Extract maximum business value from your data center investments
The Payoff Can Be Substantial
In this guide to data centers you’ll discover:
- The business drivers shaping today’s data center choices
- Key evaluation criteria in data center planning
- Principles of a successful transformation strategy
- The importance of expert guidance
Business Drivers Shaping Data Center Choices
Operational models have shifted
Modern data centers have changed substantially in recent years. Operational models have shifted from traditional on-premise facilities to flexible hybrid models that combine the benefits of on-premise housing with the cost-saving advantages of an outsourced, cloud-based approach.
While companies are planning how to modernize their infrastructure best, data center choices continue to expand. Many companies today are looking at multiple options to solve different challenges. As business needs shift toward on-demand services, many businesses are moving toward cloud-based services and virtual infrastructure.
The rise of virtualization adds a new compelling dimension to data center management. With virtualization’s unique abstraction capabilities, servers, networks, and other computing resources can now be managed in pools without regard to their physical location. Operators can then assign storage, provision workloads, and configure network resources from these common pools.
The main components of the modern data center include network infrastructure, including optimization and monitoring, storage infrastructure, compute resources, and network security devices, such as intrusion detection and firewall systems. Since data centers often house a network’s most critical systems, the security and reliability of data center equipment is a top priority.
Data centers typically are not defined by their physical size or style but rather by various levels of reliability or resilience, commonly referred to as data center tiers. Each successive tier provides more resilience, security, and reliability than the previous tier by design.
- Tier 1: Protective defenses include a single, non-redundant distribution path, offering limited protection against physical events.
- Tier 2: Redundant power and cooling components and basic maintenance capabilities with minimal disruption provide improved protection against physical threats.
- Tier 3: Concurrently maintainable components and multiple independent distribution paths help protect against virtually all physical events. Components can be replaced or removed without service disruption.
- Tier 4: Fully redundant components and multiple independent distribution paths help ensure the highest levels of fault tolerance and uptime.
Businesses today aren’t restricted to a single data center.
Many enterprises operate multiple data centers across many locations for better resilience and enhanced application performance. On the flip side, a business with multiple data centers might choose to consolidate facilities, reducing the number of sites to minimize IT costs.
While businesses can choose from a wide range of different service models and configuration options, there are four primary types of data centers.
- Cloud data centers. Many businesses are choosing to put part of their entire data center in the cloud, which can save on hardware costs, along with power distribution and cooling, computing, and labor expenses. A private cloud may be necessary if there is a need to maintain full control over the data, or your business must comply with data security or other regulatory requirements.
- Hybrid data centers. The most common data center model combines the benefits of on-premise housing and cloud storage. With this approach, organizations can house their business-critical applications and corporate data on-premise while still using the cloud for virtual machines and back-ups.
- On-premise data centers. Many organizations choose to host their data center in the same location as their company headquarters. Doing this gives the business tighter control over the data center and allows local IT staff to access and maintain equipment to keep systems running optimally. The tradeoff for tighter control is typically higher operating and maintenance costs.
- Off-site data centers. With this model, your data center may be in one or more locations, but the resources are yours. When a provider hosts infrastructure for you, they are responsible for whatever you contract them for―from the hardware and electricity, to cooling and security, to the applications and support they provide.
Key Evaluation Criteria for Effective Data Center Planning
While operational efficiency is crucial, transforming your data center is about determining what is best for
the business―not solely about cutting costs.
Unlike most buildings or facilities, complexity is much higher and the pace of change much faster within the data center. There are also a multitude of outside pressures to consider. Government regulations and customer audits require that detailed processes and properly documented procedures be accurately and diligently followed and implemented. Considerations include change management, downtime, and
perceived reliability metrics.
Data protection and data security considerations also factor heavily in data center planning decisions, particularly in regulated industries. While it’s vital to protect systems and processes against unwanted access or malicious intrusions, at the same time, it’s important to balance these elements with the unique goals and long-term objectives of your business.
The following are some key criteria to consider in any data center transformation effort.
- Location. Choosing a data center location that is convenient is important, but also vital in the consideration is the physical site and geographic placement. Site selection can take into account many factors, including costs and taxes, seismic and climate stability, access to roads and airports, availability of energy, and access to communications.
- Scalability. Planning for business growth is an ongoing process. Consider your growth plans. Try to anticipate trends impacting your company and industry more broadly. Are there new technologies on the horizon you should accommodate in your site selection? Will those technologies affect the amount of space or type of equipment you need?
- Onsite support. If the location you choose is not local, you’ll want to make sure there is a highly-skilled team that can address any issues in your absence. If an event does occur, you’ll want to know about the incident immediately so you can resolve it quickly. To avoid any surprises, look for a data center that offers email and text alerts when you exceed set thresholds.
- Robust security. Physical security is the cornerstone of a reliable data center. Keeping your systems under lock and key and providing entry only to authorized personnel is essential for protecting your applications and data.
- Policies. Every data center procedure or process should be backed by policies to help keep the operation securely managed and maintained. Policies include system access, usage, as well as data retention. The same requirement applies to implementing new equipment, checking for outdated devices, and removal of old infrastructure and equipment.
- Fail-safe measures. To diminish the potential impact of downtime, you should put multiple redundancies in place, including multiple points of connectivity. All data center hosts should maintain and operate a backup data center where all data is replicated and stored in case of a primary data center failure or loss of data.
- Uptime requirements. Uptime service level agreements (SLAs) guarantee how often the data center’s servers will be online and operating. High-performance, enterprise-level data centers should deliver at the minimum 99.99 percent uptime, with each additional “9” providing a greater level of reliability.
Informed Choices
While companies are planning how to modernize their infrastructure best, data center choices continue to expand. Many companies today are looking at multiple options to solve different challenges. As business needs shift toward on-demand services, many businesses are moving toward cloud-based services and virtual infrastructure.
The rise of virtualization adds a new compelling dimension to data center management. With virtualization’s unique abstraction capabilities, servers, networks, and other computing resources can now be managed in pools without regard to their physical location. Operators can then assign storage, provision workloads, and configure network resources from these common pools.
The main components of the modern data center include network infrastructure, including optimization and monitoring, storage infrastructure, compute resources, and network security devices, such as intrusion detection and firewall systems. Since data centers often house a network’s most critical systems, the security and reliability of data center equipment is a top priority.
Data centers typically are not defined by their physical size or style but rather by various levels of reliability or resilience, commonly referred to as data center tiers. Each successive tier provides more resilience, security, and reliability than the previous tier by design.
- Tier 1: Protective defenses include a single, non-redundant distribution path, offering limited protection against physical events.
- Tier 2: Redundant power and cooling components and basic maintenance capabilities with minimal disruption provide improved protection against physical threats.
- Tier 3: Concurrently maintainable components and multiple independent distribution paths help protect against virtually all physical events. Components can be replaced or removed without service disruption.
- Tier 4: Fully redundant components and multiple independent distribution paths help ensure the highest levels of fault tolerance and uptime.
Principles of a Successful Transformation
To minimize risks and optimize potential benefits, start with a sound strategy that aligns with your core business objectives. But keep in mind that strategies are not created in a vacuum. Newer technologies, such as cloud and other hosting solutions, now play a crucial role in many long-term data center decisions. When you can anticipate impending impacts and plan for them, you will better manage organizational change and optimize your return on investment.
When you consider the mission-critical nature of today’s data centers, making decisions without all the facts is not a smart approach.
- Align strategy with business objectives. The more you align your data center strategy with your business goals and objectives, the greater the likelihood you’ll optimize your data center’s full potential. Central to the planning process is understanding the goals of the business and the role the data center plays in supporting those goals. What strategic changes do you anticipate your business making in the next five to ten years? What impact will these changes have on your IT and data center needs?
- Understand the current data center environment. Central to developing a solid strategy is understanding the details and intricacies of your current data center environment. Gaining a clear picture of your existing infrastructure will help determine the best approach for the future―whether it’s on-premise, off-site, or a hybrid approach. What assets are in place? How much data does the company manage? How is it collected and stored? Who accesses the data and how? Are there any standards to which the data center must adhere?
- Understand how your data center is changing. Technology is rapidly advancing and is taking the IT environment along for the ride. Analyze how the data center applications and systems have progressed in recent years. Understand how these advances have impacted IT workloads as well as business performance. Consider how current, planned or future projects might impact your strategy—such as virtualization, consolidations, or technology upgrades—and how you’ll factor them into your transformation roadmap.
- Get a clear picture of data center costs. Getting a clear understanding of your current data center operating and capital costs will help to create a financial reference point in which to compare potentially suitable data center models. Analyzing data center costs, along with anticipated growth and spending plans, can help form the basis of your strategy’s cost model. Operating costs balanced against business value weighs heavily in strategy development,
so you must get a clear picture of current costs and future expenses before choosing a particular option or course of action. - Determine how quickly change is needed. Data centers are costly to maintain. That’s why it’s important to assess and quickly determine the best option to manage data center space, power, and cooling. Should your IT team manage your data center, or should those resources be focused on supporting key business initiatives? Do the business benefits of an on-premise data center outweigh the scalability and efficiency advantages of a hybrid approach? Is it possible to expand the existing facilities? What is the risk of expanding your existing data center, and will outages be required? What are the costs of these alternative solutions?
Guidance from an Expert Partner
From Planning Through Execution
Miscalculating the amount of time it takes to develop and implement a data center strategy is a common mistake businesses make. Transforming your data center is not an effort to take lightly, considering what is at stake. That’s why it’s important to work with a trusted partner who can help guide you in your strategy development and support you with IT solutions you need to grow your business.
From planning through execution of your modernization effort, ZAG assists you every step of the way.
ZAG Technical Services brings a unique approach to data center modernization strategy and execution. We have the experience, knowledge, and breadth of capabilities to help you where you need it most: managing the complexity of data center transformation. From planning through execution of your modernization effort, we assist you every step of the way.
We work with you to thoroughly understand your current and future data center needs and requirements. Our collaborative approach helps you plan more effectively while also managing the accelerating pace of technology change. We provide expert advice and assistance on the steps required to achieve your data center transformation goals.
With ZAG, you’ll get an approach that is:
- Holistic
- Platform independent
- ROI-focused
- Integrated
- Non-disruptive
- Tailored to your requirements
We’ll assess the capabilities of your IT operations and examine your strategic options, whether it’s outsourcing, owning or a hybrid approach. We work with you to develop a strategy and roadmap, along with implementation plans to modernize your data center operation and management and optimize your internal resources. We follow best practice methodologies and processes to form the basis of growth estimates, sourcing options, and cost models.
We’ll help your business implement a data center strategy that sets the stage for growth and innovation. Whether you are implementing a new data center or working to improve your existing IT environment to meet your business needs, we’ll help you create an infrastructure that’s well-planned, automated, managed, and secured.
With a modern, optimized data center, you’ll benefit from:
- Greater operational efficiency
- Robust security
- A scalable growth plan
- Minimal disruption
- Improved performance and agility
- Greater end-user satisfaction
Contact us today to explore the next steps in optimizing your data center and making technology a competitive advantage for your business.
