By Paul DeGroot [bio]
Posted: Jun. 25, 2007

The following is an illustration accompanying an article published by Directions on Microsoft, an independent research firm focused exclusively on Microsoft strategy & technology. More samples of our content, as well as a list of upcoming articles and reports are also available.

Microsoft believes that moving core infrastructure from basic to dynamic levels of its Infrastructure Optimization model will make IT systems more reliable and more responsive to business initiatives. The illustration shows Microsoft's taxonomy and the changes it suggests to move up from a basic level to each higher level of maturity. At the dynamic level, any changes to IT systems required to enable new initiatives can often be modeled and tested quickly, deployed centrally, and extensively monitored and managed to ensure that the system is working optimally.