Redefining OS Selection

Chapter 4. Next Steps

OS selection is a foundational decision for organizations, with implications for competitive position and internal infrastructure management. Navigating the pressures of innovation acceleration, global uncertainty, economic constraints, modern security needs, and AI requires a platform specifically built to address these challenges in an integrated manner.

This selection is not a decision to be taken lightly. There are four key steps of evaluation that an organization should consider when making decisions around future OSes and platforms:

• Identify the pressures that are most significant to your organization.

• Map your workloads to capability requirements.

• Evaluate overall value to the business.

• Validate supply chain security and long-term viability.

Identify the Most Significant Pressures

Organizations will discover that different teams face different pressure combinations: AI product teams will prioritize innovation and hardware requirements, while regulated industries will have a higher focus on security and compliance capabilities. Organizations should rate each pressure domain (innovation acceleration, global uncertainty, economic constraints, security needs, and AI) based on current and expected future importance and use that list to build out lists of “must-haves” versus “nice to haves” when it comes to future evaluations.

Map Your Workloads to Capability Requirements

One factor that will drive any requirements is the workloads that are ...