In the past, network duties in the data center were strictly separated: admins took care of the Linux systems, storage admins of the network storage, and network admins of the routers and switches. For individual customers, specific configurations were built on the data center’s own hardware; everything was set up once, and the job was done.
Recently, however, responsibilities have shifted considerably – largely because of the cloud, which has made IT services far more dynamic. Customers no longer want to wait weeks or months for a custom infrastructure to be set up; they want storage and compute immediately. As a result, IT providers have become platform operators. Instead of customerspecific setups, a generic platform of compute and storage resources greets customers, who then consume bit by bit according to…
