Managing legacy data center systems can be frustratingly slow and painfully tedious. Every server requires manual configuration. Every log requires active monitoring. Every alert requires investigation.

With speed and agility becoming increasingly paramount in the business world, it's no wonder why many companies have shifted some or all of their IT resources to the cloud.

But the cloud isn't for everyone.

As countless companies learned in the aftermath of hasty, pandemic-driven cloud migrations, there are often hidden costs. Most organizations simply look at the number of VMs needed and the price per VM, and they fail to consider egress fees and ancillary services, which can add up quickly. Cloud services can also be problematic for companies in highly regulated industries -like healthcare and financial services -that have stringent data and privacy requirements.

None of this is intended to disparage public cloud offerings, which certainly provide a great number of benefits and a wealth of options for IT consumption and orchestration. But there's a lingering misperception that on-prem systems require a considerable amount of time and resources to deploy, monitor, and maintain.

That's no longer the case.

You don't have to be a server hugger to appreciate the simplicity and value of hyperconverged, software-defined data center systems. And making the transition to passive infrastructure management can free up time and resources -which are in extremely short supply -for active business transformation.

Take ACH Group, for instance. With their legacy systems becoming increasingly burdensome and regulatory requirements precluding a wholesale shift to the cloud, the lean IT staff at the aged care organization knew they needed to dramatically simplify their on-prem systems and operations.

They did so with Cisco HyperFlex and Cisco Intersight, and their data center has essentially been running on its own ever since.

"Intersight has been a huge help," said Marc Koenecke, head of digital operations at ACH Group. "It provides proactive alerts that enable us to be more passive with monitoring. And if anything drops, the system is able to heal itself until a permanent fix is implemented."

He said Intersight identified a faulty RAM module a while back. Without intervention, the cloud-based, TAC-connected orchestration tool evacuated VMs onto another available host, placed the affected host into maintenance mode, and prompted ACH Group to log a ticket, which they did.

"That's the only issue we've experienced in the three years the system has been running," Koenecke said. "It was resolved in a couple of days, required minimal effort from our staff, and there was no impact on availability or performance."

What he calls a "set-and-forget" infrastructure has helped reduce ACH Group's monthly IT costs by$20,000. It has freed up 25% of his team's time. And they've shifted their focus from backend hardware maintenance to frontend service innovations as a result.

To learn more, read the full case study.

Additional resources

Transforming Aged Care

Cloud and compute customer stories

Cisco data center and hybrid cloud solutions