The data centre lifecycle

Jacques Klopper, General Manager: Sales, Rittal South Africa.

---

A data centre is a constantly evolving organism that's in a constant state of flux. In order for it to keep pace with the business's changing demands, the datacentre needs to contract and expand as the requirements placed on it do the same. It also has to keep pace with external disruptions, which include driving forces such as Industry 4.0, the Internet of things, big data and edge computing.

IT solutions, therefore, need to be provided quickly in the form of efficient and reliable data centres that are simple and cost-effective to manage. A typical modern data centre has to be able to adapt quickly to changing business needs, new application development and advances in technology, ensuring it can accommodate increased demands in any or all of these areas into the future.

Lifecycle management for data centres

"Creating a state-of-the-art IT landscape demanded by digital transformation requires that the organisation's data centre is supported from planning and implementation all the way through to operation and optimisation of a multi-site IT infrastructure," says Jacques Klopper, General Manager: Sales at Rittal South Africa.

"This is a dynamic process and it has to keep pace with the constantly changing nature of IT in today's business," says Klopper. "Flexibility and agility are key, as is affordability. It makes good business sense to find a provider that can manage the data centre lifecycle from planning and design to building and operation, incorporating solutions from other providers, where needed."

There are four phases to the data centre lifecycle. The first phase - concept development - consists of selecting the solution modules and calculating both the investment costs (Capex) and operating costs (Opex). During the second phase, the physical infrastructure (power, cooling, monitoring and security) is set up. Additional IT components such as servers, storage and switches can optionally be integrated. This is followed by commissioning and acceptance in the third phase. The data centre can be operated by the customer or by an outsourced provider in the form of managed services. The fourth phase - optimisation - involves analysing the efficiency, costs and sustainability of the solutions installed. This reveals further potential for improving efficiency.

Theoptimiseddatacentre

What should a business look for in a data centre solutions provider? Here's a list of some of the nice-to-haves:

* Scalable products and solutions for all lifecycle phases, from planning to implementation and operation.
* Flexibility to integrate partner IT components.
* Ability to purchase solutions outright (capex) or lease (opex).
* Partnerships that enable complete virtualisation (server, storage and network), data centre location and Data Centre as a Service.
* Regular evaluation to plan the data centre's next lifecycle.