Complete guide to IT infrastructure management in 2024

The continuous functionality of an organization’s technological infrastructure is paramount to its ultimate success or failure, perhaps more now than ever before. With so much business conducted digitally and excess competition saturating the market, modern consumers have little tolerance for IT disruptions and failures. In fact, 33% of american customers now report that they’ll consider switching to a competitor after just a single poor experience with a brand.

IT infrastructure management aims to reduce technological incidents and downtime by ensuring the ongoing functionality of software, hardware, networks, and more. When properly employed, businesses are able to maximize system uptimes, minimize disruptions, and enhance overall customer satisfaction.

Today, we’ll dive into IT infrastructure management, why it’s so important for companies, and how to ensure you’re maximizing its potential.

What is IT infrastructure management?

Infrastructure management refers to the process of keeping a business’s IT infrastructure, such as software, hardware, networking equipment, internet platforms, etc., operating efficiently. Its primary goal is to ensure that these components are efficiently deployed, monitored, and maintained at all times. While the concept is straightforward enough, effective infrastructure management involves highly coordinated efforts between IT team members and other relevant stakeholders.

Why is IT infrastructure management important?

Effective IT infrastructure management is vital for ensuring the reliability of critical services. By proactively monitoring technological components, IT teams can minimize incidents, allowing employees to perform their tasks without interruption. 

Infrastructure management is also key in verifying scalability to meet evolving business needs. As an organization grows, its IT architecture must be flexible enough to accommodate changes in demand, user requirements, and technological advancements. Through strategic planning and the implementation of adaptable solutions, IT infrastructure management facilitates seamless expansion without sacrificing performance.

Even more, and arguably most importantly, infrastructure management is paramount for ensuring data security and regulatory compliance. With the increasing frequency of cyber threats, protecting sensitive information and maintaining regulatory compliance have become top priorities for all companies. IT infrastructure managers are responsible for implementing robust security measures, such as firewalls, encryption, and access controls, to safeguard data integrity and confidentiality.

Benefits of IT infrastructure management

IT infrastructure management provides organizations with the framework around which to build their technological processes, but it’s up to IT teams and managers to maximize its potential. Though common benefits include cost-effectiveness, enhanced agility, and improved scalability, the advantages to be gained from infrastructure management will largely depend on how well your team can leverage its capabilities.

Cost efficient 

Firstly, efficient infrastructure management practices help optimize resource utilization, ensuring that all IT components are leveraged to their fullest potential. By identifying underused resources, IT infrastructure managers can implement consolidation techniques to reduce the number of physical servers and maximize computing efficiency. 

Additionally, proactive maintenance can prolong the lifespan of IT assets. Through regular infrastructure monitoring, infrastructure managers can identify potential issues before they escalate into critical failures. By staying ahead of maintenance requirements, businesses can maximize return on their investments (ROI) while minimizing the likelihood of service disruptions.

Better availability

By deploying redundant hardware, networking equipment, and data storage systems, IT infrastructure managers create failover mechanisms that automatically redirect traffic to backup systems in the event of an incident.

IT infrastructure management also encompasses the administration of high availability (HA) and disaster recovery (DR) solutions to mitigate the impact of equipment failures. Through the deployment of data centers in geographically dispersed locations, infrastructure managers can ensure that critical services are accessible in the event of major disruptions. 

99.999% uptime, or less than five minutes of downtime per year, is seen as the ultimate goal for IT teams. If your organization isn’t reaching this benchmark, it means that there’s still room for improvement in your IT infrastructure management approach.

Enhanced productivity

Communication among employees is also enhanced through the implementation of IT infrastructure management. By deploying reliable network architecture, such as high-speed internet connections and virtual private networks (VPNs), IT teams can effortlessly interact across distributed teams and remote locations.

Furthermore, infrastructure management supports a plethora of automation capabilities, reducing manual effort and streamlining repetitive tasks. By leveraging AI-powered tools and scripting languages, IT teams can expedite routine maintenance tasks, software deployments, and system configurations, freeing up time for them to focus on more strategic initiatives. 

Improve IT agility

IT infrastructure management assists companies in adapting to rapidly changing needs by leveraging cloud computing technologies. Migrating workloads to cloud infrastructures empowers infrastructure managers to dynamically allocate computing resources based on demand. 

Furthermore, by encapsulating applications into lightweight containers, IT teams can deploy and update them more efficiently. Microservices architectures can also be employed to break down monolithic applications into smaller, independent services, allowing organizations to develop software components separately.

Create a stronger customer experience

Customers enjoy straightforward access to digital services across multiple channels when companies employ strong IT infrastructure blueprints. By optimizing network connectivity, businesses can provide users with a consistent experience across different touchpoints.

To effectively personalize these customer experiences (CXs), IT infrastructure management leverages data analytics that enables organizations to better understand consumer needs. Its ability to gather information from various sources provides valuable insights into user preferences, trends, and pain points.

73% of consumers report that CX is their top consideration when determining whether to purchase from a business, suggesting that a well-implemented infrastructure management strategy can result in an immediate ROI.

Key components of IT infrastructure management in 2024

The effectiveness of IT infrastructure management as a whole is driven by sound protocol in each of its components. When all its elements are operating harmoniously, it generally results in success for an organization’s overall approach.

Hardware management

Hardware management involves the administration of physical computing tools, such as servers and storage devices, and end-user devices like laptops and mobile phones. These efforts may include hardware procurement, deployment, configuration, and disposal.

For instance, data centers generally house critical hardware that supports an organization's digital services. IT infrastructure managers might ensure optimal temperatures, manage power distribution, and implement physical security measures to keep systems running smoothly.

Systems management

Systems management focuses on the oversight of various software systems that are critical for an organization's business operations. This includes tasks such as the installation, configuration, and maintenance of operating systems, databases, and other software applications.

Consider the administration of a customer relationship management (CRM) system in a sales organization. Systems management tasks for a CRM platform may include data integration with other systems, customization to meet specific business requirements, and regular maintenance to ensure system health.

Network management

Network management emphasizes the supervision of a business’s networking infrastructure to ensure that communication between systems is secure and efficient. Responsibilities in this arena typically consist of network monitoring, optimization, troubleshooting, and security management.

Suppose a multinational corporation wants to ensure effective communication between all of its offices. The IT infrastructure manager’s duties might include designing network architecture, monitoring its performance, and implementing robust security measures. These efforts aim to ensure that employees can securely access corporate resources and collaborate with colleagues regardless of their location.

Data management

Data management comprises a range of processes aimed at ensuring that data is accurate, secure, and accessible to authorized users. Its main objectives are to derive insights, assist in making informed decisions, and drive business value while maintaining data security.

For example, imagine an organization that collects large volumes of data from various sources. It may employ data management professionals to develop integration processes to extract, transform, and load (ETL) data from operational systems into a warehouse architecture, ensuring the consistency and quality of all information.

Security management

Security management covers the development of policies, procedures, and technologies to protect an organization's IT systems. Its processes are aimed at identifying vulnerabilities, mitigating risks, and ensuring compliance with security standards.

Financial institutions are often particularly concerned with this component of IT infrastructure management. Security management professionals in this space will conduct regular risk assessments to identify potential vulnerabilities, implement encryption mechanisms, and deploy prevention systems to mitigate cyber threats in real time.

IT infrastructure management best practices in 2024

IT infrastructure managers will need to ensure that their team is firing on all cylinders to maximize the potential of their infrastructure management approach. 

Some best practices for them to employ include:

Continually monitor and report on IT infrastructure

Utilizing monitoring tools that track network performance, server health, and security vulnerabilities provides real-time insights into a system's current state. These systems should be configured to generate alerts when predefined thresholds are exceeded, allowing for proactive intervention.

Companies must also ensure that they have robust reporting measures in place. Executive summaries can offer high-level overviews for senior management, while detailed IT reports cater to technical teams, offering in-depth analysis and recommendations. 

Create and abide by IT infrastructure standards

Documenting IT infrastructure standards is vital for effective implementation. This documentation should outline guidelines for hardware and software configurations, network architecture, and data management practices. Don’t forget to regularly update it to reflect changes in technology and business priorities.

Enacting monitoring mechanisms is also essential to ensure compliance with IT standards. Organizations can leverage automated tools for configuration management and compliance auditing to identify deviations from established standards in real time. Regular assessments of IT infrastructure further help to identify areas for improvement and fine-tune IT management strategies.

Leverage automation

We recommend adopting a systematic approach to automation, ensuring that workflows are well-designed, scalable, and maintainable. It’s estimated that, on average, companies save $46,000 per year through workflow automation processes by expediting interactions and reducing manual labor.

Businesses should also prioritize integration between different automation tools to create cohesive end-to-end workflows. For instance, connecting monitoring tools with automated incident response workflows can help promote the proactive identification and resolution of issues.

Collect feedback from team members and be open to adjustment if needed according to the landscape

Creating a culture of open communication fosters an environment where team members feel comfortable sharing their perspectives. Managers might schedule meetings, distribute surveys, or make time for one-on-one discussions that allow employees to raise concerns and suggest improvements.

It’s essential to actively consider this input while demonstrating a willingness to act upon it. Prioritizing feedback based on its impact and providing transparency in the decision-making process helps build trust and engagement within a team.

How Freshservice can take your IT infrastructure management capabilities to the next level

Freshworks’ Freshservice is a full-feature, cloud-based IT Help Desk and service management solution, offering a plethora of features designed specifically to enhance IT infrastructure management approaches. 

Freshservice provides IT teams with a consolidated view of all system alerts, allowing for enhanced visibility to ensure that potential technological issues are identified as quickly as possible. Management tools like our Unified Service Catalog, Service Health Monitoring, and Workflow Automation verify that all IT services are sufficiently monitored and that proper provisions are in place to address incidents when they do occur. Furthermore, users can employ a sandbox IT environment to change, test, and deploy configurations before introducing them into a live setting.

One of our satisfied clients, Zac D., sums up Freshservice’s customization and automation capacity succinctly, saying, “The best part about Freshservice is the customizable nature of the product. You can design every aspect of the user experience while customizing the look and feel of the platform for the admin team. The cherry on top is the incredibly simple yet robust ticket automation service. With a few clicks, you can remove hours of administration work that would otherwise be spent categorizing tickets, assigning them to the right people, and convoluting the ticket fulfillment process along the way.”