Serverfarm’s View: “Build On What You Have”
Optimizing for a hybrid infrastructure strategy should start with what you already have.
Making better use of existing assets could mean completely postponing and avoiding the complexities and major financial costs associated with cloud migration.
By looking at what can be repurposed, or simply run more efficiently sets the standard for the sustainable future of technology operations in every location and on every type of cloud platform.
As with monetary debt, where Data Center Infrastructure Design Debt (DCIDD) is unaddressed, it can accumulate ‘interest’. This can make it harder to implement changes in the future while saddling the organization with direct financial impact through rising maintenance costs, poor performance and greater risk.
Addressing DCIDD in enterprise data centers helps remove the risk of taking on new infrastructure debt as firms build or buy new data center capacity and adopt the cloud.
By cloudifying existing infrastructure — thus squeezing every ounce of available value from it, with no loss of opportunity — the enterprise data center operation could be the template for cloud infrastructure management.
“Serverfarm’s InCommand provides tracking of every rack and how it is used.”
Serverfarm’s InCommand provides tracking of every rack and how it is used. The cloud-based platform behind our world-leading DMaaS service, achieves complete insight into the mechanical electrical systems to get real-time metrics. It also provides visibility into every rack, tracking how it is being used by monitoring power, cooling and space management.
When a global auto manufacturer first needed to know more about its data centers and what was inside them, it leveraged InCommand. It now runs 55 data center sites managed from a cloud service. This makes physical data center and IT assets available to support the business with the same or better flexibility, agility, performance and availability as the best-run cloud services.
Today’s data center workloads are constantly in flux. InCommand allows the operator to be responsive to changing requirements, but also to be analytical about how facilities are behaving across multiple facilities, right down to individual components.
InCommand DMaaS gives data center operators the confidence of a full solution wraparound across IT and FM. And it scales to monitor data centers across the globe and across all cloud types.
InCommand should not just be considered as a management solution for physical sites.
ESG (Environmental, Sustainability and Governance) is reaching the top of the corporate agenda and will put a focus on how companies are using their existing infrastructure assets.
“Addressing DCIDD in enterprise data centers helps remove the risk of taking on new infrastructure debt when firms build or buy new data center capacity.”
How much value could be realized by acknowledging and addressing infrastructure debt? How valuable would it be to optimize processes and to realize new value?
Industry figures show new data center builds costs have a CAPEX range of $9m-$13m per MW depending on a long list of variables from location to available power and taxes and tariffs.
Addressing DCIDD in enterprise data centers helps remove the risk of taking on new infrastructure debt when firms build or buy new data center capacity.
Addressing DC Infrastructure Design Debt delivers:
- Informed strategic decisions
- Avoidance of lock-in
- Avoidance of new layers of infrastructure debt
- Infrastructure transformation
In the data center sector, new approaches must be considered for enterprises to realize the maximum value from existing data center capital deployment. By maximizing utilization, improving efficiency and adding capacity, it is possible to sustainably extend the life of facilities by years and even decades.
Read the Serverfarm White Paper: Ending Data Center Infrastructure Design Debt
A business white paper on transforming enterprise data center strategies covering finance, operations, and sustainability.