Management BYOD Infrastructure IoT Storage Security Privacy

Current Filter: Network>>>>>>

PREVIOUS

   Current Article ID:4014

NEXT



The data centre as a Service

Editorial Type: Opinion     Date: 04-2014    Views: 2241   







Darren Watkins of Virtus explains why not all data centres are the same - and why the customer knows best

Many misconceptions around the data centre have built up because things are moving fast and history has not been updated. Some changes are technology driven by elements such as virtualisation, cloud and general data centre advancements, but the biggest change centres on what organisations actually require. The world has evolved - and woe betide those who ignore the market.

Data centre selection has been burdened by cumbersome contract terms that often demand long-term commitments and increase-only flexibility (for which read none). Abuse of terms including latency, cloud, geographic location and carrier choice have cloaked data centre use, selection and deployment in a shroud of mystery more akin to the black arts than a flexible service.

The data centre must be designed into the heart of IT provision and without true flexibility some applications, e.g. a SaaS pilot, and some organisations, e.g. new ventures, just cannot justify its use. This understanding is central to a new generation of data centre services such as colocation and connectivity on demand. Offering on-demand connectivity from a kilowatt to a megawatt, for as little as a day or as much as a decade, really is flexibility. This entrepreneurial approach to data centre services will assist the UK's nascent economic recovery by lowering the entry barrier for both start-up and expansion.

A lot has been said concerning the merits of data centre location, whether they are geographically close or remote. Both bring their own challenges and application suitability, but for the majority of organisations these extremes will be overkill and distraction. In response we have created the metro-edge data centre, which is situated close to a business hub but not in it. In the case of London this avoids the congestion zone, ensuring that the end-user experience is unaffected while benefiting from lower real estate costs - yet at the same time still providing adequate geographic isolation to support business continuity.

It’s not just data centre operators that have had to get creative to engineer a unique approach. A server for 30 days also requires connectivity for 30 days, something that carriers have not traditionally offered. We have overcome this and are able to offer a choice of ten tier-1 carriers.

We are helping to create a new era; one where customers will purchase data centre services that form a part of their business orientated, operationally critical IT estate. This entire estate will probably be hybrid in many dimensions, but when it is well executed the solution will be imbued with a strong and reliable capability and a level of flexibility that’s rarely seen.

User organisations will really benefit as they redeploy existing IT staff from redundant activity such as server provisioning to proactive service management. This will ultimately be enriched by data centre services offering analytical data from an easy to use portal that facilitates power and storage management, with the potential for many new management services.

This new approach to data centre provision based on providing what is needed, when it is needed and for as long as it is needed, needs to function in a zone where the technological and business needs of customers are identified and met, continually. As always it is the customer who decides, and for data centres, service providers and IT organisations this boils down to the uncompromising view of the end-user who just doesn't care about the technology and will be intolerant of any degradation (and generally neutral towards improvement).

Data centre use must be planned, managed and designed into the hybrid IT estate of the future, and with the provision of rich analytics the hybrid data centre service will lead the evolving IT requirements of post-recession Britain.

Like this article? Click here to get the Newsletter and Magazine Free!

Email The Editor!         OR         Forward ArticleGo Top


PREVIOUS

                    


NEXT