Partly as a result of cost-cutting necessities, but also to demonstrate how Nutanix software can anchor a global hybrid cloud, Wendy M. Pfeiffer, CIO at Nutanix, led her team on a transformative journey. The goal was to make IT easier, better automated, and more readily accessible to the user community, so employees could focus on their work and not be held back by inscrutable procedures and frustrating delays.

“Ultimately, corporate IT services should be as easy as your smart phone: you simply choose the apps that you want to use and the technology adapts to your preferences,” Pfeiffer explains. “Thus hybrid cloud starts with the notion that there is a right way, an optimal way, to run IT services. IT should become a partner to the business, and the technology we provide should make most computing activities invisible.”

The lessons shared here are apropos: Nearly every organization is making headway with cloud computing, and yet many of them struggle to mix different types of IT services in a way that effortlessly meets user needs. “Progressive organizations have always required a mix of technologies and capabilities,” Pfeiffer adds. “However, if IT only supports a single cloud or a single type of technology, then it can’t carry out its mission of helping everybody be productive. Ultimately, the technology must slip into the background, so it doesn’t matter what kind of hardware you use, or what kind of cloud.”