Planning infrastructure needs

What does planning infrastructure needs mean?

The process of assessing and forecasting the necessary technical infrastructure to support the current and future requirements of the organisation.

This typically includes on premise hardware such as servers, routers, switches, and other equipment; software including databases and applications, and network and communication capabilities that enable the secure storage and processing of information, as well as Cloud services, security, end user devices and related monitoring systems to understand performance and manage issues.

Knowledge

• Understanding of the components of ICT infrastructure including hardware, software, networks, operating systems, database, servers, and cloud storage.
• Familiarity with major Cloud platforms – AWS, Azure, Google, and relative risks and benefits of Cloud, including licensing, pricing, and optimisation.
• Understanding of data centre management and efficiency techniques. Understanding of data replication, backup, and archiving
• Knowledge of security and compliance including access controls and encryption
• Understanding of system administration to ensure the smooth operation of the infrastructure.

Skills

Able to:

• Think strategically: Consider infrastructure requirements in the context of the needs of the whole organisation and with future proofing in mind.
• Plan infrastructure needs: Understand the current requirements of the organisation and effectively forecast needs and associated impacts.
• Define requirements: Including specifying non-functional requirements for SaaS provision, Cloud requirements or infrastructure requirements for on premise provision.
• Consider options: In relation to infrastructure, aligned to the organisation’s desired outcomes, cost constraints and ICT strategy.
• Manage on premise data (as appropriate): Including designing and overseeing the physical infrastructure, environmental controls, hardware, software, and related processes, including disaster recovery.
• Manage cloud storage (as appropriate): Including understanding available platforms, planning and forecasting needs, assessing performance, cost, licensing, and security management, enabling monitoring, and logging and automating provisioning and configuration.
• Manage and liaise with suppliers: In relation to requirements for physical components and / or Cloud provision.
• Implement effective security controls: Including identity and access management, encryption etc.
• Apply data efficiency techniques: To maximise performance while minimising costs, including de-duplication and compression.
• Script and automate repetitive tasks: To enable efficiency in standard configurations and management of backups.
• Plan for disaster recovery: Including specifying disaster recovery requirements for SaaS solutions and defining and implementing disaster recovery designs and plans for cloud and on-premises solutions.
• Use project management skills: To plan, co-ordinate and execute projects relating to changes to the infrastructure.
• Create and share documentation: So that configurations, processes and procedures are well understood, and the infrastructure can be managed in a controlled, resilient manner, including building capacity within the ICT team to avoid single point of failure risk.
• Collaborate and communicate: Working as part of cross functional teams to build awareness of the infrastructure and related dependencies.
• Solve problems: To identify and resolve issues relating to storage, performance, access, or security.
• Manage risk: Identity, assess and manage the risks associated with capacity planning and hosting options, ensuring these are reflected in the risk register appropriately.