One of the requirements of building and operating an IT infrastructure in a highly regulated industry (such as the pharmaceutical industry, which is regulated by the FDA) is to qualify, or validate the servers, network, and storage when they are being built. Once built, any changes to the infrastructure should undergo a change control procedure.

Building the infrastructure and making changes to it should undergo verification. They should also be documented so that they can be easily managed and traced. These activities are really not that different from the best practices guide in operating an IT infrastructure, or even from the ITIL processes.

FDA does not dictate how to perform IT infrastructure qualification or validation, as long as you have documented reasonable procedures.

The problem is that some companies overdo validation and change control processes. The common problems I’ve seen are: (1) too many signatures required to make a change, (2) no automated procedure to perform the documentation – many still use papers to route documents (3) and finally, the people who perform the checks and balances sometimes do not understand the technology.

The result is that IT personnel get overwhelmed with paperwork and bureaucracy. This discourages them to make critical changes to the infrastructure such as performing security patches on time. This also leads to the relunctance of IT personnel to implement newer or leading edge technologies into their infrastructure.

Fortunately, the International Society for Pharmaceutical Engineering (ISPE) has published a Good Automated Manufacturing Practice (GAMP) guidance on IT Infrastructure Control and Compliance. Companies can create their own IT infrastructure qualification program and procedures based on the GAMP guidance document. They should be simple but comprehensive enough to cover all the bases. It is also important that these procedures be periodically reviewed and streamlined to achieve an optimized procedure.

There is too much hype on big data these days, promising the next big revolution in information technology which will change the way we do business. It purports to have a big impact on economy, science, and society at large. In fact, big data right now is at the “peak of inflated expectations” on the Gartner technology hype cycle.

Big data “refers to our burgeoning ability to crunch vast collections of information, analyze it instantly, and draw sometimes profoundly surprising conclusions from it.” It answers questions that are sometimes not so obvious.

Big data definitely has tremendous potential. After all the hype has subsided, entities that do not take advantage of its power will be left out. In fact big data is already being used by technology companies such as Google, Amazon, Facebook, and many other companies. IT vendors such as Oracle, EMC, and IBM started offering big data solutions for companies and enterprises.

There are three drivers that is making big data possible:

First, a robust and cheap IT infrastructure – powerful server platforms that crunch data, advanced storage systems that store huge amount of data, and ubiquitous network – Wifi, 4G, fiber, etc.

Second, the explosion of data from mobile devices, social networks, web searches, sensors, and data from many different devices.

Lastly, the proliferation of powerful analytics and data mining tools suited for big data, such as Hadoop, MapReduce, NoSQL, and many other software yet to be created. These tools will only get better and better.

I recently read the book entitled “Big Data: A Revolution That Will Transform How We Live, Work, and Think” by Viktor Mayer-Schönberger and Kenneth Cukier.

The book is spot on its predictions. With big data, there will be yet another paradigm shift on how we understand the world. With big data, “what” is more important than “why”. Big data is also the processing of complete data, not just a sampling of data. It also means accepting less than perfect accurate result.

The book also talks about the dark side of big data – such as the loss of privacy. It also talks about how big data predictions can be used to police and punish individuals, and how organizations may blindly defer to what the data says without understanding its limitations.

I highly recommend the book to those who like to fully understand big data and its implications.

I am a fan of open source tools. The Internet, as we know it today, will not exist if not for the open source movement. We owe this to the countless architects and developers who dedicated their time and effort to write open source software.

Enterprise IT departments can also take advantage of open source software. Numerous companies have been using them for years. One particular area where they can be used is network and server monitoring.

There are a lot of open source network monitoring tools out there. Leading the pack are Nagios, Zabbix, and Cacti. My favorite tool though is OpenNMS. I particularly like it because it is very easy to setup and administer. It can automatically discover your nodes on the network. There were very few tweaks when I first set it up. It provides simple event and notification via email or pager. In addition, its web-based management interface interface is very easy to use.

I have been using OpenNMS for several years now and it has been running rock solid. I definitely recommend OpenNMS for IT departments who do not want to pay a hefty price to monitor their network and servers.

A lot of focus on adapting BYOD (Bring Your Own Devices) has been exerted by enterprise IT departments due to the popularity of mobile phones and tablets, and their cost savings to companies. However, I believe equal focus should be given to enterprise applications to enhance end user experience. Numerous enterprise applications are still antiquated, difficult to use, and not even suitable for mobile devices.

One of the goals of enterprise IT is to provide excellent user experience, thus increasing end user productivity. If the hardware devices are state of the art mobile phones and tablets but the apps are very hard to use, then the purpose is defeated.

For instance, searching for information inside the enterprise is still very difficult. Information is scattered across different file servers and applications. Very few companies have Google-like enterprise search capability. People are frustrated because it’s easier to search just about anything on the Internet, but it’s very difficult to find simple information inside the enterprise.

Enterprise applications should be like consumer IT applications, such as those provided by innovative companies like Amazon, Google, Facebook, etc. These web-based or mobile-based enterprise apps should be very user friendly and intuitive. In addition, training should not be required to use these enterprise apps. Google does not ask us to train whenever they deploy a new consumer app.

Enterprise apps should also be secure, just like those provided by online banking sites. Data should be encrypted and users properly authenticated.

End users should have the same user experience when at home doing online shopping, banking, and searching, and when at work using enterprise applications.

Is converged infrastructure the future? Major technology companies are now offering integrated compute, storage, and network in a box. Leading the pack is the Vblock system by VCE. Vblock consists of hardware and software from Cisco, EMC, and VMware.

Similarly, servers, storage, and network vendors are also offering their own integrated system. NetApp, a storage vendor, is selling FlexPod. A FlexPod combines NetApp storage systems, Cisco Unified Computing System servers, and Cisco Nexus fabric into a single, flexible architecture.

Cisco, a networking company, has been selling x86 Unified Computing System for years and recently bought Whiptail, a high performance storage company, to enhance their unified infrastructure offering. HP, a server company, is offering the POD solution.

These converged infrastructure solutions are not only suited for small or medium sized data centers but they are engineered for large scale, high performance, and highly reliant data centers. In addition, security, automation, and monitoring are built into the package.

With these solutions, companies do not need to spend time and money architecting and integrating servers, storage, and networks. Most importantly, operations and vendor support will be simplified. There will only be one point of contact for vendor support and finger pointing between vendors will be minimized.

I started my career in software development.  I wrote codes, performed system analysis, and software quality assurance.   Then I switched to system and network administration, and infrastructure architecture.   While the roles of software developers may not change that much (software programs need to be created), the roles of IT administrators, architects, analysts, and IT departments in general are changing.  This is due to cheap hardware, smarter software and appliances, and the availability of the cloud.

I still remember some time ago when I would spend a lot of time troubleshooting a system.  Today, due to redundant systems, off the shelves and online applications, and the use of appliances, troubleshooting times have been reduced to a minimum.  When a component breaks, it’s easy to replace it.

IT companies are now selling converged network, server, and storage in a box which eliminated the need for elaborate architecture and implementation and has simplified IT operations.

With virtualization and the “cloud”, more and more applications and IT services (infrastructure as a service, software as a service, etc.) are being available online.

When it comes to IT, companies now have various choices – host their IT services externally via public cloud, build IT systems in house, or use the combination of the two.

Thus, the future role of IT professionals will be like brokers.  When the business comes to them for a need, they should be able to deliver quickly and provide the best IT solution.  They should be able to determine when to use the public cloud and when to use internal IT systems.  The key is to understand the business. For instance, it may not make sense to put data in the cloud if you are concerned about security or if your company is regulated by the government.  If your company is small, it may not make sense to build a costly IT infrastructure in house.

Successful IT professionals are not only technically savvy but also business savvy.