Know your IO!   

For a little over a year now, Microsoft and its partners have been touting a new model for assessing Information Technology. This model, the Infrastructure Optimization Framework (IOF), is a benchmark for gauging the evolution of IT within an organization and comparing it to similar companies.

The IOF uses four gauges: Basic, Standardized, Rationalized, and Dynamic. During an IO Assessment, an organization is placed into one of these categories for each of three focus areas. The focus areas consist of Core Infrastructure, Business Productivity, and Application Platform. These are individually measured using a series of surveys, system analysis, and data gathering.

The resulting IO Assessment highlights your organization’s performance and compares it to similar companies. The assessment shows key areas that can be improved, often with significant cost savings over a projected lifecycle.

These IO Models are critical for IT and the businesses they support. A recent survey indicated that 80% of an IT budget is spent on maintaining what already exists, leaving a mere 20% for new services that could drive the business forward.

One significant area for improvement highlighted in the IO Assessment Surveys is that greater than 90% of organizations surveyed fall into the Basic category for Desktop, Device, and Server Management.

Survey data shows that support of a user desktop in a basic level organization costs approximately $1,320 per year. A shift to the standardized level in the IO Model reduced that cost to $580 per year in this one area alone, with a shift to Rationalized or Dynamic providing further cost savings.

The Infrastructure Optimization Model is critical to realizing these types of savings. The model provides IT and other business units a common-ground to communicate, allowing them to align and move the business forward with technology.