Data Centre Challenges
The modern data centre is no longer tied to a physical location. Instead it is integrated into the very fabric of an organisation. Data centres are now part of a wider hybrid cloud strategy where business applications, workloads and data reside in a number of locations.
There are many options for the way a data centre can be organised and operated; public and private cloud, co-location facilities, and various levels of service for managing and monitoring different environments. Each comes with distinct benefits and challenges.
For example, if you choose to own and operate your own data centre you will have to maintain all of the equipment, employ highly skilled staff to monitor and manage the technical environment, and have a disaster recovery plan and a budget.
In many instances, outsourcing data centre hosting, management and monitoring to specialist 3rd party service provider can represent better value for money. For example:
The potential benefits of data centre outsourcing include
- The service provider employs and manages specialist data centre staff
- Co-location facilities usually have a robust approach to providing power in the event of a failure
- Certifications and quality assurances are included within the SLA
- Security is provided to a higher standard than most in-house facilities can attain
- Regular maintenance on all equipment is carryied out by the service provider
One potential downside of outsourcing is that certain specific application workloads may operate with limited capability which may result in costs up to 3.5 times more than on-premise platforms.
Therefore, to determine which option is best for your organisation, you need to fully understand your application workloads, related data and future business priorities.
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