SMBs are rapidly investing in Hybrid IT solutions to simplify operations on premises and in the cloud, ensuring that workloads are executed optimally and securely.
In today’s bustling marketplace, the growing demand for new products and services is challenging organizations across all sectors to rethink IT strategies. Challenges like rising data volumes, proliferating mobility and the increasing usage of cloud technologies are driving business owners to consider a new style of IT that is capable of 
As a CIO, one goal is to modernize and virtualize your IT infrastructures in order to create a more flexible and scalable environment. Particularly if you're a small-to-midsize business (SMB), accelerating workload execution and providing seamless access to applications are key to survival.
Many SMBs are limited by the capabilities of traditional computing systems, which can significantly hinder competitive advantage. Legacy IT is struggling to keep pace with an increasingly mobile and disparate workforce.
Technology providers can equip SMB customers with Hybrid IT solutions to streamline operations both on-premises and in the cloud. These solutions promise to enable the most flexible deployment options and simplify small business IT management, giving your company the power to accelerate application workloads and scale as you grow, despite limited capital resources. Businesses have a great deal to gain from IT modernization, higher network bandwidth, increased performance and greater availability to support bandwidth and compute-hungry applications. IT modernization ensures that workloads are protected, executed optimally and supported on- and off-premises.
To capitalize on the advantages of Hybrid IT, SMBs must create a comprehensive business strategy with the following steps:
- Create a hybrid IT plan. Articulating business goals is a strong foundation for any IT strategy, but particularly for SMBs, mapping future IT expectations and capital expenditures is essential to establishing a competitive and profitable business. Companies must draft a roadmap of both financial and technical requirements both now and in the future, as well as a list of current applications to understand what technologies will be crucial for continued growth and success.
- Conduct a thorough assessment of on-premises IT. CIOs must analyze IT capacity to accommodate prospective business needs. SMBs require a reliable network bandwidth to effectively leverage cloud technologies, compute power to drive UCC tools and storage that can be virtualized to diminish information silos between on-premises and off-premises domains.
- Integrate on-premises and cloud services. Hybrid IT solutions facilitate on-premises IT with the ability to leverage cloud applications and services from a single device. To effectively integrate these two domains, providers are delivering simplified IT in which services can work together. Proper integration affords business the flexibility, scalability, and security for the future.
- Understand effective usage of on-premises and cloud. Finally, your organization must determine which business applications and services should stay on-premises (i.e. latency-sensitive applications or critical financial data) and which can be transferred to the cloud (i.e. web services or e-commerce). SMBs require a highly virtualized environment to exploit on-premises resource pools and selectively upgrade your IT. For example, SMBs may choose to modernize over time, converging complex operations with hybrid servers, adding storage access points or virtualizing storage capabilities.
IT modernization is key to promoting a competitive, efficient and secure business. In order to succeed, you must understand the gap between your current IT capabilities and the demands of near-term and future workloads. When your company partners with a proven IT expert, you'll have the opportunity to adopt right-sized solutions to fit your specific needs - and drive significant improvements in workload execution, business growth and revenue.
To learn more about how Hybrid IT can revolutionize your business, I invite you to follow HPE on Twitter at @HPE_SMB.
TimPeters
VP/GM for HPE ProLiant Rack and Tower Servers and SMB Solutions. Previously VP/GM for HPE Server Software and Enterprise Solutions. Prior to HPE, Tim founded and partnered in technology management to provide strategic and operational expertise to both established and emerging companies. Seventeen years at Dell with scope of responsibility broad and inclusive for managing the company’s single largest P/L of the core product portfolio. Established successful start-up businesses in new product segments. Worked in Asia to consolidate and scale global development and operations while engaging new business partners to create a forward-thinking organization responsible for the long-term horizon in business investments, technology planning and solution development.
