Don't let aging technology hinder corporate goals – enable your IT infrastructure

This article was co-authored by Travis Palena, Global Sales Director at Intel, and Matt Halcomb, Data Center Principal Solutions Architect at World Wide Technology.  

Across virtually all industries, the accelerated pace of innovation today is driven mainly by strategic vision from the top. Traditionally, such innovation originates at the C-suite level as a unique new "big idea" that trickles down for the rest of the organization to implement. But these days, simply having that big idea is insufficient if it can't be implemented – either because the organization's teams are not integrated into the process, or the IT resources are incapable of supporting it.

This is especially true when those big ideas involve artificial intelligence (AI), which can be extremely complex and nearly impossible to implement without an AI-enabled infrastructure. Now, with the help of Intel and its latest generation of processors, enabling IT to execute on a "big idea" has become significantly more efficient and effective.

We'd like to share a few of the common obstacles IT leaders face in implementing strategic initiatives, and how new Intel® technology for AI is enabling the right physical infrastructure and organizational approach that are critical for success now and tomorrow. 

The IT challenges standing between idea and execution

In their push to innovate and grow, C-suite leaders define high-level goals and strategies which then fall to others, including IT staff, to implement. Besides AI, these desired strategies often also encompass security and compliance, automation, analytics and reducing the carbon footprint.

Implementing these strategies is especially complex for IT when the enabling resources are not in place to help meet those goals. Too often, top leaders don't understand the limitations that arise when pursuing ambitious outcomes with legacy technology – challenges involving:

• Power constraints.
• Cooling capabilities outside of the standard forced air/in-row solutions.
• Aging compute as a result of policies mandating seven-plus year refresh cycles.
• Obsolete technology that cannot be orchestrated or automated.
• Wasted support costs for technology that's two or more generations behind.

Worse, they occur in organizations that are rapidly falling behind with an aging IT infrastructure that predates the emergence of AI. What's more, leaders often are hesitant to invest in a technology refresh and do not understand that new capabilities such as AI simply won't work in older systems, where hardware is out of warranty, software is in need of an upgrade, and security is vulnerable to modern threats. And the problem grows more acute when new technologies cannot be adopted because yesterday's solutions will not support them.

In short, today's AI-driven possibilities are predicated on having the right infrastructure to drive such demanding workloads. What's more, every AI use case is unique, and so requires specific technological capabilities. The last thing you want is a costly IT upgrade that turns out to be a poor fit for your specific use case or falls short of power or cooling needs.

Time and again World Wide Technology (WWT) is hearing these challenges, which are common across all industries. We believe that Intel offers the most flexible, scalable solutions to address these challenges, with performance metrics that meet the requirements for an AI-capable infrastructure.

How the latest Intel technology addresses IT challenges   

Enabling IT to deliver on strategic mandates today while positioning for the future has become much easier with the introduction of the Intel® Xeon® 6 processor family. It answers the needs of today's data center by unlocking new capabilities for higher levels of performance across diverse workloads while improving efficiency and reducing power consumption.

In particular, WWT points to this processor's flexible and modular x86 architecture which allows organizations to create purpose-built infrastructures for specialized functions across private, public and hybrid clouds. It enables IT teams to right-size their infrastructure through the use of two distinct and different cores:

• Performance-cores (P-cores) are optimized for high performance per core: Ideal for demanding workloads such as high-performance computing, big data, edge computing, analytics and more. With AI acceleration in every core through Intel® Advanced Matrix Extensions (Intel® AMX), P-cores deliver up to 2X the performance for the widest range of workloads. And, they offer 37% greater memory bandwidth with MRDIMM, the fastest DDR5 memory available. 
• Efficient-cores (E-cores) are optimized for high core density and performance per watt: Ideal for cloud-native applications that require high task-parallel throughput, such as microservices and DevOps. To illustrate its benefits, Intel reports that organizations could replace 33 servers powered by 2nd Generation Intel® Xeon® processors with 10 E-core-based servers, saving 7K watts of power without sacrificing performance – doing more with less while meeting sustainability goals.

Having a choice of P-cores and E-cores allows your data center to mix and match processing capabilities according to each use case and workload demand. As a longtime technology ally of WWT, Intel collaborates with the broader ecosystem of hardware/software providers to offer integrated, open system solutions, helping organization achieve their AI-focused goals responsibly.

Realizing the next big idea begins with enablement

In an accelerating technology marketplace, C-suite leaders need to be more than visionaries – they must also address the "how" factor that will enable the desired reality. Success depends on all aspects of the organization working together, supported by a capable, reliable infrastructure that's up to the task. Often as not, it requires an investment in the technologies, training and professional resources to enable a cost-effective, future-focused outcome.

WWT and Intel offer solutions to business problems, providing efficient, cost-effective support for ideas of all sizes. Our Advanced Technology Center (ATC ) is WWT's multi-campus R&D ecosystem, which features an AI Proving Ground. Here, we can provide hands-on experience with the full capabilities of the Intel Xeon 6 processor – how its flexible, scalable, efficient performance can help make your organization AI-ready for your next big idea.

WWT invites you explore the Intel Xeon 6 processor family through ATC labs, workshops, technical downloads or in-person presentations by subject matter experts. Contact us to start your planning process.