IT infrastructure is consistently being reshaped by the global Digital Transformation of business. In this ultra-competitive global economy, the demands placed on IT are changing much more rapidly than ever before or ever expected. 

The success of a business is now determined by new factors such as user experience, new business models, and increased rapid time-to-value. This dynamic environment not only increases expectations on the IT industry, but also on its leaders to present fundamental change. 

To ensure your company is properly keeping up with the demands of digital transformation, you must ensure you have a strong and secure digital infrastructure. Digital Infrastructure is defined by a focus on enabling business agility and powering user experiences that drive customer engagement and loyalty.

Business agility relates directly to your ability to respond to the changing needs of the business. Aspirations  and goals here need to be reframed with a realization that in the hyper-competitive world in which we all now operate time is the most critical factor. Infrastructure must now focus on the rapid creation, build and deployment of new products and services.

Agility is also driving investment in infrastructure technology and processes that support the quick delivery of new capabilities. Continuous Delivery and DevOps are good examples of digital work processes that focus on speed to value yet demand a corresponding Digital Infrastructure which can provision, deploy and manage services at will. The business requirement for almost instantaneous response brings an inevitable movement towards Automation as a key theme within Digital Infrastructure.

Automation brings three key benefits in the realms of cost, reliability and speed. Whilst the former is taken for granted, the focus on speed and reliability is often overlooked. In the new Digital landscape which is dominated by customer experience these benefits now come to the fore.

An ability to both Orchestrate and Automate business services delivered using internal and third-party providers is set to become the core competency and a central function within Digital Infrastructure.

Like any other traditional utility, in a digitally transformed business the IT infrastructure exhibits the very same demand and consumption behavior. Instant on (and instant off) with no human intervention and rock-solid stability is the new normal.

The importance of digital infrastructure can be seen in the recent partnership between STACK Infrastructure and InnerCity Fibernet (ICFN). The partnership will see InnerCity Fibernet bring its metro select dark fiber, Ethernet, wavelength-division multiplexing (WDM), and dedicated Internet, to clients in its two Dallas-Fort Worth data center facilities.

“Connectivity is a critical offering for all of our clients, and we are proud to partner with industry leaders like ICFN to bring best-in-class options to the cloud providers and enterprises whom we serve both in the Dallas-Fort Worth area and nationwide.” said Donough Roche, Senior Vice President of Engineering for STACK. “ICFN has a long track record of success here, and we’re proud to bring their redundant fiber infrastructure into our facilities.”

“Technology advancements and content demand continue to drive the need for mission-critical data transport,” said Chris Degelia, General Manager at ICFN. “We are committed to designing and building carrier-class fiber networks into every major peering point in DFW and STACK INFRASTRUCTURE’s DFW01 and DFW02 are both an important part of our network.”