Organizations building a modern data center must take a new look at purchasing options, staffing needs and hardware requirements, especially as capital expenditures decrease.
Data centers now include cloud and virtualized components, as well as colocated and edge hardware, so IT buyers and administrators need to know how to plan and budget for as-a-service models for management software and infrastructure. And to simplify data center deployment, organizations turn to technologies such as automation, analytics and "smart" software, which help admins proactively address alerts and optimize their resources, both on premises and in the cloud. These tools are helpful, but they require more foresight into the data center planning and design process to ensure they are actually beneficial to the IT department.
Organizations need to ensure that their data center planning and design meet performance goals, can support all users and are flexible enough to expand as the company and IT needs grow. By keeping these objectives in mind, organizations can build a data center that is easy to maintain, meets budget constraints and is a scalable foundation for future data center technology.
