Recently a venture capitalist looking at investments for the enterprise data center space stated, it is clear that there are multiple contestants in the fight to control this market over the next few years. The question facing CIOs today is - how will you shape your next enterprise data center?
The paradigm shift from single server per application to virtual machines has far reaching effects upon all aspects of data center management from cost control to data management. It is far more than the deployment of blade servers and v12n (virtualization) software.
Ten years ago, IT was a perfect place to slash budgets. Today, technology is ubiquitous, and few, if any enterprises can continue without getting maximum value out of every dollar spent in IT. That is why the decisions made today for the emerging data center of tomorrow are so important.
As a customer, I would take three steps:
First, re-think which applications will be mission critical, business critical and are key to driving revenue. As a rule of thumb, these applications are between 10% and 50% of the applications that are currently driving revenue.
Second, a plan should be develop to re-define the physical data center. In some cases, this could mean a new data center, in other, it could mean updating the current data center to meet your needs for the long term.
Third, a plan should be developed to re-invest based upon current and future business drivers, operating costs and projected capital cost over a three to five year period.
Nearly all of the CIOs that I have
spoken to over the past year have a v12n project underway or plan to have
one. The
benefits of v12n are well-known.
You need a plan. You need people who will assess the applications, the business drivers and your budget to get you from today to the future. You can learn from what others are doing to lessen the business impact and variable costs around IT.
We are here to help.