INTELLIGENT BRANDS // Data Centres
Business expectations driving
transformation of data centre
The data centre is under
pressure to transform
from a mere resource of
hardware and software to
a trusted partner helping
business to compete in
the digital marketplace,
explains Sachin Bhardwaj,
Director Marketing and
Business Development,
eHosting DataFort.
I
n the past, the on-premises, enterprise
data centre was the heart of the IT
organisation. Today its importance
and role is increasingly diluted, if you use
its legacy responsibilities as a benchmark.
Similar to other operational functions of
an organisation, the role of the data centre
is rapidly transforming. But that does not
mean its strategic importance for business
is diminishing.
With the increasing migration of
applications to the cloud through SaaS, PaaS
and IaaS, the extent of workloads hosted on
premises are also in decline. Gartner predicts
that by 2025, 80% of enterprises will have
scaled down their traditional data centres.
Data residency rules, an increasingly
distributed global workforce, network
latency, the Internet of Things and the
emergence of Managed Service Providers
are some of the drivers for migration of
workloads out of the traditional, on-premises
data centre to more suitable options.
Historically, the enterprise data centre used
to address challenges such as: How do we
best build the required infrastructure, in
terms of cost, time and performance?
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Today the demand has transformed to: How
do we best place the workload in terms of
agility and business benefits?
The on-premises legacy data centre is
increasingly shrinking and becoming
centralised to manage mission critical
workloads with a higher degree of oversight,
control and responsibility than is available
through externally placed options.
While expectations from the traditional data
centre shrink in terms of size of operations
and IT spending, the expectations from the
modern and digital data centre are rapidly
increasing. The primary role of the data
centre head is changing from being a builder
and manager of data centre functions to
becoming an enabler and collaborator for
the business to perform.
As business heads increasingly choose to find
more agile application and service options
outside the IT organisation, by remaining
steadfast on their traditional roles, the legacy
data centre faces extinction. By transforming
to becoming an enabler of the business and
playing the role of broker and trusted adviser,
the function of the data centre has a purpose
in tomorrow’s digital organisations.
Transformation of the legacy data centre
into tomorrow’s multi-function diversified
role requires working on numerous fronts.
Firstly, the on-premises data centre needs
to be highly agile and responsive to meet
internal demands. It needs to build a hybrid
cloud delivery model, bench-marked using
the best industry standards.
Secondly, it needs to attract and retain the
best skills to manage internal expectations
of delivering on machine language, Artificial
Intelligence, business analytics and insights,
among others.
Finally, and most importantly, it needs to
help businesses to compete and differentiate
in the fast-emerging digital marketplace,
taking on born-in-the-cloud, pure play start-
ups and other digital juggernauts.
Sachin Bhardwaj, Director Marketing and
Business Development, eHosting DataFort
The story of the future data centre is no
longer about empirical metrics of hardware
and software. It is about delivering
real services that help businesses to
accomplish their expectations. The future of
infrastructure is everywhere and anywhere
and will be business-driven by nature. n
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