Intelligent CIO Africa Issue 03 | Page 39

INTELLIGENT BRANDS // Datacentres

Six steps on transforming your datacentre

Businesses need to look at datacentre revamp exercises as an opportunity to align their requirements with IT expansion .
The datacentre is under increasing pressure . As with all business operations , there is natural wastage : applications become redundant and servers become under-utilised . Datacentres need to self-monitor and regulate . If assets are not recycled then storage will become a cost drain through burgeoning capacity . The need for capacity to scale has to be met quickly for business opportunities to be realised and there is no spare budget to waste on under-utilised infrastructure . Ongoing running costs also come under scrutiny when it comes to making savings .
Legacy infrastructure can be an energy guzzler . Modern , energy-efficient solutions not only help meet costcutting objectives but also business directives around environmental impact . While being nimble , adaptive , efficient and streamlined , the datacentre still has to be safe , secure , and resilient . Data loss and data breaches are always top of mind for businesses that must comply with regulations and data laws .
However , ICT transitions are nonetheless fraught with complexity and challenges . Technology evolves at a rapid pace , sometimes even as options are being assessed . Solution implementation can be complex and migration strategies have to safeguard against data loss and service outages . Cloud data storage provides many benefits of accessibility , scalability , and cost-effectiveness . For many , datacentre infrastructure is a hybrid IT framework of on-premise and off-site , servers , network infrastructure , and storage . Some applications may be accessible virtually and others bound to local networks .
If the current infrastructure cannot be discovered or measured , then businesses are challenged to reach an understanding on what it will take to www . intelligentcio . com INTELLIGENTCIO
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