Managed Data Centre Operations
As organisations continue to strive for higher levels of business performance, many struggle with an IT infrastructure that provides only marginal levels of agility or adaptability. The data centre has essentially become the last domain where operational discipline can be achieved. See how MeshBlox can help manage your containerised infrastructure.
Strict process control and documentation are critical and can assist data centre operations organizations in immediately preventing many unplanned downtime incidents in existence today. InformationWeek reports that “up to 80 percent of all IT outages are caused by improper changes to the IT environment. In addition, the situation is only going to get worse in increasingly complex IT environments where databases, servers and other systems are managed by different groups within an organization.” Since many data centre operations activities continue to require human interactions and cannot be automated (e.g., server installations, network and power cabling, etc.), organizations must instill strict procedures, discipline and documentation for effective data centre operations.
A data centre is greater than the sum of its parts, with data centre operations being responsible for the day-to-day operations of the equipment, systems and services necessary for the overall business to function. In addition to the needs required to manage explosive data growth, contain rising energy costs and proactively drive the evolution towards virtualization, data centre managers face a number of data centre operations challenges. In fact, Gartner estimates that more than 70 percent of the world’s Global 1000 organizations will need to modify their data centres significantly during the next five years due to issues related to energy consumption, floor space and/or data centre operational costs.
- Top challenges included consolidating and standardising enterprise-wide IT infrastructure and improving levels of service to the business.
- More than two-thirds of organisations surveyed reported an increase in sophisticated security attacks.
- Increased adoption of virtualisation technologies will help consolidate complex data centre environments, address compliance requirements and enable remote/mobile workers.
- IT executives are now expected to enable business growth, drive innovation and reduce the costs of doing business.
Given the complexity of the data centre environment, data centre operations must run with standardised tools and disciplines and automation in order to achieve the major goals of improved efficiency, reduced costs and increased availability.
Improving Data Centre Operations with MeshBlox
To meet high levels of business performance requires an optimal, efficient IT infrastructure as well as expert staff capable of managing the equipment and prediciting potential problems before they occur.
MeshBlox employ an integrated set of systems and disciplined processes to manage many containerised data centres as a single entity - including the physical infrastructure - and from a holistic perspective. Only by managing the data centre from this holistic perspective - by taking every aspect and responsibility within the data centre into account - can organisations truly reach a higher level of data centre process maturity and deliver IT services in complete alignment with business objectives.
Key benefits of implementing a MeshBlox managed data centre solution include:
- Successfully progress from the use of ad hoc tools and limited processes into an integrated entity
- Ability to manage the data centre through a “single pane of glass” to eliminate the potential of errors
- Access to real-time, actionable information for valuable decision support and key performance indicators across multiple data centres
- Multi-dimensional perspective to support the needs of both IT and Facilities
- Ability to sense and proactively respond to events in real-time through monitoring and automation
Increasingly, business performance is dependent upon the strength of a company’s underlying IT infrastructure, whose reliable operation can be vastly improved through improved data centre technology and operations.
