Managing IT infrastructure today can feel like a game of Tetris. Operations staff are constantly managing the addition of new pieces, trying to quickly determine how to best position them while the clock is ticking before the next round drops. Ultimately, decisions made early on impact what comes later and vice versa.

Imagine you’ve flown into an unfamiliar city. You may have no idea how to get to your hotel or where to grab lunch. But no worries, right? You just open up your trusty Google Maps, and instantly you know where to go and what’s available along the way. Google Maps even warns you about traffic conditions, so you can steer clear of trouble. Now compare that situation to managing your hybrid IT environment.

The world of IT is changing and altering the face of the workforce. New technologies, like AI, cloud and IoT, have morphed IT infrastructure into an extremely complex beast and, in doing so, have impacted the work of those who manage it. Meanwhile the European Commission estimates there will be a shortage of 756,000 skilled IT workers by next year.

Light Reading’s Phil Harvey recently sat down with Resolve’s Larry Lien at Network Virtualization and SDN Americas to explore how communication service providers (CSPs) are benefitting from automation, what types of processes can be automated, how to successfully navigate the automation journey, and how Automation Centers of Excellence can accelerate digital transformation.

Today’s overtaxed IT teams are under tremendous pressure to leverage new technologies like AI, cloud and IoT to innovate, but in reality, they spend most of their time just trying to keep the lights on.