As business leaders navigate an increasingly complex world of connections, they need IT to provide a programmable infrastructure that can dynamically respond to their needs. This four-part blog series explores how responsive infrastructure helps IT leaders succeed. Thefirst post in this series, by Colin Kincaid, discusses how Fast IT, a new model of IT, offers a broader focus of next-generation infrastructure. Thesecond post in this seriesby Jim Grubb highlights what IT leaders can do now to adopt a roadmap to Fast IT. Today's post will discuss how service providers specifically stand to benefit from a Fast IT strategy specific to their needs.

To thrive in a constantly changing environment,SPs need to embrace an architecture that enables them to transform their business... essentially to bring the best of their network capabilities and blend them with those from a web company to effectively become aFast SP.

To achieve this, architecture built from both physical and virtual infrastructure is designed to be faster and more flexible.  Ultimately, an architecture that can move quickly and respond to real-time demands will give providers the ability to acquire, analyze, and act on the influx of data and connections created by the growing Internet of Everything (IoE) -and ultimately offer improved services for their end-customers.

With Cisco's announcement earlier this year around the Evolved Services Platform, Service Providers now have advanced means to deploy new services to businesses and consumers alike.   Here are a few ways SPs can benefit:

1. Generate new revenue streams.Through the automation, provisioning and interworking of physical and virtual resources, SPs can open the door to innovation and create new revenue streams by orchestrating new or improved services.
2. Reduce operating expenses to increase efficiency.Deploying infrastructure with programmability can cut down on provisioning times to not only lower costs but speed time to service.
3. Increased agility.The combination of new revenue streams and the reduction of expenses allow SPs to easily adapt to changing consumer demands and deliver quick benefits to the end-consumer.

Learn more about how SPs can prepare for the future and rely on an architecture built to deliver programmability, automation, orchestration and virtualization.

Read the full blog:Fast IT Workshop#3-What Fast IT Means for Service Providers.