networks use enterprises level infrastructure components to reduce the delay of data flow
3. Secure Infrastructures: Secure Infrastructure Includes a system that controls information access and data availability. It can also safeguard a business against breaches and cyberattacks wherever the data resides, maintaining the customer’s trust.
4. WANs: WANs manage the network by prioritizing traffic and giving certain applications bandwidth as needed.
5. Virtualization: Virtualization provides faster server provisioning increases uptime, improves disaster recovery, and saves energy.
6. Zero Downtime: Zero Downtimes aims to reduce disruptions to business operations and eliminate system downtime to keep costs down and profits up.

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03. What are the disadvantages of traditional IT Infrastructure?

1. Limited Server Capacity: On-premises servers do not guarantee a consistently high level of server performance should a server fail, there could be limited capacity, and depending on the situation, this would typically degrade performance or cause a complete outage.
2. Limited data Access: Should a power outage occur, there is no access to data from anywhere else. Employees won’t be working from home temporarily or accessing data from local coffee shops, company data is as good as gone until the business is able to recover power outage.
3. More Time Consuming: Any growing business will need more storage space at some point. Utilizing on-prem, more storage looks like having to purchase or rent another server, get additional software licenses, and have these manually uploaded onto your office hardware. With all the time required to complete such tasks, traditional IT is not the timeliest solution.
4. High Capital Expenditure (Capex): Because traditional IT involves the usage of physical servers, to enable more storage space, a business would also have to pay for any additional hardware needed. Traditional IT forces you to purchase an entire suite of supplies, even if your intention is to use one tool.
5. Susceptible to Human Error: Having sole responsibility for company data requires a lot of time and money to ensure the right security is implemented and data recovery systems are in place to safeguard it without the right training systems, and backups plans in place sensitive company data could be jeopardized and business in charge could face legal fees.
6. Not very Accommodating: On-prem hardware doesn’t offer remote working capabilities with the same ease as that of the cloud. To enable remote working, the company would have to set up VPN and associated security protocols. Because this often comes with problems regarding IT support, however, it is not a feasible way to enable remote working.

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The answer to all of these disadvantages is cloud computing.

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