Data Center: Balancing Innovation and Cost
An IT budget can both drive innovation and hinder innovation. Hinder may be what many data center teams feel each month as they work hard to stay within budget targets or work on the explanations to explain overages. It is important to find the balance between day-to-day costs and the need to innovate to ensure the data center keeps pace with future demands. Exploring the true costs of legacy systems and conducting a data center assessment can be a great way to find opportunities to gain balance.
Address Legacy Systems
Many companies still have legacy systems in place. Legacy data center systems can be costly to continue to run and maintain and can eat up a lot of budget dollars. Also, sometimes companies just fund legacy systems to keep them running or keep the lights on, but this strategy is risky since a legacy system could eventually break down. Evaluate the cost of operating your legacy systems and the costs for fixes and replacements. Next, identify the risks to the company if the legacy system were to fail as well as what long-term business goals cannot be accomplished given the current IT infrastructure. This exercise will allow you to gain cost clarity and help you develop good cost-benefit analysis.
Look for Opportunities
It is important to regularly explore how your data center could be improved operationally and what upgrades may be needed to increase performance. Often our clients come to us for a Data Center Assessment for one or more of the following reasons:
- Recognize risk
- Understand capacity
- Improve efficiency
- Determine budget
- Plan future upgrades
All of these reasons also involve a cost and innovation element. Implementing new technology or changing a long-standing process could be just what your data center needs to improve performance and decrease costs, making room for investment in innovation.
If you would like to learn more, contact our team for the types of data center assessment services we offer and discuss which might be best for you.
