As we’ve entered 2026, many of the infrastructure decisions made over the past year are already shaping what comes next. In 2025, hybrid environments continued to expand, operational expectations increased, and the margin for error narrowed. Across client work, it became clear that success depended less on chasing new tools and more on applying the right expertise, visibility, and discipline to increasingly interconnected systems.
This article reflects on what ATS saw and worked through last year across monitoring, automation, networking, cloud, and data resiliency. It highlights where teams focused their efforts, the challenges that surfaced most often, and how practical infrastructure decisions are setting the tone for the year ahead.
Monitoring Beyond Standard Templates
As environments grew more heterogeneous over the past year, many organizations found that default monitoring configurations were not sufficient. Legacy platforms, specialized workloads, and custom integrations often fell outside the scope of out-of-the-box approaches.
Throughout 2025, monitoring discussions increasingly centered on adaptability and relevance. Rather than deploying generic templates, teams needed monitoring aligned to how systems actually behaved and how issues surfaced in production. Using platforms such as Zabbix and Galileo, ATS worked with clients to design monitoring for non-standard systems, custom applications, and edge-case infrastructure that traditional tools often overlook.
The emphasis was on engineering judgment over volume. The goal was not more metrics, but better signals, clearer thresholds, and monitoring that supported investigation, validation, and informed decision-making across complex environments.
Turning Data Into Operational Efficiency Through Automation
Operational efficiency remained a priority throughout 2025, particularly in environments built on specialized and long-standing platforms. In areas such as AIX and IBM i, teams often operate with deep expertise concentrated among a small number of engineers, making consistency and risk reduction essential.
Automation proved to be a practical way to support these environments without compromising control. A central focus during the year was automation for AIX, using Red Hat Ansible and monitoring-driven workflows to standardize configuration management, support patching, and reduce repetitive manual tasks.
Rather than positioning automation as a replacement for expertise, the emphasis stayed where it belongs: preserving institutional knowledge, minimizing configuration drift, and enabling experienced engineers to focus on complex, high-value work that still requires human judgment.
Strengthening Network and Infrastructure Foundations
Network infrastructure has always been a critical component of enterprise IT, and over the past year the emphasis continued to shift toward tighter alignment with compute, storage, security, and cloud strategies. As environments became more distributed and interdependent, network planning increasingly needed to happen in context rather than in isolation.
During 2025, ATS expanded its network portfolio to better support clients seeking a more integrated, end-to-end approach. By adding reseller relationships with Cisco, Meraki, and Fortinet, ATS supported network modernization efforts as part of broader infrastructure initiatives already underway. This helped align network decisions more closely with system, security, and operational requirements.
The focus remained on fit, execution, and long-term support. Network decisions were approached as part of a full infrastructure lifecycle, ensuring performance, security, and manageability considerations were addressed together rather than through disconnected engagements.
Power Cloud and Purpose-Built Infrastructure
IBM Power environments continue to support workloads where reliability and consistency are essential. Over the past year, organizations running IBM i and AIX increasingly evaluated how those environments could be deployed and protected in ways that reflected their specialized requirements.
Standard cloud options are not always well aligned to IBM Power workloads. Customization limitations, longer deployment timelines, and cost models designed for variable consumption can introduce friction for systems built to run steadily and predictably. As a result, infrastructure discussions often centered on finding options that preserved the strengths of IBM Power while offering flexibility around recovery and lifecycle planning.
These conversations gained additional relevance in 2025 with the introduction of Power11, prompting many teams to reassess upgrade paths and disaster recovery strategies. ATS Power Cloud was part of these evaluations where organizations sought private cloud models designed specifically for IBM Power, with the emphasis remaining on fit, predictability, and operational alignment rather than cloud adoption for its own sake.
Data Resiliency and Modern Storage Strategies
Data resiliency remained a persistent focus throughout 2025, shaped by growing data volumes, tighter recovery expectations, and increased operational dependency on always-available systems. Storage decisions were rarely isolated, influencing recovery planning, performance stability, and overall infrastructure risk.
Rather than treating storage as a capacity exercise, organizations increasingly evaluated how data was protected, recovered, and validated under real conditions. Discussions extended beyond backup schedules to include recovery testing, performance under load, and alignment between storage architecture and application behavior.
Through consulting engagements and technical content, ATS supported clients as they assessed modern storage solutions and resiliency strategies.
Real Client Outcomes and Measurable Results
Credibility comes from outcomes, not claims. Throughout 2025, client success stories reinforced the value of practical expertise and thoughtful infrastructure design.
Case studies highlighted improvements in performance stability, reduced operational friction, and clearer insight into infrastructure behavior. Whether supporting disaster recovery planning, automation initiatives, or day-to-day operations, the focus stayed on results clients could measure and trust.
These outcomes continue to inform how organizations approach infrastructure decisions in 2026.
Partner-Led Collaboration and Shared Expertise
No single organization solves complex IT challenges alone. Over the past year, partnerships played an important role in extending expertise and supporting client education.
Joint efforts with partners such as Maxava and Zabbix focused on real-world scenarios rather than product pitches. Webinars, co-authored content, and technical sessions created space to address challenges around monitoring, automation, resiliency, and recovery.
These collaborations reinforced a simple idea that remains relevant heading into 2026: better outcomes come from working together with clarity and purpose.
Looking Ahead
As 2026 gets underway, the challenges shaping enterprise infrastructure are familiar, but the expectations around how they are addressed continue to rise. Visibility, consistency, resiliency, and execution all matter more when systems are tightly coupled, and business impact is immediate.
ATS enters the year focused on helping organizations apply practical expertise across monitoring, automation, networking, cloud, data resiliency, and more. The work ahead builds directly on what teams confronted last year, with an emphasis on decisions that hold up over time rather than short-term fixes.
For a complementary perspective focused on observability platforms and data-driven operations, you can also read the Galileo 2025 Year in Review.
