Business process management software, with its focus on integrating and automating the IT processes that keep organizations running, is emerging as an essential technology for organizations maintaining IT departments built around contemporary technologies.
While many companies are still in the process of moving away from legacy technological architectures as the cloud, virtualization, social software and mobile computing expand, early signs point to the importance of integration and automation to make these disparate architectures work well in conjunction with each other.
Considering the contemporary data center
Data centers that have been built in the past year or two were, for the most part, designed with the cloud in mind. This means that the facilities are built to support server virtualization on a large scale and enable the automation and orchestration infrastructure to be put in place to enable cloud computing. Such data centers are generally designed to support specific business goals, particularly those pertaining to social software and mobile device use.
At it's core, virtualization provides organizations with the ability to optimize their server utilization. However, the technology also provides the necessary foundation to enable cloud computing. Similarly, cloud computing has the flexible data distribution and application architectures needed to make mobile computing and social software more effective in the enterprise. While these four technologies are inherently linked, they still function in ways that are so different that there are some limitations from an integration standpoint. This is especially true as more businesses depend on a variety of internal and third-party cloud solutions.
Overcoming the integration problem
As businesses depend more on social software and mobile computing, they inherently become more dependent on the cloud. On an operational level, this can free employees to optimize their processes. However, this is only possible if the underlying data center infrastructure is integrated and orchestrated to such an extent that it can enable seamless functionality for end users. BPM software makes this possible. By using process automation combined with integration tools, BPM solutions allow organizations to fine tune how their data center systems share information so that the underlying IT functionality reflects end-user needs and enables optimal process execution.
The need for BPM, while framed in the context of the contemporary data center, is apparent in the average business. The IT sector as a whole is at an intersection between relevant legacy solutions, traditional ways of getting things done that are entrenched and emerging technologies that guide companies toward the future. BPM provides the necessary foundation upon which companies can reconcile these disparate systems.
Ben Farrell
Director of Corporate Communications
