Moving computing systems to the cloud is the new ‘in’ thing. Not only is it the next logical step for many businesses, it also offers several advantages that make it an almost unavoidable move.
In times like these when more and more businesses are leaping into the cloud, it would be foolhardy for you to allow your data center to stagnate and lose out on all that business. Your focus should be on improving the performance and efficiency parameters of your data center to be able to provide your clients with a data center experience that’s beyond the ordinary.
Innovation is key here and you will find that your contemporaries are going well beyond the extra mile to optimize the power usage and eliminate the carbon footprint of their centers.
What you should do
Revamp – most tech giants spend years in improving the energy efficiency of their data centers. For example, Google has spent over 10 years in this task. How they do is by going the scientific way and measuring the air flow and energy use and looking into methods of free cooling.
If you think you would be able to reduce energy use by redesigning your data center, do so. Put better energy-efficient technologies in place. Else, make small structural changes in case that is far too expensive a move.
If you think you may find it difficult to manage on your own, partner up with a provider who’d be able to host or manage some, or even all, infrastructural elements like servers, storage, network, etc.
Update – while keeping the costs in check, keep looking out for and updating your current technologies. Whenever you do buy something new, make sure you purchase highly efficient hardware that would help you maximize space and minimize energy and power usage. There are also certain technologies, like de-duplication, that can help you conserve energy. Keep on the lookout for these. Virtualization of your servers is an intelligent move too. It will reduce the number of servers in your data center since you can remove the inactive servers. That will also help you cut down on the energy and cooling costs associated with those servers. You can also consolidate the servers to a centralized location for better energy consumption.
Air management – all that computing equipment pushes out lots of hot air that needs to be dissipated in a sensible manner to avoid overheating. To keep up with the moving times, you must take a good look at design and configuration options that will help eliminate any mixing of the cold air that helps keep the systems cool and the ejected hot air. Invest in a good air management system. That will help you cut down enormously on operating expenses and heat related processing failure costs. Getting the right cooling systems is crucial too since around 25 percent of power goes into maintaining the temperature of the data center. Don’t stint here and go in for cheap air conditioning. That would really eat away at your profits in the long term.
Regular checkups – think of your data center as a living being and take care of it accordingly. Track its performance by checking and marking it against energy efficiency benchmarks and metrics. Maintain a dashboard of performance analysis tools and keep checking and measuring uptime, availability, risk elimination, and other parameters.
That will help you understand and analyze its deficiencies better and you can take the right measures well in time to keep it running at optimal performance always.
Outsource – If you do not have the time, energy, and resources required to update your data center, just outsource the job. Many businesses that spent millions some years ago on building their data centers are doing so. This is because partnering with a company that would do a better job of it is the right decision than soldiering on with nary a care for your core business operations. Focus instead on your business and let the experts take care of all those tasks for you.
Moving up the value chain is critical in today’s time for any business. Keep all these features in mind and you will find that your data center is turning into a profit center instead of a cost one.
