We’re at a fundamental inflection point in data infrastructure.

The past decade was focused on digital transformation, which made data the lifeblood of every organization. Old ideas about IT infrastructure needed to be cast aside, and new ways of thinking were required to meet challenges of scale, speed, and complexity. Forwardthinking IT leaders made use of emerging trends, like virtualization and the public cloud, to accelerate their transformation efforts. In many cases, these digital transformations would have been severely limited—or impossible—without these new approaches. The results are such that today, every organization is now a data organization.

IT is once again at the center of a transformation—artificial intelligence (AI). The benefits and use cases seem almost limitless for both saving money (increased efficiencies and productivity, for example) and increasing revenue (e.g., opening new markets and improving customer experiences). Mass adoption of generative AI (GenAI), in particular, is changing the operations of every organization, and the imperative to leverage it is only increasing. AI is already putting tremendous strain on our data infrastructures. In a recent survey of 1,500 IT leaders, 80% said that they are worried that their business will be left behind if their infrastructure can’t support AI fast enough.

Meanwhile, other forces only compound the IT challenges. These include: increasing cyberthreats; modernizing applications; balancing risks, costs and innovation; and emerging sustainability initiatives.

In this ebook, we’ll look at the challenges ahead and explore why legacy data infrastructures won’t be enough to meet them. We’ll also lay out new principles which we believe are needed to thrive in an AI-focused world—and explore how you can leverage and benefit from them.